Is Your Design Process Working For You, Or Against You?
- Jade Fearon
- 5 days ago
- 6 min read
Without one, long hours can leave you feeling buried in reactive tasks, unclear briefs, and drawn-out design processes.
Building long term habits and systems, using the plethora of AI tools that are available to us today - we should be removing the monotonous burnout and allow more time for enhanced creativity.
This post is perfect for freelancers and any designer who wants to improve their end-to-end project workflow. It walks you through a self-audit of your design workflow: the tools, the systems, the brief process, how you prepare to pitch clients, and how you use AI and design software to build assets that actually scale. Think of it as your personal diagnostic session. A free intensive checklist!
Six phases of a design project from pitch to delivery.
Check out each section in order or jump to the phase that is giving you the most friction right now.
1. Pitching a project
Win the work before you've done the work.
The word pitch can feel uncomfortable and salesy but remember your not only selling a service you are solving a problem. Let potential clients know that you understand their problem more than anyone else.
You can start making this process easier by having a pitch template.
Use AI tools like Claude to outline your pitch deck. Include promising stats about your performance as a designer, case studies and services. Use Figma slides, or preferred software to build a template that can be reused and edited over and over again. Result - a consistent on brand deck with more time to spend adding value - less time writing, designing and shuffling around pages.
Top tip: Use Claude to sharpen your pitch before you present it!
2. Building the brief
A strong brief is the best time investment you can make in a project.
You've won the work, now automate your admin!
Using Notion as an example, create a library of templates that save time on every project. Build a master project template with sections for the brief, agreements, timeline, asset uploads, feedback log, decision log, and delivery checklist and now every new project starts with the same infrastructure in one click! Spend five minutes setting up the project hub instead of forty.
The more you define a brief at the start the less hiccups down the road and fewer rounds of revisions. (which we all love!)
Ask questions.
Most clients don't know what they need to tell you, so it's our job as designers to ask. A briefing document template is the best way to always ask for you what you need. It provides transparency between you and the client and opens up communication to get the client thinking about how to define their ideas and give the designer a clear steer on how to approach the project and ask any further questions they might have.
Top tip: Build a brief template in Notion and share it with clients before every new project. Use Notions template feature to build duplicates in one click. You can build it in as an embedded form with every question you need answered before starting work. When clients fill it in and you give them enough context to understand why each question matters your kick-off calls become focused conversations rather than information-gathering sessions and the brief arrives already half-written.
Link the brief directly into your Figma file - Voila! everything is connected!
✨ Need help in this area? Lets chat!
3. Project Automation
Build it once. Use it everywhere.
This is a phase that designers skip, because there is rarely time to take a pause and build workflow systems.
Start by building a habit and taking time out each day to follow the Build it once. Use it everywhere strategy.
Building for scale and efficiency.
There are many type of systems that can be built to shed some of the repetitive tasks. If you're still duplicating frames manually, copy-pasting colour fills, or rebuilding button states every time a new project lands then this section is for you.
Using Figma as an example there's a big difference between using the software and using it to streamline your workflow.
Build systems that make components and variables work for you by automating different modes and creating templates at scale.
This can be applied to:
Display advertising
Social ads
emails design systems
UI/UX for complex website and app design
The key is to create a system that removes heavy-lifting and allows you to get straight to work.
Figma has released some key features recently that really enables the ideation and automation phase to make designing at scale more effcient.
Here are the Top 3 Figma latest releases:
AI agents that operate directly on canvas
The intergration of Claude Code x Figma MCP and other coding environments.
Figma Slots - a new feature allowing more customisable components within design systems
Using these variety of tools available today, a designers workflow should feel lighter and simplified. Load a desktop app, load a template library, let the creativity flow.
✨ Need help in this area? Lets chat!
4. Collaboration
Communicating with clients and teams seamlessly.
Strategy, briefs, brand decisions, feedback trails, that's all documentation.
Using Workflow Hubs
Example: The Notion project hub. Every project should have a single page that serves as the source of truth for everyone involved. One page, linked to everything, accessible by everyone who needs it. The brief lives here. The Figma file is linked here. The timeline is here. The feedback log is here. The approved assets are uploaded here. When a client or team member has a question, the answer is in one place, not buried in an email thread from three weeks ago.
This sounds simple. Most designers don’t do it.
For client-facing collaboration, the key is giving clients the right level of access. Read-only is usually enough. They can see the details within the project and the project status and feel informed.
Having an upload area inside the project page where the client can drop photography, copy, existing assets, brand files are a game-changer.
5. Revisions
Feedback rounds that stay in scope.
Designers can lose time confidence, and scope if they become too relaxed about rounds of revisions. Set boundaries at the start of your project - be clear about the timelines and rounds of revisions and an extra fees for exceeding the agreement. This saves awkward conversations later, and builds trust between both client and designer.
Agree upfront:
How many rounds of revisions are included
Which channel feedback is given in
What ‘approved’ means in practice
Who needs to sign off
What happens if approval doesn’t arrive by a certain date.
When those agreements are in writing you have something to refer to if asked to add more rounds.
Top tip: Set up a simple database log every feedback round. Columns for version number, date received, summary of feedback, changes made, approved by, and approval date. Keep it current throughout the project.
Protect the scope and maintain the client relationship.
6. Handoff & Delivery
The Last Impression That Outlasts the Project.
The handoff is the last impression you leave on a client. A clean, professional delivery doesn’t just feel good, it's a continuation of quality of everything that came before.
Handoffs can sometimes be treated as an afterthought at the finish line - a rush to get files sent so the invoice can go out. Some might say, designers who treat it as a considered phase consistently get more referrals, repeat business, and testimonials.
The quality of what you send at the end of a project is the thing people remember.
Before you send anything off, ask yourself:
could a developer or another designer pick up this file and understand it within five minutes?
Named and organised layers. No ‘Frame 48’ or ‘Rectangle copy 4’. A cover page with project title, version, date, and your contact details.
A dedicated Style Guide page showing colour Variables, type scale, spacing tokens, and component states.
Assets exported, named consistently, at the right resolution for each channel. Every single exported file named in a way that makes sense to someone who wasn’t in the room when it was created.
Make this level of detail a habit and in time it will just become a part of your process.
Before you send final files, work through your delivery checklist. Draft a delivery summery of what was delivered, in what format, where it lives, how to access it, any passwords or permissions needed.
The testimonial ask
Strike while the satisfaction is still warm. After the delivery summary, while the client is feeling good about what landed in their inbox, is the moment to ask for a testimonial. Most designers never ask.
The design industry runs on word of mouth and social proof . A few kind words to back up what an awesome service you provided could go a long way!
So there is, my six step insight on how to improve the hardworking designers workflow system. Automate the fluff and spend more time creating! I hope this helps you as much as it has helped me.
If this has resonated and you want to kick-start the year with a streamline workflow system - Let's Chat and go a through the library of templates
Want to join a workflow workshop?
Yes please ASAP
Not for me
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