Design agency workflow: running many client brands in one place

A design agency workflow that holds up across many clients rests on four habits: every client gets its own home with its own brand kit, every job starts from that kit rather than from memory, feedback lives on the design instead of in email, and handover is planned from the first day. Get those right and adding a tenth client feels like adding a second. Get them wrong and the agency spends its afternoons hunting for the latest logo and redoing work a client already approved.

One home per client: workspace or brand

The first decision is structural. Some clients should be fully separate, with their own people and their own access. Others are small enough to sit side by side in the agency's own space. In Gradiently those are two different things: a workspace is a shared home with its own team and roles, and a brand is one look and voice inside a workspace, with its own Marks, brand kit and designs. One account can run several brands, as running several brands explains.

Build a brand kit for every client before the first job

Agencies drift off brand when designers rebuild a client's look from an old PDF and a hunch. Set the kit up once, at onboarding, and every design after that starts in the right place. Ask for these on the kickoff call, and fill the gaps yourself rather than waiting.

• Logos for dark and for light backgrounds, as separate files.
• Brand colours: a hero, one or two supporting colours and the darkest and lightest neutrals.
• Campaign palettes kept apart from the main one, so seasonal colours never creep into everyday posts.
• A heading font and a body font, with the licensed files uploaded so nobody substitutes a lookalike.
• Voice and audience in a sentence each, specific enough that two writers would produce similar copy.
• What the brand does, in a sentence, so every writer and the Designer start from the same facts.

Gradiently's brand kit can read a client's website to fill in its name, description, colour and icon, which gives you a head start on the kickoff call. The Designer then writes in each kit's own voice, so a law firm's posts don't come out sounding like a bakery's. Setting up a brand kit covers each field, and brand guidelines templates help when the client has nothing written down.

Give each client a look that is clearly theirs

The quiet risk of running many clients from one studio is that they start to look like the studio. The same favourite fonts, the same gradient, the same layouts. A good test: put two clients' posts side by side with the logos removed. You should still be able to tell which is which.

This is where an owned look earns its place. Every Gradiently Mark is checked against every other and anything too close is refused, so two clients on two Marks cannot end up looking alike. Claim the Mark for the client's brand, design the onboarding set on it, and the look is distinct before you write a line. Claiming is a one-time payment that includes the first year of keeping; after that keeping is free with Pro or a yearly fee per Mark, so agree in the proposal who pays. How to claim a Mark covers the steps. Brand consistency covers how to keep it that way across a year of posts.

Who does what: roles for an agency team

Workspaces on Pro have four roles. Map them to real people rather than handing everyone full access because it is quicker on day one.

Workspace roles covers invitations and changing roles later.

A review and approval process that doesn't lose feedback

Client feedback causes most of an agency's rework, and not because clients are difficult. It arrives in three places, refers to "the blue one", and contradicts the round before. Put structure around it. Comments and version history are part of Pro.

1. 1

   Save a named version before each round

   Call it "Round 1 sent". Version history keeps every save, so you can show what changed and go back if the client prefers the first direction after all.

2. 2

   Pin every note to the design

   Comments sit on the exact spot they are about. "Make this bigger" next to the headline is clear; the same words in an email are not.

3. 3

   Answer every note

   Work through each comment in order and reply to it on the design, so the next round starts from a known list.

4. 4

   Limit rounds in writing

   Agree two rounds in the brief. A third round becomes a change of scope, which is a conversation, not a surprise.

5. 5

   Approve the master, then make sizes

   Get sign off on one format before producing the rest, so feedback lands once instead of on twelve files.

Once the master is approved, Pro resizes it to every platform size in one step, and you check each one rather than rebuilding it. For clients with many locations or products, bulk create, also on Pro, takes one page and a spreadsheet and makes a version per row. Batch creating content shows how to plan a month that way.

Where agency workflows leak

Handing over at the end of an engagement

Plan the exit on day one. Exported designs stay yours to hand over, so deliver final files in the formats the client will actually use, all available on Pro: PNG and JPG for social, transparent PNG and SVG for logos and overlays, print PDF with bleed for anything going to a printer. If you claimed a Mark for the client, you can give it to their own Gradiently account for free. They receive an email code to confirm, accept within a few days, and the certificate of authenticity moves into their name. The look leaves with the client, which is exactly what they paid for.