Keep design feedback, files and the board together

Why design work gets messy

Design is iterative. A logo goes through three rounds, a website mock-up through five, and each round produces files, comments and a decision. The trouble starts when those three things drift apart: the file is on a shared drive, the feedback is in an email chain, and the decision was made on a call nobody wrote down. Two weeks later, someone designs from the wrong version.

Design studios also have a specific people problem. Clients want to see progress, but they should not see the internal back-and-forth. Designers want quiet focus time, not a chat ping for every comment.

A space per client job

In Emitii, each client job, say "Rebrand, Himal Coffee", gets its own space. The Project type suits most design work because it turns on the Board and the Timesheet; switch on Docs & Files, which is where the design work itself lives.

Docs & Files as the source of truth

• Folders per round or per deliverable: "Logo", "Packaging", "Brand guidelines".
• File versions: upload a new version of the same file instead of saving "logo-final-v3-REAL.pdf". The version picker shows history, so anyone can check what changed between rounds.
• In-app PDF preview so a reviewer can open a PDF proof without downloading it.
• Colour and tags to mark files as "Approved" or "For review".
• Comments on docs, so written notes (a brand rationale, a copy doc) collect feedback in place.

Links are an item type too, so a reference to an external prototype sits in the same folder as the files. The document management feature page covers the rest.

The Board for rounds of work

Board columns are free text, so a studio can model its real process: "Brief", "Concepts", "Round 1", "Round 2", "Final artwork", "Handed over". Each card is a deliverable with a checklist of revisions, a due date and a priority. If a card is waiting on the client, Mark as blocked with a reason like "Waiting for copy" makes the hold-up visible on the board and in filters.

Clients as guests, internal talk kept internal

Clients are invited as guests to their job's space. Everything stays internal until someone in the studio shares it: mark a proof, a card or a post as "Guest", and leave work in progress as "Internal". Cards follow their column and files follow their folder, so a "Client review" column or a "Proofs" folder shares everything in it. The space's Guest access tab sets how much of the Board, Docs & Files and Posts the client sees, shared items or everything, view or edit.

The client talks with the studio in Guest Pulse, while the team keeps its own Pulse for internal discussion. Asking @emitii in Guest Pulse only draws on what guests can see.

Because a guest's comment is attached to the file or card it is about, "make the green warmer" sits right on the packaging card, with the version it refers to next to it.

Summaries before the review call

With AI enabled for the space, Emit can read the comments on a card or doc and summarise the client's feedback into a list of changes. You can also @emitii in a comment thread and ask it to turn feedback into checklist items. It asks before changing anything, and it works from the written comments on the card or doc.

Running several jobs at once

Most studios have five or ten jobs open at a time. Pinning up to five spaces keeps the active ones at the top, and Home lists what needs you, what is overdue and what is coming up across every job. When a job finishes, archive its done cards so the board stays clean, and keep the space as the record of what was delivered. See Emitii for agencies for the general multi-client setup.

Hours and focus

Designers log time per card, as billable or non-billable, in quarter hours. Studio leads see hours "By work", which shows whether a fixed-fee identity project is running over. Notification levels ("Everything", "Involved", "Just me"), quiet hours and "Pause everything" let designers protect focus time. See timesheets for the approval flow.

A design studio live demo

A live design studio workspace is available with no sign-in, showing a client job with its board, files and chat. Open the industry demos to try it; your changes stay in your browser. For client onboarding steps, the client onboarding template is a useful starting checklist.