Why Artwork Approval Drags and How to Track Each Proof

Most delay is waiting, not design. A proof goes to the customer on Monday, sits unread until Thursday, returns with comments buried in an email body, and the designer finds them on Friday.

Trace one late job backwards. Mark every handover, from customer service to prepress, prepress to customer, customer back to prepress and prepress to platemaking, and note the date at each one. People guess the wrong gap.

Do this for five jobs, and the pattern usually shows two or three places where proofs stall, which are the ones to fix first.

Wrong versions reach press. Files named final, final2 and final_new sit in the same folder, and the plate maker takes the latest by date, which is not always the approved one.

A barcode changes, a legal line is corrected or a flavour name is swapped, and the customer signs version 4 on the proof returned by email. Version 3 stays on the server until a repeat order picks it up and sends it on to the plate room without anyone noticing.

Reprints of old artwork waste board, ink and press time, and for food or pharma packs they can also break labelling rules. One approved file removes the risk.

Proofs need a few fields. Without those fields a chase email is guesswork, while with them customer service can answer a customer’s call in ten seconds without digging through inboxes.

Log the job and revision, the file name, who sent it, the date out, the named approver at the customer and the date back. Add the outcome, whether approved, approved with changes or rejected, together with the customer’s comments copied word for word from the reply. Keep each entry terse.

Keep the customer’s reply attached to the entry, because a signed PDF or a forwarded email is the evidence if a dispute starts later.

Tracking must control something. Set a rule that plates, cylinders or films are not ordered until the proof shows an approval, so the platemaker sees the status instead of asking for it.

Colour approval deserves its own step. A screen proof cannot show a metallic ink or a varnish, so log any physical sample or press proof separately and record who signed it.

Lock every approved file. When artwork changes, the new file becomes the next revision, the old one is marked superseded, and nobody can edit either without leaving a dated note.

Nobody reads every open proof. Show only the proofs overdue by the customer’s turnaround, so a proof sent three days ago with no reply goes to the top of the customer service list.

Review the list once a week with prepress and sales, asking which customers are slow and who sends comments in pieces over several emails. Agree one standard reminder and one escalation route to the buyer’s manager, so every chase follows the same script whoever is on the desk that day.

Feed the findings back into quotes. A customer who takes a week to approve each proof needs a longer lead time on the delivery promise, and the quote should say so in plain words.