How Long A Creative Project Actually Takes
One week is the answer everyone wants. Here is what the schedule really looks like, and which parts of it are yours rather than the studio's.
Everyone wants the answer to be one week. Sometimes it is. More often the design takes one week and the project takes three, and the difference is almost entirely on the client side.
Here is what the schedule really looks like, with the client-side steps left in rather than quietly assumed.
A Campaign Creative Set
| Stage | Typical duration |
|---|---|
| Brief agreed and scope signed | 1 to 3 days |
| Concept routes, two or three directions | 3 to 5 days |
| Client picks a route and sends one set of notes | 2 to 4 days |
| Key visual designed in full | 2 to 4 days |
| Revisions, two rounds | 3 to 6 days |
| Resizes, variants and file delivery | 2 to 3 days |
Realistic total: two to three weeks from signed scope to final files. Ten days is possible when approvals are fast and the brand system already exists. Under a week usually means the concept stage was skipped, and it shows.
A Brand Identity
Four to six weeks for a logo, colour, type and a short guide. The research and concept stage is longer than clients expect, and the refinement stage is where changes become expensive, because a change to the idea after the system is built is a change to everything built on it.
AI Product Imagery
Three to five days for a batch, and that is the genuine change in this category. Reference photos and art direction take a day, generation and selection take a couple more, and retouching and delivery close it out.
The reason it is fast is that there is no studio day to schedule around, no location and no crew. The comparison against a real shoot covers where that speed is worth having and where it is not.
An AI Product Film
Two to four weeks for fifteen to thirty seconds. Script and storyboard first, then a styleframe for every scene, then motion, edit and sound. Most of the time is in getting the product exactly right on screen, which is the part a viewer notices when it is wrong.
What Runs In Parallel And What Cannot
Compressing a schedule is mostly a question of what can happen at the same time, and the honest answer is less than people hope.
Copy can be written while the layout is designed, and legal can review the claims alongside the concept if you send them the draft rather than waiting for a final. Resizes for different placements can be split across designers once the key visual is locked.
What cannot run in parallel is anything downstream of a decision that has not been made. Resizing cannot start before the key visual is approved. Motion cannot start before the styleframes are. Language versions cannot start before the master copy is final. Each of those is a hard dependency, and no amount of budget removes them.
What Happens If The Date Slips
Worth agreeing before it happens rather than during. Ask the studio what moves if an approval is late: does the delivery date move by the same amount, do they hold the slot, is there a cost to re-planning the work.
Most delays are recoverable if they are flagged early and expensive if they are flagged late, because a studio plans its designers against calendar dates. A studio that tells you on day one what a slipped approval costs is one that has run enough projects to know.
The Three Things That Cause Almost Every Delay
Approvers who were not in the brief
A stakeholder seeing the work for the first time at round two restarts the concept, not the round. Name every approver before the first route is designed and get their availability in writing.
Claims that had not been through legal
A single unclearable line on a key visual means redoing every size it appears in. Run the claims before the concept is approved, not before the launch.
Sizes added after approval
The story version, the marketplace banner, the print flyer. Each is a new layout, and asked for at the end they arrive at the end.
Working Backwards From A Fixed Date
If the creatives have to exist for a launch, a sale or a festival, plan from that date backwards rather than from today forwards. It changes which conversation you have first.
Take the date, subtract a few days of contingency, then subtract delivery, the revision window, the key visual and the concept stage. What you are left with is the date the brief has to be signed off, and it is almost always earlier than people expect. For a three week campaign set with contingency, a sale starting on the first of a month means a signed scope in the first week of the month before.
If that date has already passed, you have three options and only three: reduce the scope, accept a later launch, or pay for compression. Choosing deliberately between them in week one is a much better position than discovering in week three that all three were needed.
We quote a timeline with your approval dates on it, not just ours, because those are the dates that actually decide when the work lands.
Get A TimelineCommon Questions
- How long does a campaign creative set take?
- Two to three weeks from signed scope to final files for one concept in ten to twenty sizes. Ten days is achievable with fast approvals and an existing brand system.
- Can you do it faster?
- Usually yes, at a premium, and by compressing the parts that are ours. The client-side approval time is the part that rarely compresses.
- What is the fastest format?
- AI product imagery, at three to five days for a batch, because there is no shoot to schedule.