A digital production team needs a strong foundation of consistent accurate processes as well as current solidly-integrated systems to be set up for success, on and off set. A company's eCommerce site requires quality imagery for the highest level of customer experience, increasing sales and reducing returns through color accuracy and style consistency.
While with my recent employers, two major home furnishing brands, four major mens clothing brands, I created and/or updated various process docs for the Photo Studio and Post Production. I led the charge to uniform processes while bringing specs up-to-date to improve quality and consistency, ultimately producing training docs for new employees and freelancers.
Some of the docs created or updated were:
Style Guides
Photo Specs and Lighting Guides
Retouching Workflows and Specifications
Digital Tech Guidelines
Sample Handoff Guidelines
Web Category Image Standards
Photo Studio Map Workflow
Prop Catalog: References for Creatives
Photo Studio Operational Efficiency Report
Pre-Production Photo Shoot Checklists
Many of these took numerous hours, days, weeks, in addition to all the high-volume production and long days we put in to meet our project deadlines, metrics, and goals.
I'm proud of the knowledge and expertise I brought to each paper, yet with everything I do my team's input was vital to these documents’ success, always credited for their contributions. I confirmed all processes through my knowledge, with my all-star teammates, through communicating with industry contacts, then, as a leader, made final decisions I'd ultimately be responsible for.
You can't know everything about everything. It's not about being right, it's about making the right decision. And as the ol' African Proverb goes, "If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together”.