When Indofil, a leading organization from the chemicals and pesticides industry used manual proofing methods like emails and chats to approve their creatives, they experienced indefinite delays because no one knew who was responsible for a specific task. All their changes were marked on a hardcopy of the creative and not all the changes were incorporated into the creative by the designers, leading to feedback slipping through the cracks. 

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“There was a lack of visibility and transparency on different projects. We had to constantly follow up and didn’t know which artwork everyone was reviewing unless we asked them and the answer would only be for that moment.”

Vrishali Hirlekar, Executive Marketing Support

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Seeing that the manual process reduces their efficiency and increases their number of revisions, Indofil decided to switch to an artwork proofing and creative management tool that automated the proofing process, offers intelligent creative insights, improves visibility, reduces delay, and delivers a uniform brand experience.

Today, if you’re a brand operating in highly-regulated industries like food and beverages, chemicals, or cosmetics, you need to be compliant and reduce delays to stay ahead of competition and scale your revenue.

That’s why you need an artwork management and a creative management tool that lets you store, manage, track, proof, and even get intelligent insights on your creative assets with ease.

A creative management tool can help designers to:

• Stay consistent with visuals, copy, and other elements of packaging.
• Deliver a uniform brand experience with brand compliance features.
• Comply with regulatory guidelines.

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So, here are the top 8 artwork management and creative management  tools that can help you manage your design approval process without any hassle with their amazing features.

1. Artwork Flow
2. GLAMS
3. Esko
4. Manage Artworks
5. Karomi
6. Kallik
7. Teklynx
8. Loftware

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Here are some features and specialities that each of them provide:

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1. Artwork Flow

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Artwork Flow is an AI-powered creative management solution offering artwork management and creative operations solutions. Artwork Flow offers a host of features which include: 

1. Brand compliance: Ensures that all your creatives and brand assets are in line with your brand and reduce any discrepancies. 
2. Workflows: Build flexible workflows that help teams, both internal and external, to work in a seamless manner. 
3. Online proofing: Measure dimensions, identify fonts, and ensure that the creatives are compliant with the brand guidelines. 
4. Brand asset management: It is the way through which you can organize and store your assets in a smarter way and increase your brand image. 
5. Creative automation: Scale your creative production process from 0 to 100 in just a fraction of a few seconds with a data-led design process. 

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2. Glams

GLAMS, known as Global Labeling Artwork Management System is a software solution designed to streamline the process of managing and organizing artwork and labeling across various industries. It helps in simplifying complex tasks of creating, reviewing, and approving artwork. The key features of GLAMS are as follows:

1. Artwork lifecycle management: GLAMS helps to efficiently manage the end-to-end lifecycle of artwork, from creation and editing to version control and archival, ensuring accuracy and compliance with regulatory standards.
2. Collaboration and approval workflow: It enables seamless collaboration among stakeholders, allowing multiple teams and individuals to review, comment, and approve artwork, reducing bottlenecks and expediting the approval process.
3. Regulatory compliance: It ensures that your creatives adhere to industry-specific regulations and guidelines minimizing the risk of non-compliance.
4. Centralized asset repository: It offers a  centralized repository for artwork assets, including images, logos, and brand guidelines, facilitating easy access, version control, and reuse of approved assets.
5. Reporting and analytics: It generates comprehensive reports and analytics on artwork status, approval timelines, and compliance metrics, enabling data-driven insights for process optimization and continuous improvement.

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With GLAMS, you can streamline artwork and labeling management, reducing errors, and improving collaboration across their operations.

3. Esko

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Esko web center digitizes the artwork management process from start to finish and improves packaging workflow for faster and smoother artwork approval. Here’s how it helps different industries:

1. Track feedback easily: Multiple teams can work together, share feedback and comments on the artwork, and review it simultaneously on the platform.
2. Work efficiently: Manage and reuse the content used in packaging labels without manually copying it to save time.
3. Define roles and responsibilities: Assign tasks, upload information, and clarify deliverables for each project so members have clarity on the goal.
4. Maintain regulatory compliance: Standardize information in the packages and use automated quality control tools like spell check to stay ahead of compliance.
5. Make packaging pre-press easily: Automate mundane pre-press workflow tasks and execute more tasks easily.

If you have a limited budget and want an artwork management software without the bells and whistles, Esko might not be suitable for your business.

4. Manage Artworks

Manage Artworks is also another robust software solution that simplifies the process of managing and organizing artworks for different industries. It offers comprehensive features that maintain efficiency and accuracy through the entire lifecycle of an artwork. The key features of Manage Artworks include:

1. Artwork repository: With its centralized repository, you can simply store and organize your artwork files enabling easy access for all stakeholders.
2. Workflow automation: Automate the artwork review and approval process, reducing manual effort and ensuring a smooth and streamlined workflow.
3. Collaboration and annotations: Facilitate collaboration among teams and stakeholders by providing tools for commenting, annotating, and making revisions directly on the artwork files.
4. Asset management: Manage digital assets such as images, logos, and brand guidelines, ensuring consistent usage and easy retrieval during artwork creation.

Manage Artworks empowers organizations to efficiently manage their artwork processes leading to  enhanced brand consistency.

5. Karomi

Karomi is a cutting-edge technology solution that revolutionizes print and packaging management for businesses. With its advanced features and intuitive interface, Karomi simplifies the entire lifecycle of print and packaging processes, from design and artwork creation to production and distribution. This comprehensive software enables organizations to streamline their print management, ensuring efficiency, cost savings, and brand consistency.

Key features of Karomi include:

1. Artwork management: Centralize and manage artwork files, ensuring version control, collaboration, and easy retrieval for seamless print production.
2. Workflow automation: Automate repetitive tasks and approval workflows, reducing manual effort, minimizing errors, and expediting time-to-market.
3. Quality control: Implement robust quality control mechanisms to ensure accuracy, consistency, and compliance with regulatory standards across print and packaging materials.
4. Supplier collaboration: Facilitate seamless collaboration with external suppliers, enabling efficient communication, file sharing, and project tracking for timely delivery.
5. Analytics and reporting: Gain valuable insights into print production processes with comprehensive analytics and reporting, enabling data-driven decision-making and continuous improvement.

With Karomi, businesses can optimize their print and packaging management, achieving faster turnaround times, cost savings, and enhanced brand integrity.

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6. Kallik

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Kallik is a cloud-based artwork and label management software that aims to provide a platform that can manage the entire lifecycle of designing and approval of artwork specifically for regulated industries.

1. Collaborate easily: Get multiple stakeholders from various teams to collaborate on the artwork easily and reduce speed-to-market time with real-time collaboration tools.
2. Stay ahead of compliance: Generate updated artworks and check label compliance automatically.
3. Eliminate inconsistency: Ensure visibility across the entire supply chain.

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While the platform allows collaboration and partnership, some features are a bit complicated for new users. Understanding their working takes substantial time and hands-on training internally in the organization.  Their manufacturing print module also needs to develop its operational aspects to perform better.

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7. Teklynx

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Teklynx helps small and large businesses manage the entire label management process centrally, from designing to printing. Here are some useful features of the software.

1. Integrate with important software: Connect with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and other business systems to enhance performance.
2. Simplify the printing process: Access and control of all the plants and printers from a central location or the headquarters and also connect it to the supplier.
3. Manage assets easily: Use label archive to refer back to older versions and reprint labels easily. 
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The only downside of using Teklynx is that it doesn’t have exclusive features that help a business stay compliant with regulations.

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8. Loftware

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Loftware is a powerful cloud-based platform that helps mid-sized and small businesses streamline the entire artwork management process and stay compliant. Here’s how it’s benefits clients:

1. Communicate effectively: Improve collaboration, increase visibility, and improve efficiency with an organized approval process.
2. Take control of workflows: Streamline  projects and ensure external and internal stakeholders can add feedback in a single place.
3. Reduce revisions: Shorten time to market by instantly showing reviewers the correct artwork version.

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While Loftware is among the first of its kind, the migration of artworks from the old system to the new one can create an issue sometimes. Another downside can be that some of the barcode parameters are not accessible or explained.

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Going beyond artwork management

An artwork management system is crucial in effectively handling the packaging and labeling of artworks. Especially when errors in packaging and labels can cause heavy fines, costly product recalls, and judiciary actions against a brand. An artwork management system not only makes managing designs and approvals easier but also helps avoid such errors.

Choosing the right artwork management system is crucial to make artwork management efficient and hassle free. You need a system that aligns with the requirements of packaging for your industry and helps you stay compliant.

For Indofil, choosing Artwork Flow as their artwork management software helped them reduce their approval time by 50% and reduced the edits cycle to three from five. With Artwork Flow offering a wide range of creative management solutions, teams at Indofil saw better visibility, an organized feedback loop, better digital asset management, and effective collaboration.

Among the eight tools we’ve listed above, Artwork Flow has the features that makes it one of the best artwork and creative management software. It manages all digital assets on one platform as well as helps you stay compliant with its AI-based tools, checklists, and workflows.  So, get a demo today and stay ahead of your competitors today! 

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