08 / Repetition
Doing something a hundred times should not necessarily mean doing a hundred times the work.
When you have hundreds of labels to produce, the instinct is to get faster.
Learn InDesign better. Cut a few steps. Find another shortcut.
All useful.
But at some point the question changes.
Am I designing something, or repeating a decision I have already made?
The first label needs attention.
You need to decide what information belongs on it, how to arrange it, which rules apply and what should happen when the content changes.
That is design work.
Repeating it unchanged for every label does not necessarily add anything.
I began separating things I had previously kept together.
Data → rules → template → output.
The data holds the information. The rules determine how it is used. The template gives it a form. The output is the material to be produced.
The first label still requires decisions and checks.
Once the structure and rules have been validated, the three-hundredth should not ask me to make those same decisions again.
The result still needs checking.
Attention shifts to the rules, the data and the exceptions that actually need a person.
Automation comes later.
First, you have to understand what can be repeated and what still needs to be decided.
I do more than design a label. When needed, I also design the way the next ones will be produced.