A studio: from a hundred references to one direction the client signed
Four designers, three directions, one review. The notebook keeps the brief next to every image and the reason next to every choice.
Yulia is the art director of a four-person studio. A neighbourhood café opening in November has asked for an identity, and the review with the owners is on Thursday. In a week the team has collected about 120 references, four personal mood boards, a folder of site photos and a chat thread that is mostly “like this but warmer”. There are three directions on the table. Two of them use green.
On Wednesday evening Yulia realises nobody can say why direction two has that particular green. Somebody chose it on Monday. It was a good reason. It is in the chat, between a lunch order and a meme.
A reference with a sentence under it
The next project starts differently. The brief goes in first, as the owners wrote it, and under it Yulia writes two sentences about what they did not say: they are afraid of looking like a chain. Every reference after that is an image plus one line about what it demonstrates. “The lettering, not the colour.” “How the logo sits on a dark wall.” A hundred images with a sentence each turn out to be a quarter of the work of a hundred without.
The green now has a note. It came from a photo of the café’s own tiled floor, and the designer who picked it wrote that down on Monday, under the photo, where it still is on Wednesday.
Three directions that do not step on each other
Warm and handmade, strict and typographic, playful: each direction gets a branch, and each designer works in theirs without rummaging through the others’ notes. Before the internal review Yulia writes the questions once: does it work on a cup, on the window, on a phone; does it look like a chain. The comparison comes back with the images and comments behind every answer.
The internal review takes forty minutes instead of two hours, because nobody has to defend a choice from memory. The lettering from B and the colour from A go forward. C stays intact, in case the owners ask what else was considered. They do.
Thursday, and the month after
The owners get a read-only link the night before, with the agreed direction and the references behind it. They do not see the branch where the team argued about the font at midnight. On Thursday one of them says the green feels like a bank, and that sentence goes into the review notes as a quote, not as “client disliked green”.
In production, when the printer asks why the lettering has that particular weight, the answer is one note away, with the image that started it. The signed direction is a PDF in the client’s folder and a document with history in the studio’s notebook, and they match.
A branding or interior project collects references fast: a hundred images in a week, a mood board per person, a chat full of “like this but warmer.” Then the client review happens and nobody can say why direction two had the green. Below is how a studio notebook is laid out in Kartoteq, from the brief to the signed direction.
How the notebook is laid out
Put the brief where nobody can lose it
Create a notebook for the project and invite the team with the edit role. The client’s brief goes in first, as the client wrote it, with the date. Below it, your own reading: three sentences on what the client actually wants and two on what they did not say. Pin the note.
Switch on AI and write the goal: “A visual identity for a neighbourhood café that opens in November.” The interview asks about the audience, the constraints, the deadline and what already exists. Approve the sections; add Review notes and Agreed direction by hand.
Every image that comes later is looked at against that pinned note. If a reference does not answer the brief, it still can go in, but with a line saying why.
A reference is an image plus one sentence
References go into their section one per note: the image, where it is from, and one sentence on what exactly it demonstrates. “The typography, not the colour.” “The way the logo sits on a dark wall.” A hundred images with a sentence each are a working collection; a hundred images without one are a mood board nobody can defend.
Sketches, photos of the site and the client’s own old materials go in the same way. Rights and source are written on the note, so nobody has to ask in November whether the photo can be used in the presentation.
Comments live on the specific image. “Too cold for a café” sits under the picture it is about, with an @mention of the person who added it, and the thread is still there a month later.
Three directions, three branches, one set of questions
Open a branch per direction: A warm and handmade, B strict and typographic, C playful. Each branch has its own references, its own sketches, its own discussion and its own draft presentation. Designers work in parallel without stepping on each other’s notes.
Before the internal review, write the questions once in the section note: does it work on a cup, on a window, on a phone screen; does it match the two sentences about what the client did not say. AI compares the branches by those questions and points to the images and comments behind each answer.
Mark with “Keep” what survives: the lettering from B, the colour from A. The consolidated note shows where each kept piece came from. The two other directions stay intact; when the client asks “what else did you consider”, you open them, not a trash folder.
Write the review down before the feelings fade
After the client meeting, one note in Review notes: date, who was there, what they said about each direction, in their words, and what was decided. Link it to the branches it concerns. If the client said “the green feels like a bank”, that sentence goes in as a quote, not as “client disliked green.”
Agreed direction is the result document: a short brief for the production phase with the chosen pieces and a link to each origin. Export it as PDF for the client’s signature; the version with their comments stays in history.
Give the client a read-only link to the agreed direction and the references behind it. They see the reasoning; they do not see the branch where the team argued about the font at midnight.
What is left when the project ends
A notebook you can open a year later and still understand: the sources, the discussions and the result, with the reason next to every decision. If the next project is similar, you start from here instead of from an empty page.
Where to go next
A note that holds the whole thoughtStart with one notebook.
The Personal plan is free: notes, files and search. AI and shared notebooks can be added later, when a project needs them.
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