The Problem

Campaign creative often needs to be adapted across dozens of sizes and formats for social, display, out-of-home and print. In InDesign, this traditionally meant manually rebuilding layouts and updating content across every variation, creating significant production time and increasing the risk of inconsistencies and errors.

The Solution

wellcom HOME: InDesign is a production automation plugin that transforms a single master layout into the sizes and formats required for a campaign.

Content can be varied across outputs and the full suite exported through one workflow, removing the need to manually rebuild each asset. Template rules control elements such as lockups, disclaimers, margins and safe zones, helping maintain consistency across every variation.

From Prototype to Product

I began by building a proof of concept to validate the underlying workflow before developing the interface or broader feature set.

Once the concept was proven, I designed the end-to-end workflow and developed a working prototype. Through multiple iterations, I refined the UX and expanded the functionality based on feedback from designers and testing within real production environments.

The prototype was validated across live national campaigns spanning automotive, banking, quick-service restaurants, retail, property and travel.

I then used the working prototype to define requirements and brief Wellcom's development team through Scrum sessions, supporting the transition from prototype into an officially engineered product.

Results

• 5x more output. A national property campaign delivered 2,475 final assets from 10 master templates in 40 hours. The equivalent manual production was estimated at approximately 150 hours.
• 90% reduction in production time. A high-volume automotive retail campaign across 25 sizes was completed in approximately 2 hours instead of 20.
• Greater efficiency across repeat campaigns. One set of master templates was reused across three consecutive automotive retail campaigns, allowing the initial setup investment to deliver ongoing time savings.

Outcome

wellcom HOME: InDesign was developed into an official production tool and rolled out across Wellcom studios.

I led the adoption process, identifying suitable users and workflows, delivering training and one-to-one support, and helping designers through their first live campaigns. I also created the product demonstration video and user documentation, tracked adoption and production efficiencies, and translated user feedback into recommendations for ongoing development.

The underlying automation workflow has since been successfully validated beyond InDesign. I have prototyped versions for both Figma and Adobe Express, confirming that the same approach to template rules, content variation and multi-format production can work effectively across different creative platforms.

This demonstrates that the concept is not limited to a single plugin or application, but can operate as a broader creative production automation model.