Design projects rarely run late because the design is hard. They run late waiting for something only the client has. Nobody is being difficult. The things are scattered across a phone, an old laptop, a former employee's email and a printer who still has the file from 2019.
This is that list, so it can be gathered before the clock starts rather than during it.
The five things
1. Your logo, in the file it was made in
What is needed is the vector original: an .ai, .eps, .svg or a layered .pdf. That is the version that can be scaled to a building or shrunk to a favicon without softening, recoloured for a dark background, and separated for print.
A PNG, a JPEG or a screenshot from your own website is not that. It can be traced, and tracing is a real job that adds days and never comes back quite the same. If the original is genuinely gone, say so at the start. It changes the plan, and it is far better handled in week one than discovered in week four when something has to go to print.
While you are looking: the font files, if the logo uses type, and anyone's old brand guideline even if you think it is out of date.
2. The real words
Placeholder copy hides every layout problem until the worst possible moment. A heading that is three words in the mock-up and eleven in reality breaks the design it was approved in, and it always surfaces at the point where changing it is most expensive.
It does not have to be polished. A rough, honest paragraph of the actual message is far more useful than lorem ipsum or a beautifully written sentence that says nothing. If writing it is the bottleneck (and it usually is), say so, because buying the writing is a normal part of the work and a completely different project plan from one where the words already exist.
3. Photographs, at full size
Originals, not the copies that came back through WhatsApp. Messaging apps compress images heavily, and a picture that looks fine on a phone falls apart across a page.
If the photographs do not exist, decide early which it is: buy stock, book a shoot, or design around not having them. All three are workable. What does not work is assuming pictures will turn up later, because the layout has to be designed around something.
And be clear about rights. Images taken from a search engine are not yours to publish, and that is a problem that surfaces after launch rather than before.
4. One name who signs it off
One. Two is a negotiation; three is a delay. Other people can and should have opinions, but somebody has to be the person who collects them and says yes.
This is the one that catches everyone. A project with an unclear approver does not get slower gradually. It stops at the first real decision and waits. Deciding it in the first week costs nothing and saves the most.
5. The things that cannot change
Every business has a few, and they are invisible to anyone outside it until they are violated. A legal disclaimer that must appear. A tagline a director is attached to. A colour a parent company insists on. A regulator's mark with its own placement rules. A name that must never be abbreviated.
None of these are a problem when they are known up front. All of them are expensive when they arrive as feedback on a finished design.
Worth adding if you have it
- Access, rather than a promise of access: the domain registrar, the hosting, the social accounts, the analytics. Chasing a login from a former employee is a common and entirely avoidable delay.
- Two or three competitors or brands you admire, with one line each on WHY. The reason is the useful part.
- Anything you have already tried that did not work, so it is not proposed again.
- Your real deadline and what it is attached to: an event, a season, a launch. A date with a reason behind it gets planned around properly.
Why this list is short
These five are not the only inputs to good work, but they are the ones that, when absent, stop everything else. Most of what makes a project run well is decided before any design exists, and this is the part of it that is entirely in your hands.
