A single system that runs agency creative production
A brand and creative agency runs client deliverables, project intake, dashboards, and calendars through Airtable. Automated brand-to-project color syncing keeps every project visually tied to the right client, and record templates pre-populate deliverables by project type. Creative and Account teams share one system that replaced Asana and a traditional CRM for more than 20 daily interface users.
The problem
Creative production ran across a generic task-list tool and a separate traditional CRM, and neither fit how the agency worked. Deliverables with six to seven milestone dates were hard to track, and every new project meant recreating deliverables and re-entering brand details by hand.
What they built
The agency built one Airtable system for creative production and project management, with employee interfaces for intake and assignment plus shared dashboards. Record templates pre-populate deliverables by project type, and an automation syncs each client's brand color from linked CRM data.
The outcome
More than 20 people now run their daily work through project interfaces on the base that manages clients, brands, and deliverables, replacing both Asana and the old CRM. Templates cut project setup clicks, though notification volume and automation reliability are still being refined.
Inside the solution
Creative Production and Project Management
Project & Portfolio Management
- Client deliverable tracking with multi-date milestones
- Project intake and assignment via interfaces
- Brand-to-project color automation from CRM
- Record template-driven deliverable setup by project type
- Replaced Asana for a more customized project experience
- Consolidated a traditional CRM into a single data model
- Reduced manual setup clicks via record templates
- Notification volume and automation reliability remain a focus
- Business runs through Airtable with 20+ daily users
- Flexibility and customization versus generic project tools
- Standardization and time savings via automation and templates
- Single view linking employees, projects, and brands
- Project Management
- Creative Services
- Operations
- Account Management
- Leadership
- Client relationship data
- Brand asset records
- Project interfaces
Agency project and creative production management
Run an entire creative agency (clients, brands, projects, and multi-milestone deliverables) from one linked base with a published hub for production dashboards, a deliverable kanban pipeline, and a project-to-deliverable drill-down. Automations pre-populate a kickoff deliverable on project intake, sync each project's brand color straight from CRM data, log deliveries back to the project, and email a weekly client-review digest, while AI fields draft client updates and creative brief starters.
From scattered tools to one production system
Copy the templates
Build deliverable record templates
Link brands to projects
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Asana handled generic task lists well but could not reflect how the agency actually structures creative production. Airtable let the team build project interfaces, dashboards, and calendars customized to their own deliverable and milestone structure.
Each project links to a brand record that already carries the client's color and identity details. An automation syncs that color onto the project automatically, so visual identity follows the work instead of needing manual lookup.
When a new project is created, a record template pre-populates the standard set of deliverables for that project type, cutting the manual setup clicks that used to happen on every new project.
More than 20 people across Creative Services and Account Management use project interfaces built on this base every day to manage their work.
The team continues to work on notification volume and automation reliability as usage has grown, tuning alerts so they stay useful rather than becoming noise.