Video: My Kimp workflow using Trello, Loom, Google Docs, Google Drive and Dropbox; and my Kimp examples | 22 December 2021

Dan Smigrod Affiliate Links

==> WGAN.INFO/kimp
==> WGAN.INFO/loom
==> WGAN.INFO/trello

Transcript (video above)

If you're thinking about using Kimp - KIMP - to do your graphic design, this video is probably for you. I'm going to take you through my workflow using Kimp and the tools that I use in conjunction with Kimp to order graphic design every day through the Kimp platform.

I'm Dan Smigrod, I'm the Founder and Managing Editor and the Host of WGAN-TV Live at 5. I am also the Founder and Managing Editor of the We Get Around Network Forum (www.WGANForum.com).

Before I jump into show you the workflow that I use for Kimp, I thought it might be helpful first just the see the examples of design that Kimp is doing for us. I've been a Kimp customer since April 2021. That's about nine months as I do this video on 22 December 2021. Here is the We Get Around Network Forum. Kimp designed our new logo.

Our Community is about 3D/360 photography, mostly for real estate. This was envisioned as housing and shows that we are photographers.

This is a location pin and an upbeat up arrow, so that was the design that Kimp came up for the We Get Around Network Forum and then a particular font. We often emphasize We Get Around, and so that's this piece here.

I have a weekly live stream TV show, WGAN-TV Live at 5. For every show, I get one of these cards like this, and one of these cards like this. Kimp designed some of our graphic images. This is a legacy one.

This is a legacy one, but they've designed this. I often get them to resize logos so it fits in what we call our Amplify Your Brand Box.

Here are some examples of when banner ads that Kimp has designed for us. We have clients that they're engaged and active in our Community, and so these are examples of design.

Not just for We Get Around Network - WGAN-TV - but for the third party companies that are engaged in our Community. That gives you a sense of some of them.

I also have a teaching platform. We use www.teachable.com. Every time we do a show on YouTube, for example, Kimp is creating a card for our YouTube channel that we also repurpose in our WGAN-TV Training U, wgan.teachable.com.

So, we're constantly - this is like every week - there's a new course, there's a new live show that turns into a training show.

We have constantly repurposing content in different ways. Let's see if I can take you into, I think, a good place if you want to see some of the design that Kimp is doing for us is if you go to www.WGAN.INFO/wgan, and there you'll find pretty much all my links.

For example, if you wanted to get to the WGAN Forum, you could click here.

That will take you to the Forum. I'm going to let this page timeout because you're going to see a graphic that comes up for anyone that's not logged in. (After about 45 seconds.)

Then I have Kimp do all our banners for social media. There's our YouTube channel. You can see again our use of our thumbnails here. These are all created by Kimp for our podcast. Let's see. Let's take look at that. This art element here. Our Vimeo channel.

That's the WGAN Training Academy. Here's another social media badge for LinkedIn. Let's see. It looks like I'm not logged in, might be easier just to go over here and type in LinkedIn. Not sure I got that notice, but in any event, I can go to my page here. You can see where they've done my banner. They also re-sized this picture for me.

Let's see what else can I show you this to give you an overview of the stuff that Kimp is designing for me. I'm going to go back.

This is the pop-over that they did for us. Whatever that tool is that you get for free when you join our Community. There is something else for Twitter, our Roku Channel. We do a WGAN-TV e-book.

This is interesting. Let's see if I can take it to that. Let's see if I go to the ISSUU platform and if I just call up one of these, let's say we'll call up this one here. We typically do one of these e-books weekly where we take the transcript from the show and we create an e-book.

I have a little bit of a back page here that's nicely designed by Kimp. This is a template where there's that thumbnail for YouTube getting repurposed. Kimp is creating this and then we use the ISSUU platform to publish this. They're doing a ton of work for us.

That gives you, I think, maybe an overview. If you wanted to check out my links to find more stuff, again, www.WGAN.INFO/wgan. That will call up this page that we're looking at. Let's see if we can jump in to Kimp. Don't let this overwhelm you.

I've probably made this look more complex than it has to be. But we get about 2 and 1/2 pieces of digital assets delivered by Kimp every day.

As I mentioned, we started with Kimp in April 2021 and I think we've almost not missed a day that we got to two and 1/2 Digital assets back Monday through Friday.

The exception would be while we were designing our logo or when we were setting up the template for our e-book and so things that required some more time to do. In fact, let's see if I can just take you to this WGAN.INFO/guest.

When I have a guest it's on WGAN-TV Live at 5, Kimp put together this e-book. Most of this is not going to make any sense to you but you get a sense that they did this from scratch. I gave them a ton of text and Kimp turned it into that.

I was very happy with that. Back to our Trello board. I want to say there's five major tools that we use in our workflow for Kimp. Let's see, Loom, Trello, Dropbox, Google Drive, we're not presently using Zapier. I use Zapier for a ton of stuff but I haven't integrated it into my Kimp workflow and at some point I'll probably do that. Incidentally,

I do have affiliate links for most of this. If you wouldn't mind, if you find this helpful, please do use my affiliate links, WGAN.INFO/kimp. For Loom, WGAN.INFO/loom. For Trello, WGAN.INFO/trello. I would always recommend googling for coupon codes or promo codes that you can use in conjunction with our affiliate links. This is the magic column here of Requests, things that are in progress, in Review.

Typically you only need these three columns on your Trello board. When you start out, Kimp sets this up for you so that there are Requests, in progress, and in Review, Here's a note where I've just reminded our Project Manager Kenny, that I have everything in order of what we want done.

You can see I have, waiting for me, one for Kimp, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,10,11,12, maybe close to 30 projects that are sitting in our request queue. I have some things that I'm catching up on and then when I have something that's priority, I just move it up here.

These just sit here so that when I run out of things for Kimp to work on, which occasionally happens, but not often, that there's always something in the queue for them to be working on for us. Then once it goes to a request, Kenny will typically look at it.

His green little bar there says that that project's been reviewed by him and he knows that it's ready to go into the workflow. He takes that card and he puts it into in progress, and then it sits in progress, and typically it's going to be in there just for one day.

I've already gotten a deliverables for today and so this is actually the queue for tomorrow that's been started. You can see that there's two projects that I will likely get delivery of tomorrow.

Once Kimp is finished designing, they take it and they put it in Review, and then I get to look at stuff. Now, what's the rest of these columns? Once I approve something that's in Review, I move it to Completed.

In my case, I have so many digital assets that I first put it in Completed and then when I get some time to catch up, I'll come back here and I'll go, "Oh! Okay. It's now time to say, Oh!, 50 benefits." I'm going to put that on my WGAN Forum board.

I just have divided my work into different categories of things that I get a lot of. Here's my thumbnails for Vimeo and YouTube. You can see I have a lot of them and so if I ever had to go back to find YouTube, Vimeo thumbnails, typically they are numbered. I can come in here and just find that number and go from there.

Just to give you an example, let's say here's a thumbnail that was delivered, I want to say a couple of weeks ago. This is the direction that I've given them and there's not a lot that's here because this happens to be a template.

This is only the information that is changing and they're using a template to create this. If I go into PNG, in fact, let me go over here. This is probably make more sense. You can see I have a folder called Kimp and in Kimp I have this.

This is We Get Around Network, my company. But these are typically clients and their artwork that we're designing for them. Then We Get Around, I keep yet more stuff. I was talking about, let's say, YouTube and Vimeo. Let's see if I can just pick one here.

Let's go into this one. I'm typically getting four digital assets. Actually, let me pick a different one just to see if I can go. I'm going to go into this, my Going Forward, and I'll go into let's say this one here.

This is how I keep track of my projects and in this case, I have audio transcript, e-book, video. That's not anything to do with Kimp but this is where this e-book is but the YouTube thumbnails, Vimeo thumbnails are here.

I happen to get things always created in PNG and PSD. If I go click on my PNG files, this is what Kimp is creating for me typically once a week.

You saw this and this at the top of the Forum and then this one happens to be for Vimeo and this size happens to be for YouTube. Kimp designed all this, they created the original template. I gave them direction. We went back and forth on colors, patterns, texts.

But we do this once a week. We want to be really efficient with this and Kimp has a template for us and just cranks that out. If I go back here, you'll see that Kimp typically gives me PNG and PSD files via Google Drive. All I'm doing is clicking on this.

I see my four PNG files, an example that I just showed you. Let's resize this and then I'm typically just downloading it. I'm sure if you're a Google Drive person, you probably have your own workflow with working with Google Drive and moving files over.

I happen to prefer Dropbox. I do have a workflow, probably not the most efficient, where I download everything that I get from Kimp from Google Drive and then I organize it within my [Dropbox], which looks just like a desktop for me because it's mirrored to Dropbox.

Let's see. What else can I show you here? There's so much content that Kimp has created for me, I guess it's a little bit out of control, but there's a ton of content. I have: Badges. Calculators. Cheat Sheets. Masthead. Mockups. Benefits. Benefits in green.

Cheat Sheets again. Thumbnails. There's a lot of stuff that Kimp is creating for us and it all is done in this workflow. I'm going to do a little bit deeper dive here but first to tell you about these other columns. Then you can see where I'm still going back in time on YouTube and Vimeo videos. These are just in my staging. This column is for me.

This column is for me and this column is for me. I'm constantly thinking of projects that I want Kimp to work on and I have them in these three columns.

Again, this is just me catching up on YouTube and Vimeo thumbnails before we engaged Kimp because we literally didn't do thumbnails before Kimp.

Then there's things that are like banners, Facebook, Vimeo, Twitter, Instagram, Roku channel, thumbnails, Twitter, PayPal, Stripe. I mean, it's amazing how many different iterations of your logo that you need. Then here are just some projects that I'm thinking about.

I'm constantly want to make sure that my Requests column is full. This is just my particular workflow. You may find that Kimp is beneficial to you only if they create a couple of pieces of artwork a month and that works for you.

In my case, I have lots of iterations of the same thing and so I typically have a lot of Requests. Anyway, so I created these columns.

These are columns that were created by Kimp. Then as I complete my work, I put it in this column and then when I have time, I take my Completed and I sort it to some other place in order to keep track of.

Kimp does give you some guidelines of how to submit stuff. I'll show you an example of how I submit a project. Let's go to one that's Completed. Let's see. Just thinking one that would give you from start to finish. Let's see maybe this one and see if that helped do it. This is probably a good one to take a look at.

How I do my project names - is totally up to you - then in the description, I put text and art. If we were to take a look, I would go over to the Forum and say, how did this ad here, what we call, We Get Around Network marquee banner ad, how did that come about?

Incidentally, that's used within Forum posts so if I go to Giraffe and let's say I come down let's see here, there's the thumbnail that's promoting the show, where a representative of Giraffe360 was on WGAN-TV Live at 5.

Where's that banner? It usually shows up, maybe I'd put that in a different place, so let's just try it, I want to try it one more time, here it is.

Typically I would use this banner ad that's been created for Giraffe360 within a We Get Around Network Forum post talking about this camera, which lets you shoot these virtual tours that you can walk around. It's pretty crazy and exciting stuff.

Our community creates 3D and 360 virtual tours for real estate, residential real estate, commercial real estate. This happens to be one of the cameras that's used to do that, and a platform as well. Let's go back here, I wanted to take you into how this was created.

Did I lose my place? Probably. I think... There we are. This is how it began, where I had the name of the project, who the client was, the text and creative direction. In this case, I wrote the headline, I indicated some body copy, I provided a logo and align the text down here.

This is in Google Docs, so that would be yet another tool that we use constantly. This is just my personal preference. I like doing art direction in Google Docs and that works for Kimp, so all I'm doing is coming in, providing direction.

Here's the size that I need, the width and the height, the design - clean and simple - mandatory include one-point rule around it, color palette, go off to www.Giraffe360.com, look at their website, I'd like the call-to-action button to be: Book a Demo.

The target audience is typically in this project, product 25-50 year-old-men interested in switching careers to residential real estate photography and virtual tours.

That tone, business fun, business professional, but on the light side, and then what the industry is and the deliverables, and we always get our files in PSD and PNG that works for us, and any other notes that I have for them. That's literally that Kimp went off from and designed from this art direction and that was sufficient for them.

Then, if I go back here, let's see if I've done it, let's go take a look at what I got going on here. Whatever it was that they delivered the first time, here's the PNG and PSD, I had some additional comments that I wanted and that's where Loom comes in, www.WGAN.INFO/loom.

Loom lets you create videos that are super-easy to share. This is my little Loom app, when I click on this, it opens Loom, and I can either record showing the entire screen or just a portion of the screen. I can have my picture show up, make it a little bit easier for somebody to see me, hear me talking.

Let's see what I've done here. "Oh so close, this is awesome! Really love it: a couple of small things..." So, it's a little bit easier for Kimp to work from a video, and I had never used Loom before Kimp suggested Loom, and I now love it.

There's a free version of Loom. It lets you record up to five-minute videos, I think you can do as many as 15 videos that are current. I love it so much, I actually pay.

I'm going to guess it's about a $100 a year that I pay, which lets me do unlimited length of video, and also lets me control my screen. I'm probably using one percent of the features for Loom and that's just fine, and it's super.

Essentially I come in here and I just give our Project Manager at Kimp, Kenny, video feedback, and there's that short video that gives them direction.

They're working on the changes, then they redeliver the revised PNG and PSD files, and it looks like I might have had some additional changes for whatever reason, so they deliver it again.

Then all of a sudden there's a new piece of art from the client, logo's changed slightly, so we've got to substitute that. Then a new logo has finally come in from the clients, we need to substitute that, then we get the deliverable again.

Then it looks like something else changed, and then I ask them to mock it up so that I could have it as a mock-up on the front page of the We Get Around Network Forum.

I could send this to our client, Giraffe360, and say, "Hey, does this banner ad work for you? This is what it will look like on our front page."

Then the client says, "Yeah, that's fine, let's go with it." I'm just seeing what else I've sent here. That's the combination of using Google Docs to write up the project; using Trello to originate the project Requests, using Loom in order to give Kimp feedback and that process just continues. Just to give you an example, once Kimp is done with this project tomorrow, they'll put it in Review.

Once I give them feedback on the project, either yes, great, and I move it the Completed or I have some changes, and if I can just type the changes into the Trello card or I can type it into the Google Docs or what I typically do is the Loom video.

If I have changes, I drag it from In Review back to Requests, and I typically would put something that's in progress back into the top of the queue, jumping all of these so that we actually finish the project.

Occasionally I have times where something else comes up that's more important, so even though I have changes, it's not necessarily in the top of my queue.

What else can I show you here? I think if I go back to this. Again, for us, one of the very nice things about Kimp, is that we can design not just for We Get Around Network and WGAN-TV Live at 5, but we can design for our clients or prospective clients, and I love that. Let me see if I have anything that, again, this is probably pretty typical.

My PNG and my PSD file. I have clients given us a logo, some banner art. We get back our PNG file, PSD file, and we're just keeping track of all our artwork in these folders.

I didn't say it upfront, but I should probably say it at this point, is I'm super happy with Kimp. We do a ton of work with Kimp, since April of 2021.

We typically get 2 to 2.5 pieces of digital assets delivered Monday through Friday. I don't talk to anybody on the phone. I don't do any Zoom video chats with anyone. It just works. You think, "Well, I want to sit side-by-side with someone. I want to do a video with them, a Zoom call."

No. It's just managed with Trello. Google Docs. Dropbox. Google Drive. Loom. Trello. And - at some point - I'll add Zapier integrations to do some things with going from Google Drive to Dropbox, which will just make it a little bit faster for me. But I'm super-happy with the work that Kimp does.

The volume. The quality. If you look at any of the design and you say, "I didn't really like that." That's me and what I'm requesting, you can get whatever you want.

I wouldn't make a decision based on saying, "I didn't like the step and repeat banner that Kimp did for Dan." Or, "I didn't like the logo." Or, "I didn't like the banner." They'll just keep working at it until you're happy. If you give them good art direction, you'll get back good work. If you're not happy with it, you just put it in and they'll revise it.

I would say I'm typically happy. Occasionally, rarely something comes back and it's not spot on, and I would typically say it was not their problem, it was my directions.

If I went back and looked at the direction that I gave them, they were following my direction and I got back what I asked for but not necessarily what I needed, so there's this continuous loop. I've used a number of different companies for graphic design. Fiverr, that has worked fine for me.

I've used 99Designs, I've been very happy with that. It's just that we've been doing this We Get Around Network Forum since August of 2014 and I never really spent any time on design, I've just been obsessed with content. I made a decision in April 2021 to say, "My baby is ugly. I'm now going to work on making the baby nicer looking."

Yes, the Forum is somewhat old school. I'm old school ;-) But we're going to over time, make the thumbnails look nice on the videos, make the Training Academy look nicer. Make the banners that show up in the Forum nicer. We do that all through Kimp.

I know this is an ongoing process for We Get Around Network and WGAN-TV. I have a need for ongoing design.

I have a need for going back in time to clean stuff up, and so I'm probably a good candidate for Kimp because of that. I would say if you have a need for doing lots of iterations, you do the design, but now you've going to turn it into many different sizes, that's a great use for Kimp.

You have a constant need for turning out work, that's a great use for Kimp.

I may be a little bit different than most, in that I literally do have something in the queue on my Trello board every day for Kimp. That may not apply to you, but if you get the value out of it then who cares whether you're getting 2, 2.5 digital assets a day.

If you're getting back what you need, then you'll be happy. If this video has been helpful to you at all, I thank you in advance for using our affiliate links: www.WGAN.INFO/kimp ... www.WGAN.INFO/trello ... www.WGAN.INFO/loom ...

I would encourage you to google for coupon codes, promo codes, you can use that in conjunction with our affiliate link.

The bonus for sticking with me and listening for 35 plus minutes here, is if you still have questions about Kimp and workflow, and just you want to talk to somebody that's actually using Kimp, using Trello, using Loom, etc, you're welcome to set up a Zoom video chat with me and just go to www.WGAN.INFO/zoom-me ...

That actually calls up my Calendly page, and you can book a Zoom video chat with me, I'm happy to answer your questions.

I presume if you need to reach out to me, you're probably right at the point where you're trying to go yes or no, and there's something that you have a question about with Kimp and I'm happy to do my best to help you answer that. In part, because I'm super-happy with Kimp. I'd love to see them be a huge success.

I'm sure they already are without me. But I'm happy, so I'm happy to give a shout-out to Kimp. I do get affiliate commission if you use my affiliate link: WGAN.info/kimp.

I thank you for that. And that probably makes it worth my time to help you, is because if you do go forward, you'll end up using my affiliate link. If you do go forward, Kimp gets more clients and I think that's probably good for Kimp. I know there there are a lot of other companies in this space, I can't speak to them.

I just literally was impressed by Kimp of all the ads that got pushed to me in every nook and corner, and they were really efficient at it. I spent a ton of time on the Kimp website.

I'm literally the person that orders all the graphics, so I figured I will just go through and look at everything and read all their frequently asked and answered questions, and it's very well-documented.

Probably the only thing that was missing is to say, "where's a real client talking about the workflow of the tools that they use." I thought I would record that for you. Anyway, thanks for watching, hope it's helpful. Again, if you need any of my links, WGAN.INFO/wgan ... Thanks for watching.