This was a workflow engineering challenge disguised as a design project. The real win here was in system thinking—designing a process that automated repetitive tasks without sacrificing quality.

I saw an opportunity to dramatically improve efficiency by moving away from Illustrator’s manual layout process and leveraging Adobe InDesign’s automation capabilities. My goal wasn’t just to speed things up—it was to build a sustainable, scalable system that would keep quality standards high while minimizing repetitive work.

Master Template – Designed an FDA-compliant nutrition facts panel template in InDesign with precise formatting and integrated barcode placement. This became the foundation for every label going forward.

Centralized Data Source – Built a single CSV spreadsheet containing all product details—nutrition data, product names, UPC codes, and linked barcode images—so updates could happen once and instantly apply across every label.

Barcode Integration – Generated UPC-A barcodes via barcode.tec-it.com using codes provided by my project manager, then linked them directly into the CSV for automatic placement in each label.

Data Standardization – Created lightweight VBA macros (with ChatGPT’s help) to clean and format nutrition data, ensuring consistency and reducing errors before it ever reached the layout stage.

The initial planning and setup took careful thought, but once the system was in place, production speed and accuracy skyrocketed.