If you need high volumes of designs made and they are similar enough to work from a template, automation may be right for your project. Also known as data-driven graphics, I am able to create a design template and link it with a spreadsheet, which will then generate hundreds (or thousands) of pieces of art using Illustrator's powerful Variable Data feature.

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I first encountered automation while working at A.C. Moore. We had designed a new brand for our jewelry collection, which required over 1,200 pieces of unique but similar art. Instead of designing each piece by hand, which would have been both time-consuming and prone to human error, I was able to prepare a few templates with variables (which would then swap in the UPC code, item description, and so on). I then loaded a spreadsheet containing all of the variable information into my Illustrator templates, and generated all 1,200 pieces of art overnight. Once the project went through proofing, we found that the automation had worked perfectly!