You don’t need to spend half your day tweaking fonts and resizing images to get professional-looking graphics. Smart design tools now handle the heavy lifting—so you can focus on the work that actually grows your business. This guide shows you how to save time, stay consistent, and still look like you hired a pro.
How DIY Design Quietly Eats Up Your Time and Energy
You probably don’t realize how much time you’re losing to design until you step back and look at your week. It starts with a simple task—maybe you need a banner for your newsletter or a graphic for LinkedIn. You open up your design tool, pick a template, and before you know it, 45 minutes have passed. You’re still adjusting the spacing, trying to find the right font, or wondering if the image looks “professional enough.”
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
- You spend 20 minutes searching for a decent template
- Another 15 minutes tweaking colors and fonts to match your brand
- Then 10 more minutes resizing it for different platforms
- And maybe another 30 minutes second-guessing everything and starting over
That’s over an hour gone—for one graphic. Multiply that by 3–5 graphics a week, and you’re looking at 4–6 hours lost on something that doesn’t directly move your business forward.
Let’s say you run a consulting business. You’re prepping for a product launch and want to promote it across email, LinkedIn, and your blog. You open Canva or Photoshop to create a few visuals. You want them to look sharp, but you’re not a designer. You spend hours trying to align text, pick the right icons, and make sure everything looks consistent. By the time you’re done, you’re mentally drained—and you still haven’t written the actual content.
Here’s how that time adds up:
| Task | Time Spent (avg) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Finding a template | 15–20 mins | Often involves browsing multiple sites |
| Customizing fonts/colors | 20–30 mins | Brand consistency takes effort |
| Resizing for platforms | 10–15 mins | Manual resizing is tedious |
| Exporting and formatting | 5–10 mins | File types, dimensions, etc. |
| Total per graphic | 50–75 mins | And that’s if you don’t start over |
Now imagine doing this every week. That’s time you could be using to:
- Build your product or service
- Talk to customers or leads
- Write content that drives traffic
- Rest and recharge
The bigger issue is that most design tools weren’t built for speed. They’re built for flexibility. That’s great if you’re a designer. But if you’re running a business, flexibility often turns into friction.
This is where smart design tools come in. Tools like RelayThat, Simplified, and Kittl are built to eliminate the repetitive parts of design. They don’t just give you templates—they give you systems.
For example, RelayThat lets you input your brand assets once (logo, colors, fonts), and then it automatically generates dozens of graphics in different formats. You don’t have to resize anything or worry about alignment. It’s all done for you.
Simplified goes a step further by combining design, AI writing, and video editing in one place. You can create a social post, generate the caption, and schedule it—all without switching tools.
Kittl is great if you want more creative control without the complexity. It’s especially useful for logos, product visuals, and branded assets. You get high-quality exports and commercial licenses, so you can use your designs anywhere.
Here’s a quick comparison of how these tools reduce design time:
| Tool | What It Automates | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| RelayThat | Layouts, resizing, brand consistency | Social media, ads, blog graphics |
| Simplified | Design + AI writing + scheduling | Content marketing, campaigns |
| Kittl | Logo design, creative assets, typography | Branding, product visuals |
If you’ve been doing all your design manually, switching to one of these tools can save you 3–5 hours a week. That’s not just time saved—it’s energy and focus you can reinvest into the parts of your business that actually grow revenue.
What Smart Design Actually Looks Like (and Why It’s Not Just About Templates)
Smart design isn’t about having more templates. It’s about removing the friction between your idea and the final visual. You shouldn’t have to think about pixel dimensions, font pairings, or whether your logo is in the right spot. The tool should handle that for you.
Think of it like this: traditional design tools give you a blank canvas and a toolbox. Smart design tools give you a finished layout that’s 80% done—and they ask, “Want to tweak anything?”
Here’s what separates smart design tools from the rest:
- They remember your brand: You set your fonts, colors, and logo once. Every design after that follows your style automatically.
- They adapt to your content: Whether it’s a quote, a product, or a blog title, the layout adjusts to fit the message.
- They eliminate repetitive tasks: No more resizing for every platform or manually aligning elements.
- They suggest, not just provide: You get layout and copy suggestions based on what works—not just what looks good.
Let’s say you’re creating a carousel for LinkedIn. With a smart tool like Simplified, you can paste in your content, and it’ll generate a full set of slides with matching visuals, transitions, and even captions. You can tweak the tone, adjust the layout, and schedule the post—all in one place.
Or maybe you’re building a pitch deck. Instead of dragging boxes around in PowerPoint, you use Visme, which gives you slide templates that adapt to your content. You drop in your data, and it automatically formats it into clean, branded visuals. You’re not just saving time—you’re reducing the number of decisions you have to make.
Here’s a quick side-by-side to show the difference:
| Feature | Traditional Tools | Smart Design Tools (e.g. Simplified, Visme) |
|---|---|---|
| Start from blank canvas | Yes | No |
| Auto-branding with your style | Manual | Automatic |
| Resize for platforms | Manual | One-click |
| Suggests layouts/copy | No | Yes |
| Built-in publishing/scheduling | No | Yes |
When you remove the friction, you get more done. You also stop dreading design work—and that’s a game-changer when you’re juggling a dozen other priorities.
How to Build a Faster, Smarter Visual Workflow
Once you’ve picked a smart design tool, the next step is to build a workflow that saves you time every week. You don’t need a complicated system. You just need a repeatable one.
Here’s how to do it:
- Batch your design tasks: Instead of creating graphics on the fly, block out one hour a week to create everything you’ll need—social posts, blog headers, email visuals, etc.
- Use templates as starting points: Don’t reinvent the wheel. Tools like RelayThat and Kittl give you layouts that are already optimized. You just plug in your content.
- Create a brand kit once: Upload your logo, colors, and fonts. Most smart tools will apply them automatically to every design.
- Repurpose across platforms: One graphic can become a LinkedIn post, an Instagram story, and a blog header. Use tools that let you resize and reformat in one click.
- Automate publishing: If your tool includes scheduling (like Simplified), use it. That way, you’re not jumping between apps to post your content.
Let’s say you’re launching a new service. You create a hero image in Kittl, then use RelayThat to instantly generate matching graphics for Twitter, LinkedIn, and your website. You write a short caption in Simplified’s AI writer, schedule it, and you’re done. What used to take 3–4 hours now takes 30 minutes.
The key is to stop treating design like a one-off task. When you build a system around it, you get consistent results with less effort—and you free up time to focus on strategy, sales, or whatever matters most in your business.
3 Actionable Takeaways
- Choose one smart design tool and commit to using it for all your visuals for the next 30 days—you’ll build a faster, more consistent workflow.
- Set up your brand kit once—logo, fonts, colors—and let your design tool apply it automatically across all your content.
- Batch your weekly visuals and automate publishing—you’ll save hours and avoid last-minute design stress.
Top 5 FAQs About Smart Design Tools
1. Do I need design experience to use these tools? No. Tools like RelayThat, Simplified, and Visme are built for non-designers. They handle layout, branding, and formatting so you can focus on your message.
2. Can I use these tools for client work or presentations? Absolutely. Many of them offer commercial licenses and high-resolution exports, making them perfect for client-facing materials, reports, and decks.
3. What if I already use Canva or PowerPoint? You can still use those, but smart design tools go further by automating layout, resizing, and branding. They’re built to save time, not just offer templates.
4. Are these tools good for teams? Yes. Tools like RelayThat and Simplified support team collaboration, shared brand kits, and role-based access—so everyone stays on-brand and on-task.
5. How do I know which tool is right for me? Start with your most common design task. If it’s social media, try RelayThat. If it’s content marketing, go with Simplified. For presentations or reports, Visme is a strong choice.
Next Steps
- Pick one tool from this article—RelayThat, Simplified, Visme, or Kittl—and set up your brand kit today. That one-time setup will save you hours every week.
- Block out one hour this week to batch your next 5–10 graphics using templates. Use the auto-resize and layout features to repurpose them across platforms.
- Start thinking of design as a system, not a task. When you automate the repetitive parts, you free up time to focus on what actually grows your business.
You don’t need to be a designer to create visuals that look sharp and perform well. You just need the right tools—and a smarter way to use them. Once you shift from manual design to automated workflows, you’ll wonder how you ever did it the old way.
The goal isn’t to make perfect graphics. It’s to make good graphics fast, consistently, and without draining your energy. That’s what smart design is really about.
And when your visuals are handled, you get to focus on the work that actually matters—serving your customers, building your business, and doing more of what you’re great at.