Where the work and the money agree
Design projects go wrong in the gaps between the proposal, the feedback and the invoice. One shared record closes most of them.
A brand identity project usually starts well. The proposal goes over email, it is accepted, the first payment arrives. Then the work moves into a chat. Designs go across as images, comments come back between other messages, revisions follow, and within a month the history of the project lives in a thread nobody can search.
Why do creative projects drift?
Because the three things that matter live in three different places. The agreement is in an email. The decisions are in a chat. The money is in a bank statement. When they disagree, which they eventually do, nobody can point to the moment anything was settled.
Most difficult conversations between a designer and a client start there. Both sides remember the project honestly and differently, and neither has a record that the other will accept.
What changes when they live together?
The client opens a link and sees where things stand: the work, what they said about it, what was approved and what is due. The designer sees the same page. A comment sits on the design it is about. An approval is recorded when it happens. The final files are released when the project is complete, which both sides agreed to at the start.
It makes the relationship easier, because neither side has to keep score.
Who is it for?
Designers first, because they carry most of the admin and almost nothing has been built for them. I am building it as Proof. The client side matters as much, so it asks for nothing from them: no account to make, no app to learn, a link they already know how to open.
The broader point applies to any service business. Wherever work, decisions and money are recorded separately, the relationship carries the cost. Put them in one record and most of that cost goes away.