If you've ever been the person managing artwork through Marketing, Legal, Brand, and Executive reviews, you know the chaos. Files pile up. You lose track of which feedback came from whom. And by the time you get to R12_FINAL_realfinal_approved2.pdf, nobody remembers what actually changed between revision 3 and revision 7.
There was no clean, centralised place to log revisions, attach the actual artwork, record department feedback, and compare versions side by side. Spreadsheets aren't built for it. Email threads definitely aren't. So I built one.
A custom-built web app for tracking multi-department artwork revisions, from first draft to final sign-off. It was built collaboratively using Claude AI as a development partner. Concept, requirements, design direction, and workflow decisions are my own.
The Artwork Revision Manager is a browser-based app that gives you a single place to track every iteration of an artwork file with the actual file attached, not just a filename. It was designed specifically around the reality of print and packaging production: multiple stakeholders, multiple file formats, and a paper trail that actually makes sense.
Core features
SVG and PDF support: upload vector files directly or paste raw SVG code. PDFs render a first-page thumbnail automatically using PDF.js.
Version timeline: every revision is logged with version number, date, department, feedback notes, and a visual thumbnail. The latest version is always pinned at the top.
Auto changelog: each new revision is automatically compared to the previous one and a plain-English summary of structural changes is generated (path counts, canvas dimensions, new or removed colours).
Side-by-side version compare: pick any two versions and see a colour-coded diff: what was added, removed, or changed between them, with previews of both files.
Persistent storage: all revision data is saved to your account and survives between sessions. Come back a week later, everything is exactly where you left it.
Changelog export: one click opens a formatted changelog in a new tab, ready to save as PDF or copy into a handover document.
Design decisions
A few intentional choices went into how this was built:
Department colour-coding
Every revision is tagged by department: Marketing, Legal, Brand, Executive, and more. Each with a distinct colour badge. At a glance, you can see the review history and who weighed in at each stage. In packaging production, knowing that Legal signed off on version 3 but Brand made changes in version 4 is genuinely critical information.
Plain-English diffs, not raw code
The diff engine doesn't surface raw SVG XML at you. It translates structural changes into readable language: 'Paths: 12 → 18 (+6)' or 'New colours introduced: Pantone 544C'. That's useful for a production manager who needs to explain changes to a client, not just a developer reading source code.
PDF thumbnails without a server
Rendering PDF previews in a browser normally requires a backend. By using PDF.js entirely client-side, the app renders the first page of any uploaded PDF as a canvas image, no server, no upload, no privacy concerns. The file stays on your machine.
Auto-incrementing version numbers
When you add a new revision, the version number field pre-fills with the next logical increment based on your existing history. Small detail, but it removes friction when you're logging your eighth round of changes and just want to get it done.
