Design agency MetaLab keeps client work organized & collaborative
MetaLab is a product design firm with a team that works remotely around the world, serving clients like Amazon and Tinder. Multiple ongoing projects made docs unfindable — now, they're organized and accessible in Notion.
Justin Watt
Director of Ops & Marketing
Georgia McGillivray
Operations Manager
Marie Gosal
デザインディレクター
Lee Giles
Product Designer
A custom homepage for every project
Notion pages are highly customizable, helping MetaLab build documentation to fit every client's needs. For each project, MetaLab creates a Notion page. Inside that page, teams can add other related pages — like for user research, drafts, or prototypes. This system bundles client work for easy navigation. It's all right there for quick understanding, even for those outside the team to see.
Every time we start a project we're feeling out the client's needs and preferences. Some want more documentation or more narrative, and Notion supports that.
デザインディレクター
A better way to present to clients
It’s a norm for agencies is to spend hours creating regular presentations for clients to showcase recent progress. They’re glossy and time intensive, but hard for the client to comment on in detail.
MetaLab broke away from this status quo and now presents design work to clients in Notion. This saves a ton of time on designing updates, which clients appreciate. And also makes the process more collaborative. Instead of weekly decks feeling like they're encased in glass, MetaLab uses Notion to welcome clients into the workshop, empowering them to leave detailed feedback on specific design elements.
"Notion creates a great opportunity for us to make workflow collaboration two-way between us and the client," says Design Lead Lee Giles.
Saving time (and sanity) with a single set of internal docs
Relying on several shared drives often made running the business of MetaLab a scavenger hunt for correct docs. Today, vital employee info is instantly findable in their homepage. Toolkits created in Notion help run projects consistently, which include guides for client relationships, team structure, and more. All teams stay on the same page with one playbook.
We got rid of nearly a dozen different tools because of what Notion does for us.
Director of Ops & Marketing
One index for all past decisions
MetaLab's design teams work in 7-day sprints. With many people working in parallel, it's hard to learn from each other — or understand the context that went into each sprint.
How'd they arrive at a decision? Where's the rationale? What about the feedback?
Instead of relying on memory, MetaLab now relies on Notion as a repository of information, documenting every process. And every decision can be made with complete perspective.
Without a tool like Notion, you run the risk of ideas not being shared and context not being captured. If you don't have those, I think you're devaluing your design efforts.
デザインディレクター
