Topic: Design Operations

Design Ops vs
Creative Ops

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If you've heard both of the terms DesignOps and CreativeOps floating around and wondered what the difference is, you're definitely not alone. They sound similar and overlap in places, however they're not exactly the same thing.

DesignOps: The Operations Behind Product Design

DesignOps - short for Design Operations - is all about making the design process smoother, faster, and more consistent. It focuses on the needs of UX designers, product designers, and researchers.

Think of it as:

• Setting up systems like Figma libraries or standardized design systems.
• Streamlining research ops—user testing, feedback loops, insights management.
• Building processes so design teams spend less time managing logistics and more time designing.

The heart of DesignOps is efficiency inside product design workflows.

CreativeOps: The Engine Behind Creative Production

CreativeOps - Creative Operations - is the broader umbrella. It looks at the full picture of how creative work (not just design) moves from idea to execution.

CreativeOps serves cross-disciplinary creative teams such as: designers, copywriters, art directors, photographers, videographers, producers, and freelancers.

It covers:

• Intake systems for campaign requests
• Creative Milestones within a timeline, resourcing and vendor management
• Aligning creative with marketing, product, and leadership.
• Delivering high-quality creative work - consistently and at scale

The heart of Creative Ops is orchestrations across all creative functions.

The Key Difference

Here's the simplest way to think about it:

• DesignOps = scaling product design
• Creative Ops = scaling creative output across campaigns, content, and brand

If the challenge is optimizing how your UX team works -> you need DesignOps.

If the challenge is producing, managing, and delivering creative at scale -> you need Creative Ops.

Why They Exist

Both roles exist to remove friction, increase clarity, and give creatives their time to actually create.

DesignOps zooms in on the product design process.
​CreativeOps zooms out to cover the entire creative ecosystem.
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​And while the two functions differ, they're cousins - you'll often see overlap, especially in organizations where product design and creative marketing need to work hand in hand.

Hope this helps provide some clarity. If you're looking for more frequent content, be sure to subscribe to be notified for each blog release, but signing up.

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