Run a design request queue in Trello: setup and review

If clients keep messaging to ask what is in progress, give them a Trello board they can see. Explain one distinction up front: receipt means the studio has the request; active means a designer has accepted it. Give every client their own six-list board, let them order the Ready list, and spend 15 minutes each morning checking risk first, then waiting work, then new intake.

This page covers the board setup and a worked morning for an illustrative six-designer studio. It also covers an urgent request landing mid-job, and a table for diagnosing why clients are really waiting. The state names match the requests and delivery guide, and the one-card Active list follows the one active request rule.

Set up the Trello board: one board per client, six lists

Make one board per client and invite the client to it as a guest. Each client then sees only their own work, which is exactly what the "what is in progress?" emails are asking for. A single studio board with every client on it looks tidier to you, but either every client sees everyone else's cards or you spend your week managing permissions.

Use the same six lists on every client board, in this order:

• Intake. Anything the client submits. Nothing here is promised yet.
• Ready. Briefs that passed your readiness checklist. The client drags these into their own priority order, top card first.
• Active. One card. This is the only list that means "a designer is on it".
• Waiting for client. Work that stopped because you need an input, a decision or an asset from them.
• In review. A version has been sent and the client owes feedback or approval.
• Done this month. Approved work with final files attached. Archive the list at month end so it stays short.

Build a card template from the fields in the design request brief: goal, audience, format and sizes, copy, brand assets, deadline and the person who approves. Add a readiness checklist to the template (brief complete, assets attached, approver named, size confirmed) so a card cannot slide from Intake to Ready on hope. Give each card a label for its request family: social, presentation, web page. That is how you spot a client whose "one thing" is really five.

Use the card's due date for the next update you owe the client, not the delivery deadline. Put the deadline in the brief. When the due date turns red on the board, it means somebody is owed a message today, which is the thing clients actually complain about.

Agree who moves what, and write it on the board description:

• The client adds cards to Intake and reorders Ready. Nothing else.
• The queue owner moves Intake to Ready and Ready to Active.
• The designer moves Active to In review or Waiting for client, and In review to Done this month once approval is recorded.

You still need one place to see all 20 client boards at once. Two common options: a studio overview board where the queue owner keeps one card per client that links to that client's board, or Trello's own cross-board features. Trello's pricing page lists card mirroring, built-in automation and a Workspace table view among its plan features. Check which plan includes each before you build your routine around it. Keep Slack for conversation and Figma for the files, and link both from the card rather than letting decisions live there.

Do client guests count as Trello seats?

Trello Free covers up to 10 collaborators per Workspace (Trello pricing). Six staff plus 20 clients is 26 people, well over that cap. Our September 2026 read of the pricing page did not settle whether a client invited as a guest counts toward the Free cap or needs a paid seat. Confirm this with Trello before you invite 20 clients, because it decides whether your bill grows with your staff or with your client list. For current per-seat prices, see the Trello, Notion and ClickUp comparison, which works out the cost for one to six people.

Run the daily review in 15 minutes

Take an illustrative studio, not a real one: six designers, 20 clients, one active request each. On an example Tuesday at 9am the 20 client boards hold 20 cards with a slot: 13 in Active, 4 in In review and 3 in Waiting for client. Behind them sit 31 cards in Ready and 6 new cards in Intake since yesterday. The queue owner works through them in this order:

1. Active work at risk (4 minutes). Filter the 13 Active cards for a red due date or a missed first-review estimate. Say two are at risk. Tell those two clients what changed before anyone quietly starts something else.
2. Waiting work (3 minutes). Open the 3 Waiting cards. Every blocker needs a specific input, the person who owes it and a date you will look again. An old "waiting" label is not a recovery plan.
3. New intake (4 minutes). Run the readiness checklist on the 6 Intake cards. Send missing inputs back as one list per card. Unready work stays out of the scheduling decision, however urgent its title.
4. Ready order (1 minute). Glance at the top card on each client's Ready list. If two people at the same client have reordered it this week, ask who the approver is before a designer begins.
5. Start the next request (2 minutes). Move a Ready card into Active only where a slot is free and the right designer has room. Set the next-update date and note the first-review estimate and what it assumes.
6. Close finished work (1 minute). Check that the 4 In review cards with approval recorded have final files attached before they move to Done this month and release the slot under your policy.

Twenty slots across six designers is just over three live requests each, which is why the review starts with risk rather than intake. For scale, Brett Williams ran his solo service on Trello with clients allowed "only one active request at a time". He says he finished "12-13 requests per day" (Indie Hackers AMA, May 2021). A 2025 podcast recap describes the same set-up as "Clients can request one thing at a time via Trello" (podcast recap, June 2025). That is one founder's account of his own output, not a turnaround you should promise. Check your own numbers with capacity planning before you add a client.

The output of the review is four facts per client: the current commitment, the next likely request, any blocker and who sends the next update. Log exceptions and approvals on the request with the workflow approval checklist.

An urgent request lands mid-job

Illustrative example: the Active card on a client's board is a 12-slide sales presentation, first draft half built. At 11am the client adds "Event graphic, need it Thursday" to Intake and messages you on Slack. Do not simply drag the graphic above the active presentation. The presentation already holds work and may need a restart later.

Ask the designer for a safe stopping point on the presentation and look at the graphic's brief. Then tell the client three things in one message: what will pause, which estimate is no longer valid and what you do not know yet. Ask them to choose, and record the choice on both cards. If the graphic's brief is missing sizes or copy, it stays in Intake. An urgent deadline does not make an incomplete brief ready.

If they choose the graphic, the presentation moves back to the top of Ready with a comment saying where it stopped. The graphic goes to Active with its own next-update date.

Decide how a blocked request re-enters Active

You can keep a blocked request in its slot, or release the slot and reassess the request when the input arrives. Either policy can be explained to clients. The unsafe option is to release the slot while silently promising immediate resumption.

Write the choice into your terms and the board description. When the missing input lands, check whether the brief or the effort changed, and whether the same designer is free. Then give the client a revised next step and date. If you release slots, the returning card goes to the top of Ready, not straight back into Active.

Find out why cards are ageing on the board

Once a fortnight, pull every card older than your usual turnaround and write down why it is old. Compare the real next action with the list it sits in. Card counts alone will not tell you what to fix; the cause will.

When Trello stops being enough

If clients need a login that shows several boards, or you need an approval history Trello cannot hold, compare tools using the project management criteria. Trello vs Notion vs ClickUp for a request queue puts the three side by side with September 2026 prices.