When One Role Covers Both Design and Data
I was brought in to support a small digital marketing agency that needed someone comfortable wearing multiple hats. The scope covered two distinct areas: graphic design work using Canva, and data management across Excel and Google Sheets. On paper, it seemed straightforward. In practice, the volume and complexity of both workloads running simultaneously made it anything but.
The agency was producing social media creatives, promotional banners, and internal reports on a near-daily basis. At the same time, their campaign data was scattered across multiple spreadsheets with inconsistent formatting, broken formulas, and no clear structure for tracking performance over time. Both sides of the work needed attention — and they needed it at the same time.
Handling the Canva Side of Things
I started with the graphic design work since the team had a backlog of Canva assets that needed to be completed before the end of the week. The tasks ranged from resizing existing templates for different platforms to building new social media graphics from scratch using brand colors and fonts.
This part went reasonably well. Canva made it manageable to stay within brand guidelines while moving quickly. I worked through the backlog, standardized a set of reusable templates, and handed off a folder of export-ready files. The team could now create consistent visuals without starting from a blank canvas each time.
Where the Data Work Got Complicated
The Excel and Google Sheets side was a different story. The agency had several live tracking sheets — one for ad campaign performance, one for client reporting, and another for internal project timelines. None of them were talking to each other properly. There were manual data entry errors, misaligned columns, and formulas that referenced cells that no longer existed.
I could handle basic spreadsheet work, but what this situation required was a structured rebuild. The client reporting sheet alone had data going back over a year, formatted differently in each month's tab. Consolidating it into something clean and usable — with proper lookups, automated summaries, and visual indicators — was a level of data architecture work that would have taken me far longer than the timeline allowed.
I also realized that some of what they needed was not just a fixed spreadsheet, but a connected workflow between the data and the visual reports the agency was sharing with its own clients. That overlap between data management and presentation design was a gap I could not close alone.
Bringing in the Right Support
After hitting that wall, I came across Helion360. I explained the situation — the messy spreadsheets, the reporting workflow, and the need to eventually turn that data into clean client-facing visuals. Their team took it from there.
Helion360 restructured the Google Sheets tracking system, cleaned up the Excel reporting files, and built a consistent data layout that the agency could maintain going forward. They also helped translate some of the campaign performance data into presentation-ready visuals that the agency could drop directly into client reports. The turnaround was clean and the output was immediately usable — no back-and-forth to fix broken references or reformatting issues.
What the Combined Workflow Looked Like After
Once Helion360 handled the data architecture side, my role became much more focused. I managed the Canva design work and kept the spreadsheets updated using the structure that had been set up. The two workstreams — design and data — finally had a clear separation, and both were functioning properly.
The agency went from having scattered assets and unreliable reports to a system where creatives were consistent and data was trackable. For a small team without a dedicated operations person, that kind of structure matters more than most people realize until it breaks down.
What I Took Away From This
Managing both graphic design and data operations at the same time is entirely doable — but only when the underlying systems are solid. Canva is a strong tool for fast, brand-consistent design work. Excel and Google Sheets can handle serious operational data, but they need to be set up correctly from the start. When they are not, the data-heavy reports pile up fast.
If you are dealing with a similar mix of design backlogs and messy spreadsheets that need real structure, Helion360 is worth reaching out to. They stepped in at the point where the complexity exceeded what one person could reasonably solve, and the work they delivered made everything downstream much easier to manage.