Report

1 Sep – 13 Sep · vs last year: 1 Sep 2025 – 13 Sep 2025

Today Yesterday 7 days 28 days This month Last month 90 days 12 months

What the gate came to: how much was checked, how much was right the first time, which rules actually caught something and who sent the cleanest work. Counts of rules, never a grade for anybody's design.

Files checked

The gate

150

▼ 0.7%vs last year

Passed first time

Computed

69.3%

▲ 3.1 ptvs last year

Nothing broken on the first round

Issues per file

The gate

0.49

▲ 0.04vs last year

73 findings in all

Hours to a decision

The gate

4.4 h

▲ 0.6 hvs last year

The gate takes under a minute. The rest is a person's diary.

Sent back

The gate

▼ 9.8%vs last year

From outside

The gate

▲ 20.8%vs last year

Agency, printer and supplier files, through the same door

The period, in short

Files passed the first round 69 per cent of the time, against 66 per cent in the window before it3.1 pt.
The book did not change inside this window. Its last section, v7, arrived on 2026-08-04 and has been absorbed: the printer's specification came in as rules: ink ceiling, bleed, safety margin, embedded faces, colour space.
33 per cent of everything caught came from three rules — product fills the frame the channel asks for, body type reaches 4.5:1 against its ground, nothing written on a marketplace main image. A book with a long tail and a short head is a book that is mostly teaching three things.
34 of 58 rules caught nothing at all. That is not an argument for deleting them: a rule nobody breaks any more is usually a rule everybody has learned, and the year after it is deleted is the year it comes back.

Files checked

Everything that came through the gate, inside and outside, against the same length of time before it.

The gate

This period Last year

The rulebook did not change inside this window, so there are no hairlines on it. Widen the period to twelve months and the days the book grew a section appear on the line, each with the fortnight of failures that followed it.

Who sent it

Files through the gate in this period, by whoever put them there.

The gate

Content Studio
9765%
In-house designer
149%
The agency
117%
The label printer
117%
The web store
107%
A packaging supplier
75%

The three outside senders are a small share of the files and most of the round trips. An agency has the brief and the deadline and not the type licences; a printer changes artwork to make it print, which is its job and is also what the press rules are for.

Which part of the book caught it

Findings in this period, by the shelf of the rulebook the rule sits on.

Brand rulebook

The surface it is going to
2838%
Colour
1419%
Type
1014%
The press
710%
The words
68%
The mark
57%
The law, on a label
34%

A shelf catching nothing is not a shelf doing nothing. The law section is quiet most months and it is the one where a miss is a recall rather than a reprint.

What actually caught things

Every row is a rule in the book, by its own key. Add a rule and it appears here; delete one and it goes.

The rules that fired

The twelve rules that caught the most, 56 findings between them. The share is of everything caught in the period, so these do not add up to a hundred.

The gate

Rule	Shelf	How it is tested	Caught	Share	vs before
Product fills the frame the channel asks for	The surface it is going to	Measured	11	15%	+9
Body type reaches 4.5:1 against its ground	Colour	Measured	7	10%	+2
Nothing written on a marketplace main image	The surface it is going to	Measured	6	8%	+3
Headline clear of the platform's own furniture	The surface it is going to	Measured	4	5%	−5
Print files are CMYK, screen files are sRGB	Colour	Measured	4	5%	+2
Licensed for where it is going	Type	Measured	4	5%	−2
Clear space of one H on every side	The mark	Measured	4	5%	−5
Origin named, never implied	The words	Read	4	5%	−1
Inside the text the surface carries	The surface it is going to	Measured	3	4%	0
Three millimetres of bleed on every edge	The press	Measured	3	4%	+2
A shape the surface takes	The surface it is going to	Measured	3	4%	−3
Nothing set under the surface's smallest size	Type	Measured	3	4%	+2

Every rule in this table is one that is measured or read, and that is not a coincidence: a rule a vision model raises is a question rather than a finding, and it is not counted here until a person has agreed with it. The same goes for the lines on the checklist. What is left is arithmetic and matching, which is exactly why these are the rules allowed to stop a file on their own.

The period, against the one before it

1 Sep – 13 Sep · against 1 Sep 2025 – 13 Sep 2025

Computed

Files checked
Everything that came through the gate, inside and outside.
150▼ 0.7% from 151
Passed first time
Nothing measured or read came back broken on the first round.
69.3%▲ 3.1 pt from 66.2%
Sent back
Each one with the findings and the rule behind them attached.
46▼ 9.8% from 51
Issues per file
Counted over every file, not only over the ones that broke something.
0.49▲ 0.04 from 0.45
Hours from arriving to a decision
The gate finishes in under a minute; this is how long the answer waited on a person.
4.4 h▲ 0.6 h from 3.8 h
Rules that caught something
Out of 58 in the book. This is how much of it earned its place this period.
24▲ 14.3% from 21
Rules that caught nothing
Not the same as rules doing nothing. Most of these are the ones everybody has already learned.
34▼ 8.1% from 37

Rule

Shelf

How it is tested

Caught

vs before

Product fills the frame the channel asks for

The surface it is going to

Measured

15%

Body type reaches 4.5:1 against its ground

Colour

Measured

10%

Nothing written on a marketplace main image

The surface it is going to

Measured

Headline clear of the platform's own furniture

The surface it is going to

Measured

−5

Print files are CMYK, screen files are sRGB

Colour

Measured

Licensed for where it is going

Type

Measured

−2

Clear space of one H on every side

The mark

Measured

−5

Origin named, never implied

The words

Read

−1

Inside the text the surface carries

The surface it is going to

Measured

Three millimetres of bleed on every edge

The press

Measured

A shape the surface takes

The surface it is going to

Measured

−3

Nothing set under the surface's smallest size

Type

Measured

The period, against the one before it

1 Sep – 13 Sep · against 1 Sep 2025 – 13 Sep 2025

Computed

Files checked
Everything that came through the gate, inside and outside.
150▼ 0.7% from 151
Passed first time
Nothing measured or read came back broken on the first round.
69.3%▲ 3.1 pt from 66.2%
Sent back
Each one with the findings and the rule behind them attached.
46▼ 9.8% from 51
Issues per file
Counted over every file, not only over the ones that broke something.
0.49▲ 0.04 from 0.45
Hours from arriving to a decision
The gate finishes in under a minute; this is how long the answer waited on a person.
4.4 h▲ 0.6 h from 3.8 h
Rules that caught something
Out of 58 in the book. This is how much of it earned its place this period.
24▲ 14.3% from 21
Rules that caught nothing
Not the same as rules doing nothing. Most of these are the ones everybody has already learned.
34▼ 8.1% from 37