Design a postcard campaign

Create a set of four postcard designs for a Spring sale at Greenline Apparel to mail to 2,000 neighborhood addresses. Each card must be 4.25 x 6 inches, include the headline 'Spring Refresh — 30% off entire store', the offer code SPRING30, a bold call-to-action 'Shop in-store or at 98 Harbor Road', an expiration date May 31, and space on the back for postal stamp and address lines. Prepare print-ready files with CMYK colors and crop marks by next Wednesday.

Before I hand these postcards to the direct mail vendor, make them easier for a busy recipient to act on: put the discount code in a high-contrast badge on the front, create one variant with a clear photo of our bestselling jacket, flag any legal fine print about exclusions, and add a small QR code linking to a store landing page that preloads SPRING30.

I have three postcard mockups from Miguel; two are stylish but the SPRING30 code blends into patterns and the vendor demanded a single clear instruction they can use for automated sorting. I worry the marketing director, Janice, will reject anything that looks 'cheap.' Should I insist we create one stripped-down version with the code in a solid badge and a single CTA, or attempt to tweak the best-looking option so the code stands out? Which approach keeps Janice happy and the mail house problem-free?

Each quarter we redo postcard templates, I chase approvals from product and legal, then miss the mail-drop and pay extra for reprint. We lose production time and the store manager loses trust that campaigns will launch on time. What process change or template rule should I impose so the postcard is sign-off ready two weeks before mailing and we stop paying rush charges?