The 6 Best Collaborative Tools for Freelance Designers
As a freelance designer, finding the right tools to design, communicate and manage your work can be a challenge. To help you out, we've rounded up six collaborative tools that can make your life easier. Most of them offer a free licence for freelancers.
1. Figma
Figma is a collaborative interface design tool that lets you collaborate, and share your work with clients, partners and other designers. Figma has an outstandingly large library of mockups for different needs from design systems to developing. Figma also makes it easy to share your work with clients and partners for feedback, streamlining the design process.
2. Artboard Studio
Artboard Studio is a tool worth keeping an eye on. They describe themselves as a "All-in-one graphic and motion design tool for creating high-quality and compelling marketing assets." It may not be as well-known, but they offer interesting tools for vector, image, audio and video. In comparison to Figma.
Artboard’s Starter pack is free. They offer 3 project limit with free mockup items and content. Note, that in the Starter plan their video exports are low res.
3. Slack
Slack is a powerful communication tool that helps you stay organized and connected with your clients and team. With Slack's channels, you can divide your different client projects into separate environments, making it easier to keep track of each project. Slack also allows for more efficient work compared to email and helps you distinguish between personal messages and client projects.
4. Miro
Miro is an online collaborative whiteboard that's easy to understand and use, even for those with no tech or design knowledge. It's perfect for hosting brand workshops, brainstorming or similar events, as it enables real-time collaboration with your team and partners.
5. Focal
Focal is a creative asset management platform built for marketing and design work. It's perfect for storing creative assets and building magical campaigns around them. Focal's Asset Library supports AI Search, helping you find what you need when you need it without manually tagging your files. When you double-click on an asset, you can open a collaborative Media player to add annotations and leave actionable comments on video, audio, presentations, or images. Focal also has Notion-inspired creative docs, where you can brief, collaborate and work on marketing plans and campaigns.
6. Loom
Loom is a great free tool for freelance designers as it allows for easy and efficient communication with clients through video messages. It simplifies feedback and design review processes, saving time and reducing misunderstandings. Loom also provides the ability to record and share design tutorials, making it a valuable resource for showcasing skills and building a professional portfolio.
Conclusion
In conclusion, these six collaborative tools are invaluable for freelance designers seeking to streamline their workflow and enhance communication with clients and partners. Each tool offers unique features that cater to different aspects of the design process, from brainstorming to asset management and client communication. Focal integrates well with many of the other tools listed, enabling seamless collaboration and improved organization of creative assets.
What is Focal?
Focal is a creative asset management platform perfect for asset-heavy teams. With Focal, you can ship effective ads 10x faster.
Our key features are an AI-powered search for creative assets, advanced media mockups, and collaborative docs designed for marketers. All features in Focal are seamlessly connected with Slack and Figma, so you don't need to waste time on manual copy+paste.
