There are many design agency web tools to help scale your business, whether you’re a small business, enterprise or start-up.
In this article, we’re highlighting our favorite tools for design agencies, so you can:
- move faster
- work to a higher standard
- save time and (in the long run) money
- gain the capacity to take on more business
- elevate your agency to an expert level for your clients
Want to say “yes” to more opportunities?
Give these design agency project management tools a try to streamline your collaboration process with our tried and tested recommendations.
Collaboration/project management tools for design agencies
- Monday.com
Used by over 100,000 teams, monday.com boasts “everything your team needs to execute their best work” through a simple-to-navigate dashboard, complete with Gantt charts and member profiles.
This is great if you’ve got multiple designers working on one project that needs direct feedback from your client. Plus, you can integrate multiple platforms within it, like Excel or Microsoft Teams.
- G Suite
Google’s suite of ‘intelligent apps’ offers businesses a variety of cloud-based tools to keep things running smoothly. Manage emails through GMail, meetings through Google Calendar and Hangouts, and gain clarity of it all through the Admin console.
A simple but effective way to store project files and documents, G Suite’s Google Drive allows you to provide different levels of access to people within your agency – as well as the client – accessible anywhere with WiFi.
Storage can fill up quickly, but there’re options to purchase more at affordable costs.
- Slack
Could Slack be the end of email? This nifty tool allows for real-time conversations between agency members and clients.
Grouped into project ‘channels’, your designers won’t risk waiting until the next day for vital feedback or changes in design briefs, and your client won’t feel left in the dark on the project’s progress.
And in this time of remote working, Slack claims that their software made “91% of users feel that their ability to work remotely has improved”.
- HubSpot CRM
An all-in-one platform for businesses large and small, HubSpot offers powerful CRM (Customer Relationships Management) software.
With automated alerts when a prospective client visits your website or submits a contact form, your teams will have all the information they need in an instant to close the deal on that next revenue-driving design project.
And if something changes with your client’s business? You can prepare before they even pick up the phone.
Other great design agency web tools to try out:
- Trello
- Asana
- Or read this article to go deeper into project management
Design Development Tools for Design Agencies
1. Figma
A collaborative platform for your entire design team, Figma boasts an impressive customer portfolio from Uber to Dropbox to Spotify. Figma simplifies designing for the web through responsive tools such as auto-layouts, auto-file saves and live edit links, accessible with WiFi, meaning you can hit that deadline from anywhere.
Motion Designer, Jon Sontag, says that “Figma is a great way to quickly design, build, and export files for animation and prototyping. It’s easy to use and has all the tools I need to get the job done. The mobile app live preview is a really nice touch.”.
2. Design Force
Of course, we have to include ourselves! The most efficient way to upscale your design output and avoid turning away new business, is to outsource additional work to a pool of world-class designers that have the skills you need to produce more in less time.
Design Force’s on-demand model allows you to work with our team of professional designers whenever needed and increase your subscription as and when your business requirements outgrow your current capacity. So as your business scales, your output seamlessly scales with you. As Kait Reis, Marketing at Bid Ops says, “My in-house team is so small and busy, so having Design Force on my side makes my job easier!”
Find out more about how to get started in just one day, here.
3. Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator
The pinnacle of design platforms, Adobe Creative Suite’s Photoshop and Illustrator are powerful tools to have in your creative arsenal, whether you’re working on pixel or vector based designs.
By listening to the changing needs of designers and responding with more and more intuitive and adaptable features, they’ve created space for digital design like no other platform on the planet. If you’re not using their programs within your agency, you should be.
4. Sketch
Noted as perhaps one of the only platforms to pip Adobe off the top spot, Sketch makes designing specifically for mobile and UI a priority.
Designed by designers, for designers, its in-built resize tool allows you to up-scale your design works within the platform with just a click, without affecting proportions or padding, as it’s 100% vector based.
Plus, its real-time collaboration and Mac app make developer handoffs easier than ever.
5. Elementor
Elementor is “the world’s leading WordPress website builder”, used by over 5 million professionals, including us. Control every aspect of your client’s website or landing page design, with visual design tools and 100% clean code, to make them stand out from the crowd.
Scale the right way using these tools for design agencies
Let’s wrap up.
How can these project management tools scale your business?
- Produce more, high-quality work in less time
- manage client relationships seamlessly
- become more efficient
- so you can say yes to more business
If you find yourself attracting more than you can handle right now, don’t worry. Design Force’s agency subscription will step in to lighten the load.
Find out how, get in touch today.
