7 Best Digital Design Workflow Tools

When you're in the digital design field, there's a lot of work behind the scenes that needs to be done. Whether it's onboarding a new client, creating content, SEO, branding, social media, or building an audience, your clients want to be able to rely on your services to provide everything they need in an efficient and reliable method.

It's easy to get lost in a sea of tools and apps that promise to make your workflow easier, keep you organized and help you do your job better. However, most of them don't live up to their promises. Instead, they're either buggy or take away from the creativity required for design work.

Most design professionals have a preferred set of tools they choose to use on a regular basis, and some clients may even provide their own tools. However, these tools are more of a mystery than anything else for everyone else. If you need some help finding the right tool, check out our list of the top digital workflow tools that will actually help with your process.

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Trello

Trello is our favorite project management tool. It allows you to create boards for specific clients, individual projects, or your own workflow processes. Your boards are composed of cards that act as the primary method of communication within Trello. These can be tasks, notes, ideas, files, or anything else you need to get across to your team members without clogging up email inboxes. 

Trello also lets you attach video and images directly onto the cards themselves, so there's no need for additional uploads later on down the line. Though not strictly a design tool itself, this is an app we couldn't leave out of the list as it allows you to communicate and coordinate with clients or team members efficiently.

Canva

Canva is a free online graphic design application that helps you create designs without the need for any previous design experience. Canva is built on a point-and-click system, so it's perfect for beginners but also gives experienced designers enough customization options to work with as well.  

In addition, it comes with pre-built templates and an image library so you can get started right away without having to do all the legwork yourself. As a digital designer, tools like these are beneficial for client work or even building your own brand through social media and blog content. 

Sketch

Sketch is a graphic design tool that's based around vector shapes. If you're looking for alternatives to Adobe Illustrator or are an indie designer simply looking for something productive, Sketch offers the perfect toolset you'd expect from professional graphics software without the hefty price tag.

If you're not familiar with vector images, these are basically images that use points and paths defined by math equations rather than pixels. The big perk here is that you can scale it up infinitely without losing any quality whatsoever once your image is created. 

It also helps designers who work with multiple mobile devices as vectors are pixel independent, so they adjust automatically without having to worry about blurry images or fuzzy text rendering and ruining their designs. 

Type Nugget

Type Nugget is an online tool that lets you play around with fonts and typefaces. Its main priority is helping designers find the perfect font for their projects. 

When you get stuck at the beginning of a project because everything seems to clash, Type Nugget can help you get your creative juices flowing again. Instead of digging through hundreds of fonts, you can use features like "Show similar" or "Group by genre" to narrow things down quickly, so you don't have to spend hours in front of your computer screen before finally getting started.

Github

Github is an online hub for open-source projects. It's a great place to start if you're just getting into coding or are looking to collaborate on your next big project. You can download content from other users, access tutorials and documentation, find someone to help with your project, or post your own work so others can see what you've done. 

This tool is especially helpful because Github also keeps a detailed history of all the changes within a project so you can quickly look back at past versions and see what was changed between each version. This comes in handy if multiple people are working on one project or want to find out where a specific piece of code came from.

Github offers both free and paid plans with pricing structures depending on how many users you need access for, what kind of private repositories you're using, and your different account levels.

Helio

Helio is an incredible platform for testing any type of design idea, prototypes, and more by letting you test your design with your ideal target audience. To get started, you'll simply need to choose your audience, upload your prototype or design, choose what questions you want to have answered and then receive your results. 

Are your clients spread out worldwide? Helio has plenty of audience options for you, whether you're looking for testers in the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or different parts of Europe. And if your primary target is located in one country but speaks another language (for example, if you want feedback from Spanish speakers in the U.S.), Helio has that covered too!

Salesforce

Finding leads, staying organized, and managing your pipeline can be daunting. That's where Salesforce comes in to make things easier for you. This is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool that will help you track all data related to clients, business contacts, or anyone else who might be part of your sales process.

What makes Salesforce great is that it helps eliminate manual work by configuring automation rules that save you time when following up with leads on autopilot. It also integrates tightly with other tools such as Gmail and Outlook, so you don't have to waste time switching between apps like most CRMs require today. 

Conclusion

Now that we've introduced you to some fantastic tools for designers and developers, we hope you'll bookmark this article and quickly come back when you need a little extra help with your projects. 

If you feel stuck or don't know where to start when it comes to design, our San Diego Digital Design Company is here to help. With almost two decades of experience, we're experts at crafting solutions, whether that's websites, app design, logo design, collateral materials, or anything else your company needs.

There's a reason we're consistently voted as the top San Diego Digital Agency. So don't hesitate to contact us today so we can help you thrive in your industry.