15 Best Design Collaboration Tools For Remote Teams

ProofHub
ProofHub Blog
Published in
10 min readNov 14, 2018

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Behind every successful business or brand is a team of talented skilled individuals who work hard to strategize, schedule, create, review, and test a design or product. But all this is beyond achieving if the team don’t get to collaborate effectively. And that’s something that can’t be done without the help of the technology, especially in the case of remote teams.

The thing is, companies today are becoming more comfortable allowing their employees and teams to manage their work remotely. According to the recent studies and surveys, most businesses have admitted that remote teams and freelancers are more productive and engaged at work — not to forget the amount of money they save for the company.

Now, as the culture of remote work continues to grow within the industry, the demand of design collaboration tools and services have also grown. Businesses have finally started to understand the importance of tools and apps that are available at their disposal. With that in mind, we have listed out 14 popular design collaboration tools that can help remote workers to collaborate in real-time and perform better.

“Connect, collaborate, share, & work together with ProofHub. Start your free trial now!”

Let’s have a look.

1. ProofHub

If you have ever looked into trending project management tool and team collaboration tools, then you must have come across tools that offer exactly what you need. ProofHub is one such tool. It’s an all-in-one solution that helps you run your business more efficiently and smoothly. With an array of advanced features and functionalities, ProofHub makes it easier for teams to collaborate and stay on top of projects/tasks, regardless of their actual geographical location. It improves your chances at successful information sharing, efficient task management, improved documentation, faster review and approval, and above all, timely delivery of projects.

Mentioned below are some of the key advantages of using ProofHub as a design collaboration tool:

  • You and your team can use ProofHub chat to send direct messages and get quick replies, ask questions, and get answers instantly while working on a common design or project.
  • Use emojis, attach files and share images within the chats with just one click.
  • @Mention specific people in chats to share an individual’s information.
  • Eliminate back and forth emails and share ideas, files, and documents in one place by creating discussion topics.
  • Limit visibility of particular discussion topics only to specific people by marking it as private.
  • Review files, proof them, collaborate on them, and approve them in one place, with one click.
  • Reduces the rounds of revision by providing and getting clear feedback on the design itself.
  • Collaborate on designs and documents in real-time using comments and markup tools.
  • Upload new versions of files and compare them with the previous versions to review changes.

Bonus advantage: With ProofHub, you not only get a powerful team collaboration tool — but you get an all-in-one solution that serves your every project management need. From brainstorming design idea to monitor the real-time progress of the team to marking the design project complete, ProofHub’s feature list has every feature and tool you may wish for. And most importantly, you can start working and collaborating on ProofHub it for FREE.

2. Filestage

The review and approval of a design is never easy, but remote teams will often find it particularly difficult. Those teams will have a tough time coordinating the review process to collect transparent feedback that doesn’t send conflicting messages.

Filestage can really help remote teams to take control of the review and approval process. The tool acts as an intuitive centralized platform that team members can use to leave transparent, in-context feedback. This means that remote teams can share useful and insightful feedback for your designers.

Best of all, each comment automatically creates a new task within the integrated to-do list. This means that designers will never miss a piece of important feedback. Version control is a breeze, too, and helps the entire remote team to move forward in complete harmony.

Those users can also display their final approval in just a couple of clicks, too. This gives project managers the power to see how a design has been reviewed and whether or not a project is ready to move to completion.

Filestage places security at its core, too, and it is protected by 256-bit SSL encryption. This means that remote teams can collaborate on designs in complete confidence.

3. ezTalks

ezTalks stands out from the best design collaboration tools for remote teams which enables to collaborate interactively, work effectively and share seamlessly. ezTalks Meetings offers multiple features for your design collaboration, such as high-quality audio & video conferencing, screen sharing, remote control, interactive whiteboard, instant messaging, polling, recording, and etc. Screen sharing helps you share your design works or processes easily with your co-workers no matter where they are. With an interactive whiteboard, you can easily present and exchange ideas with each other. Instant messages allow the team to have a group chat with texts, voice messages or pictures even after the meeting while polls and surveys help you collect the opinions from the team.With ezTalks Meetings, you can invite up to 100 participants to join your group meeting for free.

4. Binfire

Binfire is a popular virtual office for remote teams. It is a place where designers can come together to efficiently collaborate on all aspects of the design process. This software works for all projects, no matter what project management approach you prefer. Whether it’s Agile, Waterfall, or a hybrid project management approach, Binfire works the way you want it to.

5. Cage

Cage is one of the top media collaboration tools and project management solutions available today. This software is designed to aid agencies, designers, and teams to share their work for creative review. It streamlines team communication, resource management, project management, media review, and approval — everything at one single place. It allows everyone to save a lot of time, quit juggling work, complete projects on time, and move forward to the next one as planned.

6. Deekit

A major problem faced by many designers and teams is coming unprepared to discuss the product/design or failing to provide clients with the information they need. With a software like Deekit, things are no longer complicated. This software brings clarity to the entire project management process and leaves no excuse for teams to fail to deliver the desired results on time. The software works for all mobile devices and certainly makes review and collaboration process easier.

7. DocHipo

DocHipo

When designing any document, taking input and ideas from your teammates is crucial. DocHipo is a graphic design software for busy entrepreneurs, marketers, and content creators that helps remote teams with seamless and interactive real-time design collaboration. You can invite your team members from the DocHipo account and share documents with them. You can choose the access you’d like to provide them with — read-only, read-write, or full access. Whatever changes are made to your design, it’ll reflect at your end in real-time. The version control will enable you to restore a document to its previous version or track its changes over time. Your teammates can also leave their insightful reviews and feedback in the editor’s comment section. And you can read them and reply in the comment section itself, eliminating the uncountable back and forth between the team members and saving you a lot of time. It’s a must-try application if you want your remote team to design productively.

8. GitHub

The members of a team may differ in their skills or location, but it’s imperative that they all work together as a unit to produce the right quality of a product or design. This is the part where software like GitHub proves ideal for team collaboration. GitHub is basically a development platform inspired by the way modern businesses and teams work. From hosting, reviewing, to managing projects, you can do a lot with a product like GitHub.

9. InVision

There is no doubt that InVision is one of the most comprehensive suites of design software available in the market. The experience you get with such software is completely flawless. It ensures that all the little details of your work process are executed/implemented effortlessly and everyone on your remote team is kept in sync throughout the process. Real-time team collaboration and communication is a key aspect of the work process and InVision gives you the ability to collaboratively plan, execute, and review projects with designers as well as stakeholders.

10. Join.me

We all can agree to the fact that sometimes it’s easier to get everyone (team members, clients, and stakeholders) on a call and talk them through the complete project. Now, if you really want to make sure that you are looking at the same thing and talking about the same element of the project, then a screen sharing software like Join.me is exactly what you are looking for.

11. Zoom

If you have ever worked as a remote team member, you likely have the not-so-good experience of unclear instructions and frustrating glitches. Thankfully, today’s business world comprises reliable video conferencing tools like Zoom that make your remote work experience much more delightful and productive. Zoom is considered the world’s go-to collaboration tool and is pulling in top ratings based on its power-packed feature list.

12. Conceptboard

In early business days, it was a lot easier for teams and clients to get on the same page regarding ideas and projects. But with the introduction of remote work culture, things have become a little complicated. However, remote teams and companies have the option to digitize their entire design process with the help of design collaboration tools like Conceptboard. One of the best things about this tool is that it caters to the specific needs of a designer or design. The platform works for all kinds of marketing design needs. Just upload your file and let your team members collaborate visually.

13. Basecamp

Basecamp, formerly named 37signals, is a project management and team collaboration platform. The biggest advantage of working with Basecamp is that it makes staying on the same page easier for people working together on a common project. In addition to that, it simplifies the process of resource planning and long-term scheduling during the project management life cycle.

14. Airtable

Airtable is an all-in-one solution targeting small to midsize businesses. This project management platform primarily focuses on two aspects of project management, including collaboration and organization. With Airtable, teams can organize data, connect together, sync work across multiple devices, integrates seamlessly with platforms like such as Dropbox, Box, Evernote and Google Drive, and get work done within the expected time frame.

15. GoVisually

GoVisually is a collaboration proofing software used by creative, marketing, and media teams worldwide. The platform is all about collaboration and control. With GoVisually, individuals and teams can simply upload the files that they want to get to be reviewed, invite each other to join to collaborate on the file, and then keep tabs on every aspect of the project (or projects) from a centralized and organized platform. Pricing? Well, the product pricing starts at $12 per month and it also provides an initial free trial.

Your turn

At the end of the day, all that matters is producing the highest quality of work. So, be sure that you make every person’s input count. Start evaluating the aforementioned design collaboration tools, identify what’s best for your business, and integrate it into your work process, immediately. Keep every member of your team engaged and concentrate on improving the bottom line.

Did you find the perfect design collaboration tool for your remote team? Tell us in the comments section!

“Looking for a tool to improve team collaboration? Give ProofHub a try now!”

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Plan effectively, Collaborate seamlessly, Organize evenly and Deliver timely with ProofHub. Available at www.proofhub.com, App Store and Google Play Store.