Note: we’ve updated this article for 2024!
Whether your team is all in the same office or distributed around the globe, choosing the right creative collaboration tools has never been more important. As the industry constantly evolves, more and more companies are introducing and up-leveling products to help designers, marketers, videographers, copywriters, creative directors, and even operations folks cut busywork and explore new creative frontiers. What does that mean for you? Your creative collaboration tools tech stack is probably much more robust than it was pre-pandemic… heck, it's probably stronger than it was last year.
We’ve rounded up our picks for the best creative collaboration tools out there in 2024. But don’t you worry—if something big launches, we’ll run right back here and add it ASAP. From design software to workflow support, proactive asset licensing to feedback support for photo and video, the gang’s all here!
Check out what we (humbly) consider to be the Best Collaboration Tools For Creative Teams In 2024.
Best Creative Collaboration Tools For Workflow
Best Creative Collaboration Tools For Brainstorming and Mapping
Best Creative Collaboration Tools For Design
Best Creative Collaboration Tool For Photography
Best Creative Collaboration Tool For Video
Best Creative Collaboration Tool For Font Management
Best Creative Collaboration Tool For Licensing Compliance
Best Creative Collaboration Tools For Workflow
Asana
It takes more than creativity to execute a new project. It also takes foresight and planning. And believe it or not, it’s totally possible to manage projects without feeling bogged down or overwhelmed. That’s where Asana comes in. Any project can be improved with better organization, and Asana brings this mindset to everyone on your team. With intuitive design that lets you see all your planning in one place, Asana makes project management easy and enjoyable.
Dropmark
Looking for a way to map out your entire workflow in one place? Creative teams all around the world have found a better way to collaborate in Dropmark, especially when it comes to web design. Dropmark gives teams a simple way to tag different webpages, add graphics to note improvements, and leave comments about what to keep and what to change. This is the essence of collaboration: an easier way to create great work together.
Best Creative Collaboration Tools For Brainstorming and Mapping
Mural
For our next collaboration tool, a bit of context. I started at Extensis the same week quarantine began in March 2020. So, considering I never met 80% of the people on my team face-to-face, I was wondering how we would brainstorm new ideas and prepare for new product launches.
The first time we used Mural it blew my mind. Not only is Mural responsive, intuitive, and easy to learn, it also sparks genuine conversation. Mural helps you see everyone’s unique perspective as well as where you share common ground. That makes it incredibly valuable for working together, wherever you are.
Miro
Many of us look at a whiteboard and see a clean slate. But fans of Miro see limitless potential. Miro makes it easier for you to share your creative ideas with a wider audience. From brainstorming to strategy, Miro has you covered.
Best Creative Collaboration Tools For Design
Adobe Creative Cloud
Do we even need to acknowledge something so obvious, so expected, so standard? Yes! Adobe Creative Cloud is folks’ go-to and a gold standard for a reason. It’s great and it doesn’t matter whether you’re a junior designer or a seasoned pro, almost everyone on a creative team knows how to use it. That means that when Designer A needs to jump ship to work on a client “emergency,” Designer B can easily step in and keep a project moving. Team members can even welcome collaboration by inviting each other to edit cloud documents directly in applications like Illustrator and Photoshop.
Adobe also made some important updates to Creative Cloud this past year. They’re empowering users to play and save time with AI in some really interesting (if not entirely un-controversial) ways, and some of their feature updates basically eradicate certain menial editing tasks.
Many graphic designers spend their entire careers mastering Adobe Creative Cloud solutions. But, as is often the case with creative work, bottlenecks can arise when you want to share your work with a colleague or get approval from a client. That’s where Creative Cloud libraries come in. Collaborate with your team members and other stakeholders on projects across the entire family of Adobe Creative Cloud apps. Explore Creative Cloud libraries and try adding them to your workflow today.
Figma
For any web designer who has ever wanted a simple way to share their ideas with their team, there’s Figma. Feedback, reorganizing, and editing can happen in real time with collaborators. This means that the review process moves faster, and new designs can be delivered quickly. Like any great tool for collaboration, Figma helps you avoid busywork so you have more time to create.
Best Creative Collaboration Tool For Photography
Creative Force
Creative Force supports photo workflows. Whether you’re dealing with an in-house photo department, freelancers, or a client serving up recent shoots on a platter, Creative Force is a tool unlike any other we’ve seen. For production houses, Creative Force’s system empowers you to assign tasks to everyone from wardrobe stylists to retouchers, ensuring that campaigns keep moving and are released on time. Explore Creative Force here.
Best Creative Collaboration Tool For Video
Frame.io
There are lots of design collaboration tools that support reviewing and feedback to accelerate approvals. Frame.io solves that same problem for video production… and thank goodness! Video content has never been more in demand. This solution helps busy teams meet the demand of video-forward campaigns and brands.
According to HubSpot, 96% of marketers consider video to be an “important part” of their marketing strategies. Check out their fascinating report on video marketing trends here.
Best Creative Collaboration Tool For Managing Fonts
Extensis Connect
Seamless Adobe plug-ins, simple font distribution for team projects, and the most accurate auto-activation in the biz makes Extensis Connect the obvious choice for teams turning out bold campaigns in record time. We designed this platform on a foundation of three decades of serving graphic designers. Creatives in the trenches will appreciate its simplicity, accuracy, and time saving tools that help them find the perfect star (and costar!) fonts for every project.
Connect has also evolved to elegantly handle the more complicated side of font management: licensing. The next section will cover that more. See why this font manager checks all the boxes.
Best Creative Collaboration Tool For Licensing Compliance
Connect + Insight
Look, we love a spreadsheet. We use spreadsheets for work. We even use spreadsheets for holiday shopping. We may have even use spreadsheets to rank how strongly our different team members actually fit with their astrology “big three” predictions, BUT DON’T TELL, OKAY?
But no matter how sortable and color-coded your spreadsheet is, there will come a day when tracking five thousand font EULAs in a shared spreadsheet becomes a recipe for disaster.
Connect + Insight empowers creative teams to scan for font licensing compliance errors at any point in a project. The last-minute licensing fire drill so many teams endure can become way more chill, and (more importantly) much more accurate—Project Risk Scanning provides suggested steps to remedy identified licensing problems, so launch day can be celebrated in peace.
Does the thought of launching a campaign with an improperly licensed font wake you in a cold sweat in the night? You’re not the only one. Soothe your worries with helpful resources in our Compliance Hub.
What tools are you loving right now? Let us know on Instagram or X (Twitter? Ex-Twitter? Whatever you savvy people are calling it now).
Want to learn about the adoption curve and why you should be an innovator? Of course you don’t, so don’t read this blog. Instead, read about the importance of freedom in design, and get some recc’s on cool font foundries you may already know about but should visit again anyway because you love indie stuff. Oh…you can do all that right here.
