The non-Adobe programs and software I use for my graphic design agency

Agency Life

Asana

This is our holy grail for project management. We use Asana to plan out our weekly projects and manage workflow amongst team members. 

Harvest

We have Harvest integrated with Asana for time tracking! Our designers simply need to hit the clock icon to turn on and off their timers as they design. 

Slack

A great way to chat about non project specific things throughout the workday. We have some fun channels like “Book Club” where we nerd-out over our latest reads, and “Client Love” where we shout out our designers when their work gets rave reviews from the clients

Gusto

I need to pay around 20+ contractors during the month. Gusto streamlines payments so I can reference their hours in Harvest and pay them each their rate for their hours each month and it directs deposits for them! 

Dropbox

We use dropbox for file sharing amongst the team. I encourage my team to sync dropbox to their desktops so we can seamlessly open and close files and share with one another while all our files are backed up and secure. 

Zoom

Great for both team and client meetings of course!

Loom

Loom is a total game changer for anyone in the creative space. As a brand strategist, I record presentations for my clients, walking them through the branding process and explaining the rationale behind all our design choices. I pop the Loom link into an email for them. And as a team leader, I use loom to provide suggestions and creative direction for my designers to help them take their designs to the next level. Loom has saved me 100s of hours of meeting time because I can quickly explain my thoughts with a video and screen recording! 

Most of the above programs and software have slowly advanced over the years with AI and other usability improvements and I am excited to see how we can continue to innovate with the tools we use! 

Website by Nari Creative of course!

Carefree Serif Light Italic