10 Free Tools to Help You Work Remotely Like a Pro
Remote work is becoming more and more common nowadays. Whether you’re a work from home professional or a freelancer on the go, here are our 10 favourite free tools to help you do it like a pro!
While working remotely can be a great way to have more flexibility and freedom in your work life, having reliable and intuitive online tools are essential. In a sea of options, finding the right one to fit your specific needs can be time-consuming and it can be hard to know where to start.
Whether you’re just starting out in creative work or just trying to supercharge your remote working process we’ve compiled a list of our team’s go-to user-friendly resources. From website design to video editing, these tools might just be the game-changer you‘re looking for!
1. Wix: You’ve probably seen Wix ads while watching videos from your favourite content creators. It‘s a great place to get started on website design without any coding experience, and there’s even a free version! The only downside is that the free version doesn’t come with a customisable domain name.
2. Drawtify: Drawtify is an online graphic design software that works on all browsers and operating systems. It has a vector editor, layout, photo editing, and typography features. Drawtify can work as a great compliment to Canva by providing features that Canva doesn’t have, like vector editing, special effects and custom animations.
3. Canva: Canva is an online design platform that allows everyone, even those without much experience, to design anything from slide decks to posters to social media posts. Have a look at some designs Team Brain Juice has created on Canva:
"The stock elements and templates available in Canva have made it easy and quick for me to put together professional-looking designs for my projects. The collaborative features are also helpful, especially during brainstorming sessions with my team.
Working on mostly print collaterals, Canva has assisted me in many ways like their straightforward export setting for print where I can easily tick the bleed and trim marks for a poster and set their colour profile to CMYK."
- Mia, Senior Creative Specialist
4. Free Fonts by awwwards: Need some new fonts to capture the tone of the piece you’re working on? Free Fonts by awwwards have a lot of options available for you to try out and get creative with!
5. Asana: Asana is a great project management platform that we here at Brain Juice love to use. It helps us organise the different tasks and deliverables per project and keep up with our deadlines.
6. Unsplash&Pexels: Didn’t shoot enough B-Roll? Or maybe you just need that one establishing shot you’ve been waiting for? Unsplash and Pexels are amazing free resources for stock images and stock footage to fill out some space in your video or to add more context to your footage.
"Pexels and Unsplash offer an extensive collection of free images with a remarkably authentic and candid appearance, setting them apart from the conventional definition of stock photos."
- Anastacia, Creative Specialist
7. Unfold: Just need a quick template for an Instagram story? Unfold is Squarespace’s tool for creating stories for Instagram or Snapchat. Unlike Canva, Unfold really only specialises in story templates. So if you’re someone who just needs some templates for a quick post, this might be the tool for you.
8. DaVinci Resolve: If you’re in the video editing community, then you’ve probably already heard of DaVinci Resolve. Unlike Lightworks, DaVinci is geared towards professionals or those that need powerful video editing software that combines editing, colour correction, visual effects, motion graphics and audio post-production all in one programme! The free version already gives you a load of tools to work with, so it’s worth checking out.
"I like using (DaVinci) Resolve because - although there is a paid studio version - the free version is very capable to edit like any other paid programme. Resolve also gets updated with features and fixes that make the programme crash less and makes it overall more reliable.
It’s fast and responsive, especially when handling high-resolution videos like 4k. I find that the User Interface is intuitive and easy to learn. The advanced features may have a steep learning curve though. Since it’s an established programme, there is plenty of support going on and I personally can only see it getting better in time. So I see this as my time worth investing in this programme."
- Andrian, Video Content Specialist
9. Lightworks: Lightworks is a powerful, well-trusted video editing programme used by a whole gamut of people, like YouTubers. It has a clean and simple interface, which is great for those just getting into video editing, or those who just want to do basic edits.
10. Eddy: AI tools can help ease the creative workload, in fact, some of these platforms like Canva come with AI features. One tool in particular that we, and other creatives, find helpful are transcription tools. We like to use Eddy to help transcribe recorded interviews/meetings.
"Eddy is a handy tool for transcribing anything recorded. What's good about this AI tool, other than being free, is that you can check the transcription along with the video. You can export the transcription in .txt, .doc, .vtt and .srt files."
- Kristia, Administrative Executive
When considering which tools and programmes to use, it’s important to think about information portability. Is it easy to export whatever you’ve done onto an alternative platform? The last thing you want is to have your work stuck on the platform, having to start over or worse still being forced to upgrade to a paid version just to export your work. We hope these resources help you with your creative work as much as we find them useful!
Note: All opinions expressed in this content belong to the team. References to products or services are based on independent viewpoints, without any affiliation or compensation.
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