Design projects

A design project is never just the design. Before you open your design tool, there's a research phase: collecting references, pulling together a direction, gathering assets and brand materials. After the design, there's a feedback phase: sharing work, receiving comments, tracking approvals, iterating. The actual design lives in Figma or Sketch or whatever you use. But everything around it, the references, the brief, the assets, the feedback, the client communication, lives in a mess of folders, email threads, and chat messages. The project as a whole has no single home, so half the work is just keeping track of where everything is.

This is the creative ops problem: the infrastructure that moves a project from "we need this" to "it's live" is split across five to eight tools, and the gaps between those tools are where context gets lost, feedback gets scattered, and revision rounds multiply.

Fabric puts the full arc in one workspace. The research, the brief, the moodboard, the working assets, the feedback, the approvals, and the delivery all live together, searchable by visual similarity, with bot-free recording of feedback calls, self-writing project docs, and agents that handle coordination.

The problem

The project is spread across too many tools. References in Pinterest or a downloads folder, briefs in email, design files in Figma, assets in Google Drive, feedback in Slack or email threads, and approvals tracked in your head. There's no single place where the whole project lives, so context-switching is constant.

Client feedback is disconnected from the work. A client emails "can you make the header bigger" but you're not sure which version they're looking at. Feedback comes through chat, email, calls, and sometimes text messages, and none of it is attached to the file it refers to. You spend time matching comments to deliverables rather than acting on them.

Finding past work and references takes too long. You know you designed something similar for another client, or saved a reference that would work here, but finding it means scrolling through old folders, searching by project names you've half-forgotten, and hoping the file is where you think it is. Visual assets are the hardest to find by text search because the thing you're looking for is a look, a colour, a style, not a keyword.

What Fabric changes

The whole project lives in one space. References, briefs, design files, assets, feedback, and deliverables all live together in a single Fabric space per project. No more splitting the project across five tools and stitching it together in your head.

Feedback lives on the work. Clients and collaborators annotate directly on the deliverable, pinning comments to the exact spot on an image, a PDF, or a document. The feedback is attached to what it refers to, not floating in an email thread.

You find work and references by what they look like. Search by colour, by visual similarity, or by description. Find a past project that used a similar palette, a reference that matches a style direction, or an asset you saved months ago. Visual search works the way design thinking works.

How it works

Visual and colour search across your library. AI search finds images and assets by visual similarity, colour, and meaning. Drop in a reference image and similar search finds everything similar in your library. Search by a brand colour to pull every on-palette asset. The explorer surfaces visual connections across projects for serendipitous discovery.

A space per project. Group everything for a project into one Fabric space: the brief, references, moodboards, assets, design files, and deliverables. The whole project is browsable and searchable in one place.

Build moodboards on canvas. Use the canvas to arrange references and assets into moodboards or concept boards. The canvas supports live embeds from Figma, YouTube, Spotify, and Google Maps, so references are interactive, not static screenshots. Real-time collaboration means the team builds boards together.

Annotate, draw, and leave timestamped feedback. Annotations let you and your clients mark up deliverables directly. Pin a comment to the exact spot on a design. Draw on images to circle areas or sketch alternatives. Leave timestamped comments on video and audio. Feedback is specific and attached to the work, not lost in a message thread. See design feedback for the full feedback workflow.

Record feedback calls bot-free. AI voice notes record and transcribe feedback calls without a meeting bot. Verbal direction becomes searchable text connected to the project, not a memory someone might misremember. The AI assistant can recall what the client said about colour direction from both the recorded call and the written annotations.

Share with clients via tracked links. Publish deliverables, moodboards, or asset collections with password protection and link analytics. You control who has access, and you can see when a client has viewed the material and which sections they spent time on.

Track stages with kanban. Kanban columns track each asset through stages: briefing, in progress, review, approved, delivered. The workflow lives alongside the assets rather than in a separate project management tool.

Self-writing project docs. Self-writing docs produce decision logs capturing creative direction choices and approval milestones from your meetings and Slack. Client relationship trackers maintain meeting summaries and open items automatically. The project record stays current without anyone writing status reports.

Agents that coordinate. Agents produce weekly project summaries from team activity, flag approaching deadlines, and update shared folders with approved assets. The creative work stays human. The coordination runs in the background.

Smart organisation. Smart organization handles filing with AI-generated tags, colour recognition, and dynamic collections. Assets categorise themselves as you add them.

Pull in design files and references. Connect Google Drive or Dropbox for assets, and capture references from the web with the web clipper and RSS feeds. The canvas supports live Figma embeds for viewing designs alongside references.

An AI that understands the project. The AI assistant has memory across sessions and understands the brief, the references, the annotations, the transcript, and the assets as one connected body of knowledge. Ask it what the client said about colour direction and it pulls from both the recorded call and the written annotations.

A design project workflow in Fabric

Start the project space. Create a space when the project begins. Drop in the brief, the brand guidelines, and any initial references. This is the project's single home from day one.

Collect references. Search your existing library for relevant past work and inspiration. Add new references from the web, your phone, or other tools. Arrange the best ones on a canvas as a moodboard with live Figma embeds and playable video references.

Share the direction with the client. Publish the moodboard or reference collection with a password-protected link. Track when the client views it with link analytics.

Gather assets. Pull in logos, brand files, images, and other assets from Google Drive, Dropbox, or the client's shared folder. Everything lives in the project space and is searchable.

Share deliverables and collect feedback. When the design is ready for review, share it with the client via a tracked link. They annotate directly on the deliverable: pinning comments, drawing on images, leaving timestamped feedback on video. Record the feedback call with AI voice notes and the verbal direction becomes searchable text in the project space.

Track stages and approvals. Use kanban to track assets through stages. Use tasks and reminders to track what's been approved, what needs revision, and what's outstanding.

Archive for future reference. When the project wraps, the space stays. The references, assets, deliverables, feedback, and call transcripts are all searchable, so you can find past work by visual similarity, colour, or description when a future project calls for something similar.

What compounds over time

Every completed project adds to your searchable library. The references you collected, the assets you organised, and the final deliverables are all still there, still findable by visual similarity, colour, or description. Designers who maintain their projects in Fabric find that each new project starts faster, because the relevant past work surfaces when they search for it rather than hiding in an old folder with a client's name on it.

Client work also benefits from the accumulated library. A reference you saved for one client might be exactly what another client's project needs. The visual similarity search gets more useful the more material you have, because there's a deeper pool to match against.

Related use cases

For the inspiration-gathering phase specifically, see moodboards and inspiration. For managing a team's brand and file library at scale, see digital asset management. For design-specific feedback with drawing, timestamps, and contextual review, see design feedback. For sharing deliverables with tracked access, see client work and deliverables. For a formal sign-off workflow, see review and approval.

Fabric is built for designers, creative teams, and agencies.

Get started

Give every design project one home where references, assets, feedback, and deliverables live together and are searchable by what they look like. Try Fabric free.

Comparing tools? See the best creative ops platform comparison. See why creatives choose Fabric as the best moodboard app, the best app for gathering inspiration, and the best digital asset management tool. See how Fabric compares to Air.

FAQs

Can I search for past designs by what they look like?

Yes. Drop in a reference image and Fabric finds visually similar work across your entire library. You can also search by colour or describe what you're looking for in words.

Can clients annotate directly on my designs?

Yes. Share a deliverable and the client can annotate directly on it, pinning comments to the exact spot. The feedback stays attached to the file rather than floating in an email.

Can I share work with clients securely?

Yes. Publish with password protection and link analytics. You control who has access, and you can see when and how often the client has viewed the material.

Does the canvas support Figma?

Yes. The canvas supports live Figma embeds, so your designs are viewable and interactive alongside references, moodboards, and other project materials.

Can I build moodboards in Fabric?

Yes. The canvas lets you arrange images, references, and notes spatially into moodboards or concept boards. Your library is the source material, so building a board means arranging what you've already collected.

Can I find assets that match a specific brand colour?

Yes. Search by colour and Fabric finds every image and asset in your library that matches. Useful for pulling together on-palette references or finding assets that fit a specific colour direction.

How is this different from using Dropbox or Google Drive for design projects?

A file storage service organises by filename and folder. Fabric adds visual search (similarity, colour, meaning), annotations with drawing and timestamp support, bot-free call recording, self-writing project docs, agents, password-protected sharing with analytics, an infinite canvas with live embeds, and an AI assistant that understands the full project context. The difference is a creative ops workspace rather than a folder.

Can multiple designers work in the same project space?

Yes. Share a space with your team and everyone can add material, search across the project, and annotate on deliverables.

Can I track which deliverables are approved?

Yes. Use tasks and reminders to track approval status, and use annotations to mark specific items as approved or needing revision. The workflow lives alongside the assets.

What file types work in a design project space?

Images (JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP, SVG), PDFs, Figma files, slide decks, documents, video, audio, and any other format Fabric supports. All are searchable and annotatable.

Can I use Fabric for the design itself?

Fabric isn't a design tool. It's the workspace around the design: references, assets, briefs, feedback, approvals, and deliverables. The actual design work happens in Figma, Sketch, or whatever you use. Fabric is where everything else for the project lives.

Can I access past project archives later?

Yes. Completed project spaces stay in your library, fully searchable. Find a past deliverable, a reference, or a client's feedback by searching for it, even years later.