BackBoard Review – Awesome way to manage logo designs and feedback
Man, I love this app
Once in a while something pop’s up that really get’s your attention. A product that works, looks great and is fundamentally dead simple.
When you are dealing with multiple logo designs, sketches, ideas, proofs, it can be a mare to really manage them all in one place without having to go the whole route of a full blow management system like BackPack etc. I used logo for my own purposes but this is far more than just a logo application, ANY image file, a website design, pretty much anything you can upload or save as a URL can benefit from this…
Enter, BackBoard from Increo Solutions.
And no, this is not Affiliate related, I have taken no backhanders or taken footer links in part payment for this glowing post. I just think it’s awesome and I have used it pretty much all the time last several weeks.
OK man, what is it.
Simply speaking it’s a Feedback and file approval web based application. Yes, there are a number of others, all of which (most) I have tried, including, Olive, SignedOff, even ScrnShots to a lesser degree etc.
It pretty much does that one thing and does it quickly and efficiently, both for the user and the end client who has to check and approve the files. This works both ends.
I could sum it up in just a few steps, and you know, I’m gonna do just that. Taking it from the simplest workable level…
- First of all you upload either images, logos, pictures, PDF’s, website designs, animation, musical scores etc. It also has a brilliant URL capturing system, so you can actually capture the URL as a working live page.
- Add some details, title, description.
- Choose if you wish to send to someone in your address book, or make it available to anyone who you give the URL to.
- End
This is a snapshot of my gallery where I can view ALL the images I have uploaded for management.
I mean, that really is the basis of it, it takes only a minute or so for me to upload say a Logo revision, send out multiple emails if I need to or manually notify whoever that there is a file ready for feedback.
One you have selected the image/URL you then fill in details like name and description, choose who has access and various security options depending on the plan you have.
After selecting the files for upload, here you can choose who gets notified by email of the new upload, or if you decide to manually give out the URL.
This is the screen both you and the client see’s. With options of full screen preview, full magnification. Leave feed back, request changes and make Red Pen annotations.
Once the client, friends, customers receieve notification of a new file, they visit the site and can leave multiple comments and feedback. They can approve it or request further changes.
The neat part is the Red Pen tool, which allows the client to actually ring edits ‘annotate’ on the image to tell you specifically where a change has to be made for example.
Submitting files
They have made it as easy as possible to submit files/URL’s. As well as the standard web interface choose file method, they have created a Mac Drop Window that sits in the Dock, for yes, drag and drop uploads. Also, there is a BackBoard Bookmarklet for when you would like to upload and share cool web pages like this. The webpage remains active within the window, just as it would in a standard browser, so like a browser within a browser.
To conclude
I seriously suggest you check this out. I am still on the Free plan and at the moment but there are benefits to upgrading for minimal cost.
It’s just so intuitive to use, clean and fast. And from the client perspective, they love it. One job they have left numerous comments rather than going back to email, which to me is a sure bet that it’s a product you don’t have to think about using.
And breathe...
Article Posted On: December 12, 2008 by
Before you rush off somewhere else. If you have found this post useful, I would greatly appreciate it if you would consider signing up to my RSS feed, or Email newsletter. Follow me on Twitter or FaceBook. There are also my prolific postings on Posterous.
Any Stumbles, Tweets, Shares etc would be more that most welcome, convenient share buttons follow.
View Comments
Add your own comment
LOGO PROCESS ARTICLES
IDENTITY GUIDELINES
Advice, Tips, Thoughts & ViewsFree Fonts for Download
Brand Identity
Logo Design
Typography
Reviews
Posters
Flickr Sets
Famous and Well Known
Vintage & Retro
Archives
SIGN UP TO EMAIL NEWSLETTER
SIGN UP TO RSS FEED
Hi Graham, yeah I’ve been trying this out with good results so far. It’s nice to be able to have a link sent instead of trying to e-mail larger files. Good for having one more place to have a backup of your work too. jeff
Sweet app! But why stop with logos? You could just use this as a great revision system for any image, such as a screenshot of the client’s website layout, etc.
I tried Olive for a bit too, but unfortunately Sarah Parmenter seemed to make the whole process more difficult than it needed to be with the whole credits system (seems strange, when thinking about it, it SHOULD simplify the whole thing, but oh well…).
You introduced me to it and I love it. I think it is awesome. Nice write up :)
Chad Engle´s last blog post..Design Community Twitter Hours
I stumbled on this a few weeks ago, but didn’t really dig into it. I just setup an account and kind of forgot about it. After reading this I’ll have to really get my hands dirty and utilize this tool. Thanks Graham
Glad I caught this through twitter. Thanks and I’m going to check it out.
If they could some up with a self branding version like ‘Olive’ that could be implemented into your own site structure that would be just awesome…
tyler: I really tried with Olive, but it didn’t make sense to me. Always thinking I was missing something obvious to really make it work. Seemed ok from the client end, but just didn’t cut it for me.
Jeff> Yeah, its great really. With a few more organisational features would be a great way to store various back-ups of images.
Nice write up, I stumbled on this one a month or so ago but kind of lost track. Over the past several weeks I have been trying to refine my workflow a bit and an app like this is the missing piece of the equation. I have used everything from email to Skitch, just haven’t been able to find the right level of organization and professionalism. Looks like Backboard might be the answer, thanks for taking the time to put together a review. Moving on to sign up now.
[...] BackBoard – Awesome way to manage logo designs and feedback | ImJustCreative is Graham Smith Great logo design and feedback manager! (tags: design application Resources desktop web ping.fm feedback upload resource logo management reviews file) [...]
Excellent information and post thanks very much for the time and efforts.
Cheers,
Robert “Butch”Greenawalt
I saw your tweet about BackBoard earlier this month. Thanks for this in-depth review and critique of the service. I think I will give it a shot and see if it helps my workflow and approval process. Thanks Graham!
Wow. Nice find. I am currently using the Small Biz version of Active Collab, but basically all we use it for is client approvals of our mockups. The rest of it (checklists, milestones, etc.), is basically just for me so I might give this a whirl. Keep blazing that trail, I’m right behind you! :)
Very well, i will need it !!!
[...] BackBoard – Awesome way to manage logo versions | ImJustCreative is Graham Smith After looking into a few different project approval programs, either web or desktop based, Graham from imjustcreative suggested Backboard. he even wrote a post about it here. It looks great so far and is the most intuitive with the drop window for OS X. (tags: approval, feedback design, web desktop drop, browser, clients, management) [...]
[...] BackBoard – Awesome way to manage logo versions | ImJustCreative is Graham Smith After looking into a few different project approval programs, either web or desktop based, Graham from imjustcreative suggested Backboard. he even wrote a post about it here. It looks great so far and is the most intuitive with the drop window for OS X. (tags: approval, feedback design, web desktop drop, browser, clients, management) [...]
Thanks for giving tips to manage logo designs.