For independent designers and growing studios
Project management software for designers.
Keep the brief, the client, the plan, and the numbers close to the work, so your studio can spend less time chasing details and more time making good decisions.
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Find the signal in the noise.
A desk, not another dashboard
The project is more than a task list.
Design work has a habit of living in too many places. A brief sits in a document, feedback arrives in email, a supplier cost turns up in a spreadsheet, and the client’s actual context is buried in a thread from three weeks ago. The work may still get done, but the studio pays for the gaps in attention.
Palette and Ledger brings those moving parts into one calm workspace. It is project management software shaped around the way a design studio actually works: taking in a brief, setting a direction, managing the work, protecting the margin, getting approval, and carrying useful context into the next job.
The working rhythm
Keep each stage clear, without turning the process into the product.
Start with the brief
Create a home for the project before the work starts to spread. Capture the scope, key deadlines, priorities, files, and the decisions that need to be made. A clear starting point makes the next action easier to see.
Give work a visible shape
Plan tasks around real milestones, not generic busywork. See what is active, what is waiting, and what needs a decision, so the team can keep momentum without a daily hunt for status.
Keep the client in view
Connect the work to the relationship behind it. Keep company context, contact details, and project history close by, which means the client does not have to repeat themselves every time a new piece of work begins.
Protect the numbers
Bring estimated and actual costs into the project conversation while there is still room to act. Materials, production, labour, and other spend belong near the decisions that shape the margin.
When the work gets complicated
Make the important moments easier to handle.
A good studio system does not replace the producer, creative director, or account lead. It gives each person a dependable view of the same work. The designer can see the brief and the next decision. The person managing the relationship can see what the client needs. The studio owner can see the deadline, the scope, and the cost signals that deserve attention. That shared picture makes it easier to work independently without working in isolation.
Feedback that leads somewhere
Feedback is useful when it stays connected to the brief, the decision in front of the client, and the person who can give final approval. When comments arrive in fragments across email, chat, and calls, the studio spends its time translating rather than improving the work.
Keep the project record close to the review. A clear view of the current task, relevant files, and next decision gives everyone a shared reference point. It helps a studio distinguish between a correction to an agreed requirement and a new request that changes the shape of the job.
Handoffs without the scavenger hunt
A project handoff should not rely on one person remembering where the final file lives or which detail was agreed in the last meeting. The useful context belongs with the project: the brief, the latest status, the client relationship, and the work still waiting for a decision.
That matters whether the handoff is between teammates, to a production partner, or back to the client after delivery. A calmer record makes it easier to pick work back up, answer a question quickly, and begin the next phase without recreating the project history from memory.
Costs visible before they become awkward
Good project management protects creative work and commercial judgment at the same time. A late change, new supplier requirement, or additional review round may be worthwhile. It still deserves an honest conversation about timing, scope, and cost before the studio silently absorbs the impact.
With Costing connected to the project, estimated and actual spend can sit beside the work that creates it. That gives a studio a practical basis for a client conversation and a clearer picture of where the margin is being made or lost.
Built for creative work
Useful structure, with room for judgment.
Most studios do not need another system that asks them to spend more energy maintaining the system than doing the work. They need a reliable place to return to when the deadline moves, the feedback changes, or the project becomes more complicated than it looked at the start.
Palette and Ledger keeps the practical information visible without pretending a template can make every project identical. Use Templates to create a dependable starting point for recurring work, then adapt the project to the client, the idea, and the real constraints in front of you.
The result is a clearer working picture. People know what matters now, the studio can see what is at risk, and the project history is still there when the next conversation begins.
A repeatable way to start well.
One connected workspace
Bring the practical parts of the studio together.
Projects
Keep timelines, tasks, files, feedback, and project status in one place built for the work in motion.
See Projects →Clients
Give each relationship a clear home, so project decisions begin with the right context.
See Clients →Costing
Keep estimated and actual spend in view while choices can still protect the margin.
See Costing →Marketing
Plan the story after delivery, with work and campaign ideas connected to the projects behind them.
See Marketing →A more useful way to run the day
Less chasing, more making.
A project tool earns its place when it makes the studio more capable, not merely more organised on paper. That can mean a clearer handoff, a faster answer for a client, a better early warning about a deadline, or the confidence to say what a change will cost before it becomes a problem.
Palette and Ledger connects projects, clients, materials, costing, and marketing because those conversations already belong together. You decide how the studio works. The desk helps keep the important parts within reach.
Start freeQuestions studios ask
Project management for the work you actually do.
Is Palette and Ledger made for designers?
Yes. Palette and Ledger is built around the parts of studio work that standard task tools tend to scatter: the brief, client context, project tasks, materials, costs, and the work that follows delivery. It is designed for the reality that a small studio may be managing creative direction, client communication, production detail, and business decisions at the same time.
Can a small design studio use it?
Yes. It is designed to give an independent designer or growing studio a calm shared place to run active work, without forcing the team into a heavyweight process. Start with the parts of the workspace that solve today’s friction, then build a working rhythm that suits the projects, services, and collaborators your studio has.
Can I track both project work and client details?
Yes. Projects and client records are connected, so the context behind a request does not disappear into an inbox or an old spreadsheet. That makes it easier to preserve decisions, preferences, past work, and the details that make a returning client feel recognised.
Does it help with project budgets?
Palette and Ledger includes Costing for comparing estimated and actual project spend, including labour, materials, production, and other project costs. Keeping that view near the active project supports earlier, clearer conversations when a scope change or supplier decision affects the plan.
Make room for the work that matters.