I have always been a firm believer in personal design projects. What I mean by this is setting yourself design related projects to do that otherwise you may not get to experience in your normal design work. One of the things I like to do is create character designs and I have been brainstorming with a friend to develop ideas that I have. It was through this that I discovered a great feature in Skype. I have been using Skype for a few years now and use it to chat to friends and clients, but what you can also do now is share your screen (or part of it) – not just a screen shot but a live version of your screen.
You can start sharing your screen once you start voice or text chat with one of your contacts, see below:
How it could work for your design clients
You could talk through design projects with a client. Instead of just sending through a PDF this gives you the ability to point with your mouse at various design elements or even alter things live on screen while talking with your design clients. Of course if the client has a pdf of the design they can also then show it on their screen and point to things they want to change. This could be especially useful when working with non local clients.
How this could be useful for working with other designers
The share screen feature allows you to show your designer friends/colleagues your projects to get feedback instantly. You can also use it to show someone live how to do something – a mini live tutorial. For example my friend had never used Cyberduck so I showed her how to set it up and she followed what I was doing on screen.
Twitter
RSS
Facebook
15 Comments
This feature is new to me too but I could definitely find it useful when I need to help my friends with using some of the programs I use, especially Photoshop. I will have to try this feature out when I can. Thanks for sharing the info.
Hi Oliver, It’s a great feature, it was so much easier to work remotely with my freelance designer friend. I love how easy it is to use too – no setting things up just simple push of a button.
I also use this feature of skype and its very helpful. I also use pamela for skype to record the conversation.
Hey Tara,
Yeah, the the screen sharing is just another one, of all the great things about Skype.
I have been using it a lot to help my parents, when they had problems with the computer at home
That’s an awesome idea! I’ve used the share screen option before but for some reason it never even crossed my mind to use it for design purposes! Every day is a school day!
yea, i used to use teamviewer, But after the skype launched their screen sharing,
Its really easy and fast to collaborate with clients
Hi Matt, I haven’t heard of teamviewer but love this Skype function.
Hi Maria
Thanks for your comment. I have only used it with a designer friend so far but it was really useful.
Cheers
Tara
Hi Ekspert,
I should try that with my Dad he sometimes rings me up for help with stuff.
Thanks fro your comment
Tara
Hi Noel
I hadn’t heard of Pamela before – just had a look – that could be really useful – Thanks Tara
I love this feature with skype. Skype has got to be one of my favorite programs.
I didnt even realise this feature was available. I already use Skype constantly and love it, this will make it even more useful. Thanks for the info
Wow -this is great news!
I have been using Skype for some time, but didn’t know about this feature. It is certainly a great tool, not only for discussing designs, but also for support.
Thanks!
This is great news. I have previously been doing my screen sharing in Ichat as I was unaware it could be done in Skype. I will definitely be using skpe for all my screen sharing now.
I am new on skype thanks for sharing it with us