Creative Services Company Consolidating Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive

The company is a well-established creative design agency with a team of three designers. Their work spans both graphic design (including InDesign files) and video content. They handle a large volume of company projects, accumulating several terabytes of creative assets over nearly two decades. The team often juggles multiple projects daily and operates partially with remote workers, requiring seamless access to the latest files.

Currently, the agency relies primarily on Dropbox for storing and sharing creative files. Their creative assets are synced locally on individual machines, and they use Microsoft OneDrive and SharePoint for other work-related documents. They have been experimenting with LucidLink as an alternative to improve file syncing and access, using its streaming file system capabilities to try to ease the burden of local syncing.

- Dropbox requires constant manual syncing and unsyncing of files, which is cumbersome when working on numerous projects simultaneously. - Remote workers struggle to access the most recent versions of files without downloading them locally. - Dropbox's browser experience and collaboration features are limited for their specific creative workflow, and LucidLink lacks essential sharing and company delivery capabilities such as link sharing, previews, commenting, and review/approval workflows. - The agency’s LucidLink trial expired, and they faced difficulties renewing it, adding to their frustration. - Using multiple platforms for storage, syncing, sharing, and review leads to fragmented workflows, higher costs, and increased complexity in training team members.

Shade offers a unified cloud solution that combines the best features of Dropbox’s user experience with LucidLink’s streaming file system technology. It enables the team to: - Access and stream large creative files locally without lengthy sync times, regardless of internet speed. - Search and retrieve assets efficiently using metadata and powerful search capabilities, crucial for reusing content across many companies and years. - Share, review, and approve files directly within the platform with built-in commenting and company-friendly previews, eliminating the need for additional software. - Maintain a robust archive system that keeps projects organized and easily accessible without dumping files into generic cloud storage with poor visibility. Shade’s approach streamlines the entire creative production pipeline into one system, reducing the need for multiple tools and simplifying collaboration both internally and with companies.