One of the challenges faced by freelance designers working remotely is choosing the best way to communicate your ideas without being in the room to draw them. It can also be challenging for those working with remote freelance designers to present feedback in a way that it won’t be misconstrued. It’s not always necessary to visualize your thoughts, but sometimes you need to take the extra step to map your ideas out to be sure everyone is on the same page before moving forward into design execution.  Here are some great, free, easy-to-use tools to help bring your visual ideas to life:

1. http://www.bubbl.us/ (example) – Here’s what they say about their service: “Bubbl.us is a simple and free web application that lets you brainstorm online.”  I think it’s a great way to visually establish the architecture of a website or web application, or even to organize content into logical groupings.
2. http://www.balsamiq.com/ – When you want to draw a simple mockup of what a web page might look like you could turn to Photoshop or Illustrator, but for much less hassle, you could also use Balsamiq Mockups. Even during a discussion where you’re sharing your screen, you can create live images to illustrate your ideas.
3. http://www.skitch.com/ - If you’re taking a screenshot, marking it up, and then sending an email asking for feedback over and over again, Skitch may be for you.   It makes the process of sharing images with markup super easy.  Watch their intro video to see how it works.

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