Craft for Designers: Beautiful Native Note-Taking and Documentation

Craft is a native Mac and iOS note-taking app built for people who care about design. If Notion feels like a spreadsheet pretending to be a document editor, Craft is the opposite: a focused writing environment that happens to have organizational features. It’s fast, offline-capable, and beautiful in a way that makes you want to open it.

Key Specs

How Designers Use Craft

Craft fits naturally into design workflows where writing, thinking, and documentation matter as much as the visual work.

For Design Documentation

Write project briefs, design rationale, and feature specs in a space that doesn’t feel like a code editor or database. Drag in Figma screenshots, sketch photos, or inspiration images. Craft’s inline image handling is seamless: paste or drag, and images embed at full quality. Use nested pages to organize projects: one page for the brief, another for research, another for design decisions.

For Personal Knowledge Management

Build a design resource library with notes on typography, color theory, interface patterns, or tools you want to remember. Create daily notes for learning, meeting takeaways, or idea capture. Craft’s backlinks and tags help connect related ideas without forcing you into a rigid structure. The search is fast enough that you don’t need perfect organization.

For Client Presentations and Proposals

Share polished documents via web link without requiring recipients to sign up. The web view is clean and responsive, making Craft a lightweight alternative to PDFs for proposals, case studies, or project updates. Add a cover image, structure with headers, and share the link. Clients see a beautiful document, not a chaotic editing interface.

For Team Collaboration on Design Specs

Invite teammates to edit specs, guidelines, or design system documentation. Craft’s real-time collaboration is simple: you see live cursors and changes appear instantly. Leave comments on specific lines to discuss decisions. It’s less powerful than Notion’s team features, but it’s also less overwhelming. Good for small teams who just need shared documents.

Craft vs. Alternatives

How does Craft compare to other note-taking and documentation tools designers use?

Choose Craft if: You’re in the Apple ecosystem, value native performance and beautiful design, and want a focused writing experience with solid collaboration.

Choose Notion if: You need databases, automation, or heavy team wiki features. Better for cross-platform teams or complex project management.

Choose Obsidian if: You want local-first Markdown files, extensive customization via plugins, and don’t need real-time collaboration.

Choose Apple Notes if: You just need simple notes with iCloud sync and don’t want to pay for anything or learn a new tool.

Getting Started with Craft

A 10-minute quick start to begin using Craft effectively:

Step 1: Create your first document

Click the + button or press Cmd + N to create a new document. Start typing immediately. Use / to bring up the slash menu for formatting options: headers, lists, code blocks, images, or dividers. The interface stays minimal until you need it.

Step 2: Add structure with nested pages

Hover over any document in the sidebar and click the + icon to create a sub-page. Build hierarchies: a “Projects” folder with nested pages for each project. Drag pages to reorder or reorganize. Use folders for broad categories, pages for specific topics. Don’t overthink it: Craft’s search and backlinks mean structure is helpful but not critical.

Step 3: Share and collaborate

Click the share icon in the top right. Choose to share with specific people (who can edit or comment) or create a public web link (read-only). For team collaboration, invite members with edit access and work simultaneously. For clients or stakeholders, share a clean web link they can open in any browser without signing in.

Craft in Your Design Workflow

Craft works best as your thinking and documentation layer, connecting to the visual tools you use for actual design work.

• Before design: Brainstorm in Craft, write project briefs, collect research and references, organize meeting notes
• During design: Document design decisions, maintain a design log, embed Figma screenshots for stakeholder updates
• After design: Write case studies, create design system documentation, share specs with developers

Common tool pairings:

• Craft + Figma for embedding design screenshots into project documentation and specs
• Craft + Things/Todoist for linking task lists to project notes (paste deep links)
• Craft + Slack for sharing document links in team channels for discussion
• Craft + Arc/Safari for saving web clips and research directly into documents

Common Problems (and How to Fix Them)

Issues designers encounter with Craft and practical solutions:

“I can’t access Craft from my Windows machine”

Craft is Apple-exclusive. Use the web version at craft.do from any browser if you occasionally need access from Windows. Your documents sync via the web app, though the experience isn’t as polished as the native Mac app. For teams with Windows users, consider Notion instead.

“Images take up too much storage”

The free tier includes 1GB. If you’re embedding high-res screenshots or photos, you’ll hit this quickly. Compress images before adding them (use ImageOptim or similar), or upgrade to Pro for unlimited storage. You can also link to images hosted elsewhere rather than embedding them directly.

“Where’s the plugin ecosystem?”

Craft doesn’t have plugins. It’s intentionally simple. If you need heavy customization, automation, or integrations, Obsidian or Notion are better choices. Craft focuses on being excellent at one thing: beautiful documents. The tradeoff is fewer power-user features but also less complexity.

“Collaboration isn’t as powerful as Notion”

True. Craft handles document sharing and real-time editing well, but lacks Notion’s workspace features like databases, advanced permissions, or connected pages. If you need team wikis or project management, Notion is stronger. Use Craft when you want elegant shared documents without the overhead.

“How do I organize without databases?”

Use folders for broad categories, tags for cross-cutting themes, and backlinks to connect related notes. Craft’s philosophy is that good search and flexible organization beats rigid database structure for most note-taking. If you find yourself wanting tables and filters, you might actually need Notion’s database features.