Trello is often a studio’s first “system”: a board per project, lists for phases, cards for tasks, everyone drags things left to right. It’s free, friendly, and it works — right up until the moment the studio has more than a handful of projects and needs to know something a card can’t tell it.

Which supplier is that pendant from, and is it approved for the primary bedroom and the guest suite? What’s the fee remaining on DD for the Cedar project? Which RFIs are open across all jobs? What did we issue the contractor last Tuesday? A kanban card holds a title, a checklist, and attachments. Design practice needs records that relate.

Where cards run out

• No data model. Cards aren’t records. Products, phases, fees, clients, and RFIs are all cards with labels — no relations, no rollups, no single product used across many rooms.

• No cross-project view. Each board is an island; the practice-wide picture — all open issues, fees, and outstanding approvals — doesn’t exist.

• Clients on the board or nowhere. Guest access exposes internal cards; a separate client board duplicates work.

• No documents. Schedules, transmittals, and proposals aren’t something a board produces.

• Power-Ups patch, they don’t structure. Custom fields and calendar add-ons help until the board becomes a spreadsheet wearing a kanban costume.