If you’re thinking of starting a new business, already own your own business, or are merely embarking on a personal venture, you may have considered availing of the services of a designer to help get you started with your design project.  But how do you go about finding a quality designer who really knows their stuff and who won’t rip you off? How do you weed out the good from the bad?

In this day and age with the prevalence of the World Wide Web and various social media marketing tools, the commercial design industry has never been so competitive.  In an industry with such limited regulation, we are unfortunately beginning to hear more and more design-related horror stories.  You’ll commonly find individuals who own a computer and some software and have completed a 6-week course in “design”, marketing themselves as “professional designers”.  This you may need to be weary of!  Not only does it devalue the work of highly qualified and experienced designers, but unknowing and unsuspecting clients could be taken for a ride by amateur and often “cowboy” designers – with unfortunate consequences.

First impressions really do leave their mark so design is an essential part of any marketing campaign and a necessity to compete in a media driven world. It will determine how the public perceives you and your business and ultimately how successful your campaign will be. So finding the perfect match is vital, although it can be a little daunting if you don’t know what to look out for…

So, how do you determine if a particular designer is right for you, you ask? The answer is quite simple really…. all you have to do is a little bit of homework. The following are a few things to look for before making your decision:

1.  Specialised or Multi-disciplined?

So you need a new logo designed…The obvious choice would be to find a logo designer who specialises in logo design, branding & identity.  Sounds logical, right?  True, but this choice also has its advantages and disadvantages. While you may get an amazing logo designed, what happens when you need your logo designer to work on the rest of your marketing & promotional campaign – flyers, posters, brochures, advertisements or signage? Perhaps you will need to source another graphic designer who provides multiple services.  But then what about your website? Do you need to search for yet another specialised developer?

Well the truth not necessarily.  There are many well-balanced designers out there who have experience in many different areas and in many different mediums.  Each designer has their own skill level and style of design, so employing one multi-disciplined designer will help to maintain a consistent look and feel across all of your marketing materials, which is vital to the success of your brand.  It must be pointed out though that the term “designer” can refer to one of many specialised professions.  Not all graphic designers can code websites and not all web developers can design.  So it’s important that you do your research and find out exactly what services you require.

2. Do you like what you see?

Showcases and portfolios are how designers sell themselves so this is one of the most, if not the most important resource available for researching a designer’s skills and aptitude and suitability for the kind of work you have in mind for your project. Qualities to look for include variety, originality and whether you consider their style of the design effective or suitable for your business. An obvious question to ask yourself is do you really like their past work and was it effective?

3. Is it up to scratch?

If you’re looking for a designer, its probably because it’s out of your realm of skills or something you can’t do yourself and professional advice and guidance.  This essentially means that you are looking for a top quality designer to get the job done right, so make sure when looking through a portfolio that the designs and graphics are of a high quality and suitable for their purpose. If not, then it’s fair to say that that’s likely what you will receive also.

4.  Is The Price Too Good To Be True?

Price is often one of the biggest concerns when starting a project, so you must always be particularly cautious when receiving a quote that’s very low or very high.  There will always be designers who will charge excessive amounts for their design services, however there are just as many designers and companies out there offering design services for ‘next-to-nothing’ prices and these you also need to be weary of.  If a quote is too low it may mean that the designer may not fully understand your project requirements or may be cutting corners. I hate to say this but most times, you get what you pay for.  Take a website for example – A website can range on average from between €800 to €3,000+ depending on your functional requirements and the complexity of the project.  Choosing to proceed with a quote lower than the average scale may suit those on an extremely tight budget, but you must ensure that this quote includes the following standard requirements:

• Your website will be uniquely designed and not based on a modified or pre-existing template
• Will be visually appealing and suitable for its intended target audience
• Will be developed with clean, valid semantic code and conform to current web standards and user accessibility guidelines
• Will be search engine optimised to perform and rank well in popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo etc
• Will function well across all modern (and optionally older) browsers.

In my own personal opinion, accepting an extremely low bid may well result in a website which will lack one or more of these basic requirements.  My advice is to shop around and compare price with quality.

5.  Evaluate their Experience!

If you’re happy with all of the above points then it’s time to consider the person’s background.  Do they have much experience? Where have they worked previously? For how long?  What was their position? (director, lead designer, intern etc). Ask for a resume if need be.  What did their education entail? Have they any other skills that you might find attractive or relevant? Remember though that you want someone who can think and work creatively so don’t be discouraged if they don’t hold any degree at all. It’s the work that’s important!

6.   Do they seem interested?

You send through a project proposal and don’t hear anything for over two weeks?  This should set off alarm bells. It is important that a designer responds to your requests and queries in a timely manner where possible, so you know that you and your business are important to them. If they don’t respond to your original request, they are either too busy to work with you, are unprofessional in their work manner or simply not interested. This could be a sign of things to come so it’s best to consider another designer. Presuming they are interested, find out if they plan on building a working relationship with your for future projects.  Have they repeat clients?  This will help you to determine whether or not they will be in it for the long haul.

7. Do they understand what exactly you want?

There’s nothing worse than have a mental picture of what you want, only to get back designs that are so far from your concept that you can’t fathom what went so wrong.  A professional designer will try to ascertain your project requirements by asking appropriate questions and gathering all the information they require before commencing work.  Although you should listen to a designer’s suggestions, they also need to listen to yours and guide you on the right path.  Their job is to find a medium between your ideas and their capabilities.  That way such misunderstandings can be avoided!

8.  Do you get along with your designer?

It’s important that you take the time to talk to or even meet with your designer to ensure that you get work well together and that your personalities don’t clash before employing their services.  This may seem rather obvious, but having a good working relationship is critically important, as you will need to communicate effectively with one another to achieve the result you want.  There’s no sense in having the world’s best designer if you can’t work with them is there?

9.  Get Referrals!

There are many ways to search for a designer  such as the phonebook, local directory or an online search engine, but the truth is one of the best ways to go about it is to talk to your friends, family, colleagues and associates and ask if they’ve availed of a designer in the past or would recommend one in particular.  My advice is to ask around and be inquisitive!

Designers are the people who will be designing the face of your business so it’s important you find one that’s right for you!