As a business owner, understanding the significance of having a professional presence both offline and offline is key. Finding the right graphic designer to help bring your branding, marketing, website design and more to life with an impactful edge can be difficult.
Before hiring your designer for the project, it's important to ask yourself and them some questions. These can range from basics such as availability and location through to specifics about the type of work they do. Ask if remote or in-person meetings are necessary and if any experience is particularly pertinent for your project. Ultimately, selecting a designer that is compatible with your objectives - and vice versa - is key.
1: Can I see examples of your previous work?
Before bringing any designer on board, it's essential to get a feel for their style and assess how well that meets with your vision. Ask them to share examples of past projects so you can make sure what they create accurately reflects the look and feel you want for your brand. Compare portfolios online until you find one whose aesthetic matches up perfectly - take time here, don't dive in too quickly!
If you fill completely lost, don’t forget , designers are not all one style. What this means is a lot of designer are able to achieve a lot of different design style and not just the ones on their portfolio. So if you fill lost don’t be scared to shoot them an email with some design style idea’s you have and ask “Hey, would this be something you could do?”
2. How do you approach a new project?
When it comes to good design, there's always a problem that needs solving. Whether your challenge is as wide-reaching as establishing an inviting brand image or something more specific like reaching sales targets - the key to success lies in finding the right graphic designer for the job!
The best designers know how essential it is to invest time and effort into understanding their clients' core objectives before sparking flams in the fire -- making sure they have tested strategies in place when addressing any issue. So go ahead and seek out those creative specialists who look for solutions by tapping into user data, collaborating with teams and other reliable sources of inspiration.. They're ready to help you solve whatever problems arise!
3. Can you explain your design process/key milestones?
Before work even starts on our project, you should have a clear understanding of how the designers’ workflow/process works. This means moving forwards how will the projects timeline be laid out, when do I pay, how many revisions and other key parts of the project. There is nothing worse than being left in the dark with no idea where the project is up to or when you will see the next update.
For example, at Campfire this is our process.
Step 1: Discovery Session (to help learn more about you, the project and your customers.
Step 2: Proposal Sent out (outlines what the designer ask for, price breaks down, key milestones, revision amount (and when they take place)
Step 3: Contract is sent out and signed by both parties
Step 4: Invoice 1/3 is send out (50% deposit)
Step 5 Style board and drafts
Step 6: Client feedback
Step 7: Invoice 2/3 is send out (25% payment)
Step 8 to 14 : We design something cool along with getting your feedback along with way this happens with 3 rounds of revisions
Step 15: Invoice 3/3 (25% payment)
Step 16: Project hand off, we give you the project files.
4. How many rounds of amends/revisions are included?
This is a key point to double-check, as it can vary from designer to designer, with some including unlimited amends (essentially, a guarantee that you will walk out with something you love), and others charging extra for each variation. It is common for 3 rounds of amends to be included, with any extras being charged on top, but it’s always worth making sure so you know exactly what to expect with the process.
5. How will our communication work throughout the project?
Strong communication is key to successful collaboration. Learn about your potential designer's preferred communication channels and the frequency of their updates to ensure their approach aligns with your expectations. Establishing this from the start will help prevent any confusion or misunderstandings further down the line.
6. What files will be supplied to me?
This is something not maybe people think about even when the final project is handed over. You should before starting the job have a clear understanding of what you will be getting once the job is done.
This is very important when it comes to the logo. It is very important to receive a vector version of the logo so that you can scale it up to any size in the future without a loss of quality. (That means a PNG or a JPG will NOT be good enough for all of your needs.)
Most commonly, a vector file will be either an EPS or AI file, but if you're not sure, ask. A good designer will be able to explain the difference to you.
Tho a vector file (EPS or AI file) is not always or will be giving out for design elements outside of the logo. For example. For marketing materials, you will most likely need a high-resolution PDF file. The main reason behind this is printing, the PDF is set up to the printer’s specification and easier to use the vector file itself.
It is unusual to be given the source files of any marketing material that’s created, but these can sometimes be negotiated.
Don’t forget however, if you need a certain kind of file format for the job for example WEBP/SVG/TIFF or something else you may require for your use case make sure to tell the designer before hand if you have any special requirements .
Before we head off though!
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Bonus question.
It is good to always end the interview by giving the designer a chance to say something. This could be something they’ve been trying to bring up the whole interview but never found the chance, or it could be something they thought of after the fact and wanted to add to the dialogue. Or simply ask how they fill about the project!
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