Hire Brand Designer — Tips on How to Find Best One

What comes to your mind when you hear "Holidays are coming" and see a line of red tracks? And what about this picture: can you guess what company's logo is hidden here?

That's right — it's Coca-Cola. No wonder that you succeeded in this quiz, as you're one of that 94% of the world population who recognizes the Coca-Cola logo. The number is quite impressive, isn't it? Do you wonder what the key to such popularity is? One word only — a brand.

Proper name, catchy logo, or recognizable color pattern — any of these could significantly improve your brand and therefore increase an income. The fifth element missing for getting it is one person — a brand designer. If you're in the middle of endless searching for the best fit right now, this article is what you need.

We'll help you figure out what a brand designer actually is, the list of their responsibilities, where to find the best candidates, and how much to pay them. So, let's start with answering the first basic yet crucial question.

What is a brand designer?

If you think it's a person who creates a nice logo or catchy symbolic elements, there is good and bad news for you. The bad one is that you don't see the whole picture of a brand designer's mission, and the good one is that we're about to change that.

If a brand designer had a superpower, it would be mind-reading and influencing. How come? Every brand designer is responsible for much more than just creating appealing visuals. They are experts who help two worlds to meet each other: your customers' and your business' ones. How do they do that? Basically, with the help of three main steps:

First, they help you to define your business goals, values,
and brand identity.
Then, they analyze your clients with their needs, desires,
and pain points.
Finally, they brainstorm a lot of creative ideas and convert them into brand strategy.

As the current market is overwhelmed with all the brands, having just a nice logo isn't enough. If you'd like to stand out among your competitors, having a well-planned unique brand is a must-have: customers need not just a picture but emotions.

According to Consumer Thermometer statistics, almost 70% of people have ever experienced an emotional connection with a brand. The top three feelings they felt towards the brands they prefer are interest, trust, and optimism. These are what brand designers convert into visuals.

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What does a brand designer do?

As we already established, the main task of a brand designer is to convert your business' values into catchy visuals that evoke customers' emotions and earn their loyalty. That means their list of responsibilities includes not only aspects of the design world but also marketing one.

Obviously, a brand designer's responsibilities vary greatly depending on each business and its needs. Still, there are some essential tasks that every expert needs to know how to succeed in them.

Work on your brand identity

The first thing a brand designer has to do is gain a deep understanding of your business values, goals, and priorities. For that, they have to provide you with a detailed brief and carry out in-depth research. This stage is a pillar of the successful brand strategy, as it helps to find out the public image and message of your business.

Do customer and market research

Creating a brand strategy without getting a clear picture of your customer needs is like driving a car in dense fog. It’s dangerous and leads you to nowhere. That’s why a top brand designer always does in-depth research on what’s crucial for your customers. Besides, they also have to pay attention to the situation on the market.

Create unique logos

People form their opinion about a logo in 10 seconds, or even less. As it’s the visual essence of your business brand identity, it’s one of the most crucial tasks of a brand designer. A logo has not only to depict your values but also to be catchy, appealing, and make a lasting impression.

Make visual elements

Visual elements are an ace up brand designer’s sleeve. Once successfully created, they’ll help to communicate with your customers easily and effectively. The most essential ones are color palette, typography, imagery, and graphic elements. With the help of color only, you could improve your brand recognition by 80%.

Develop corporate brand style

Business cards or email designs might look like a drop in the brand ocean. However, all these details are essential for engaging your customers and driving your business. Besides, a brand designer pays special attention to creating branded merchandise for customers, increasing your brand’s awareness.

Create a brand style guide

A brand style guide is the main document provided by a brand designer. It contains all your design assets and step-by-step instructions on how and when to use them. Besides, with its help, you can get more details about your brand identity and a list of do’s and don'ts for your future designs.

Brand designer myths you should debunk

Prior to the onboarding process, you already have some concepts or, perhaps, myths of what working with a brand designer is like. Let’s see how your expectations will withstand the battle with reality.

Myths

A designer should present you with 10+ concept options.

Reality

The number of concepts doesn’t define the success of your branding. If a designer presents to you five different concept options or just one, either way, it means only a certain approach.
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What a top brand designer should do is create designs through their research, background, and strategy. With the help of this, you’ll be able to find the one that’s going to be the most impactful for your business.

Myths

An outside person can never know your business as well as you do.

Reality

A professional designer doesn’t mean only an in-house designer. A freelance expert can get to know your company better than an incompetent in-house.
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A professional will do their due diligence thoroughly. They’ll communicate with you, make a designer brief, have a questionnaire, or a phone call to find out as much information as possible.

Myths

You need a visual direction before hiring a designer.

Reality

It’s not really your responsibility to come to a designer with a logo inspiration, a visual direction, or a color palette. A designer will guide you through this process and help you choose the best option.
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During the brand strategy session, a designer gathers all the information and figures out the visual style that is best suited for the business. But it is also the client’s responsibility to provide all the necessary information and approve the concepts.

Myths

The design process is really intimidating and overwhelming.

Reality

An expert in branding will have a clear process of developing your identity. With them, you’re always aware of what they’re working on now or what’s going to happen next.
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Brand designing is a big project, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming to the client. It should feel more like an opportunity to partner with somebody who’s aligned with your vision.

Myths

Reality

A designer should present you with 10+ concept options.

An outside person can never know your business as well as you do.

You need a visual direction before hiring a designer.

The design process is really intimidating and overwhelming.

Where to look for a brand designer?

Like Alice in Wonderland, you’ll find yourself in a hallway with many doors of platforms for hiring brand designers. But which one will lead you to the expert of your dreams?

To make this journey quicker for you, Awesomic has already tried each of the doors and now can tell you which are worth your attention. As we found out, the main ways of hiring a brand designer are through freelance and portfolio websites, social media, and design subscription services.

We’ve selected the most popular representatives of each category. And now we’ll reveal which pros and cons to expect from them.

Upwork

You can post a job opening that’ll attract designers who already possess the necessary requirements.

It has location filters that allow you to hire a designer in the same time zone.

There’s no easy way of checking the expertise of the designer before hiring them.

You have to pay an additional 23% fee of the freelancer’s salary to Upwork.

99designs

You can see the portfolio of a designer at once and assess their expertise.

The platform allows you to post a contest for your design so you can get up to 30 or 50 design concepts to choose from.

There are four types of contest packages with fixed prices. But you can suggest your own price which isn’t lower than the cheapest package.

Running a contest is a cheaper but riskier option as you might get several designs none of which is suitable for you.

The feedback options are restricted to only leaving comments, annotations, or star ratings.

Large talent pool

You can see the experience and qualifications of a candidate without requesting a resume

The platform doesn’t allow you to see the cases of the designer’s work. The only way of checking their portfolio is to follow the link in the bio or request it personally.

If you choose to target designers personally, you’ll be able to message them only after they’ve accepted you in the friends list. However, you’ll spend additional time waiting.

Awesomic

Fast turnaround time: you can get the first design version in a day.

The platform offers you designers that are pre-selected by professionalism criteria.

To communicate with designers, you can use chats, share files, arrange video calls, and use the Slack app.

The platform isn’t suitable for those who are looking for an in-house designer.

How much does it cost to hire a brand designer?

In the same way as above, you’re curious to know how much each of the “doors'' costs to enter. For this reason, Awesomic has looked into the prices of the selected platforms. Spoiler alert: they differ from charging per hour of work to the project itself. Now, let's see how much their services cost.

Upwork

The prices on this platform range from $10/hr to $150/hr. On average, one hour of brand designer’s work will cost you $60. For this price you will get designs of logo, packaging, emails, and marketing materials.

However, note that you’d have to multiply the price per number of hours the designer works for you. The more time-consuming task your designer has, the bigger the check becomes. And if this isn’t enough, remember that Upwork charges an additional 23% fee for using their services.

99designs

When it comes to pricing on 99designs, there are two options of how much you’d have to spend. The cost of a brand designer depends on how you’ll approach the process of hiring them.

If you choose to employ a branding designer through browsing portfolios, you’d need to contact them directly to find out the price. But the platform suggests that the average pricing is from $599 to $2,199 per project.

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The other option is more specific. You can start a contest where designers offer you their branding prototypes. This option usually has a fixed price that varies only depending on the package you choose. You can also suggest your own price for the contest, but it can’t be lower than $599.

The prices of hiring a brand designer on LinkedIn are not fixed. For instance, you can target brand designers personally and check the price in their resumes or portfolios. But you’ll hardly ever find any price mentioned there. What you can do, though, is contact them via email or private messages and wait for the reply.

You might decide to save time and find out the approximate cost of a brand designer by looking into job postings of your competitors. But this option is a bit tricky, as most of the job offerings don’t mention the price.

According to Awesomic’s research of 250+ job postings, only one had the actual brand designer salary mentioned. American company Salesforce offers $122,900 annual compensation to a senior brand designer. However, this option was offered to only on-site workers.

Awesomic

The users of Awesomic buy a flat-rate monthly subscription that can get them more than just a brand designer. Firstly, the platform saves you the struggle of spending time recruiting an expert. Rather, it provides you with an already selected professional that can create your brand from scratch.

Besides branding, you can request any design services included in your subscription plan during the months of usage. The price already includes an assigned customer success manager that helps you get the most out of the services.

Wrapping up

Do you want your business’s logo to be recognized by over 90% of the world's population like Coca-Cola’s? The first step to this goal is to hire a professional brand designer. Instead of producing just a nice picture, such an expert will create a full identity pack with every visual aspect for your business.

How to find such an ace? Your platform of choice might be a freelance website, a social network, or a portfolio site. But be frank with yourself: are you ready to invest a good deal of your time to find a real pro?

If not, you can save yourself the trouble and turn to flat-rate design subscription services like Awesomic. There, you'll collaborate with already pre-selected professionals that know how to transform your business values into a vision that adheres to your clients.

Now that you know where and how to find the best expert, it’s time to take the first step. Are you in?

FAQ

What is a brand designer?

A brand designer is a creative professional who can help you develop the brand identity of your business to shape it into the public image and message. The main task of a brand designer is to convert your business' values into catchy visuals that evoke customers' emotions.

What are a brand designer’s responsibilities?

The list of a brand designer's responsibilities varies greatly depending on each business and its needs. Still, there are some essential tasks that every expert needs to know how to succeed in them:

work on your brand identity
do market and customers research
create unique logos
make visual elements
design apps and websites
develop corporate brand style
create a brand style guide

How to find a designer for your brand?

The most common ways of hiring freelance brand designers are via social media, freelance or portfolio websites, and design subscription services. Your choice of platform should depend on such factors:

The expertise of designers offered by the platform.
How much the project is going to cost.
What ways of communication with designers the platform offers.
The average turnaround time of the platform’s branding designers.

How much does a branding designer cost?

The lowest price at which you can get branding design is $10 per hour. For this price, you won’t get a professional as they charge way more. For instance, the brand designers on 99designs charge from $599 to $2,199.
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Another option is design subscription service Awesomic, which has a fixed price for each month of using it. There, you can even get two brand designers with an upgraded plan. It’s like hiring a mini brand design department at a price of one designer.