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Hiring a new specialist to your team is far not the easiest thing to do, we know. Especially when you need to find a designer. Why so?
Let’s imagine what you would typically do if you were looking for a specialist online.
The first thing that would probably come to your mind is to google “graphic designer near me”, as we all do. Then, you would look through LinkedIn and portfolio websites, spending hours and even days on the pre-screening process. Later, you would need to dedicate even more time to interviewing the most fitting candidates, assessing their soft skills, and reviewing test tasks. And finally, as you’ve already gone through the nine circles of hell, you’d have to do all the paperwork and take care of the onboarding.
Of course, all of this is mostly applicable to hiring an in-house designer. Yet, if you decide to opt for a freelancer, there might be even more complications.
But don’t worry, we’ve got you! Today, we’ll share all we know about graphic design and give you some tips on how to hire a graphic designer that will fit your team perfectly well.
But first, let’s get back to basics for a minute.
Unless you live in the middle of the woods, you see graphic design almost every minute of your life. It might sound incredible, but it’s true.
Just think about it. Every day, you come across hundreds of advertisements and branded products both online and offline. The packaging of your favorite cookies, billboards you see on your way to work, posters, flyers, and even memes - all of them were created by a professional designer.
And all of them are extremely helpful! For instance, visual elements in the presentation let you keep your audience engaged and help them understand the information better.
And a good advertisement or packaging can increase the sales
of your product and bring more value to your customers.
“More than 50 percent of the cortex, the surface of the brain, is devoted to processing visual information”.
According to David Williams, a Professor of Medical Optics.
The thing is that our brain perceives visual information much better compared to text or speech.
This means that with the right graphic design, you may influence people’s behavior, increase their engagement and attachment to your business.
visual processing
to the brain is visual
better to visual
To build user engagement, improve their experience with your brand, and build trust, you should hire a graphic designer who has mastered similar cases. You might start by considering which design products you might need at the end of the day.
To build user engagement, improve their experience with your brand, and build trust, you should hire a graphic designer who has mastered similar cases. You might start by considering which design products you might need at the end of the day.
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We use tables, charts, infographics, and presentations to structure a large amount of information and make it easier to understand.
When listening to an interesting speaker or reading the instructions for the washing machine, you concentrate. But however much attention you pay to a written text or speech, you won’t be able to process all of it at once, let alone remember what you read or heard. That’s when visuals come in handy.
Every business has a logo. However, the concept of visual identity is much broader: it is a set of colors, fonts, patterns, and the rules for their combination. A whole range of graphic elements that help you maintain the brand image is what makes a business stand out among competitors.
In this case, graphic design is no longer used for visualizing information but rather for brand awareness and promotion.
This type of design is probably the most popular one, and when you hear someone say they need to hire a graphic designer, they usually mean a specialist who is good at branding.
The next big thing in graphic design is ads. To promote any business online and offline, you need a catchy advertisement that will draw the attention of your target audience and “sell” your product or service.
Any designer might help you create ad visuals. But if you need to develop the concept of your future ad, consider also hiring an art director or an experienced marketer who will work on creatives.
As we’ve mentioned before, graphic design helps people communicate their ideas and promote products. But sometimes, it can be directly a part of the product.
Just take a look at the wallpapers, a T-shirt with a flashy print, or even your phone case. Design is everywhere around us, and printing technologies allow us to work with any materials giving more freedom to creative designers.
The last type of design we’d like to mention today is the one with no pictures at all.
Does it sound strange to you? It might. But it’s a great example of how vital the design industry is nowadays.
When you read a good paper book or look through a magazine, you don’t usually pay attention to the layout of the text as long as it is comfortable for you to read. But the thing is that correctly chosen fonts, line spacing, margins, and word hyphenation help your eyes fatigue less. And it might take hours and days for designers to come up with the best possible combination of all the elements.
Digital layouts have their own nuances: the designer makes sure that you do not have to run your eyes across the large screen, that paragraphs differ from line spacing, and the transition to a new line does not complicate reading. This is mostly done by UI/UX designers who take care of websites, mobile apps, and software interfaces.
Finally, we’d like to point out that it’s impossible for one specialist to cover all types of design. That’s why if you are looking for a designer, make sure to assess their future workload and required skills beforehand and create a few positions if needed.
We use tables, charts, infographics, and presentations to structure a large amount of information and make it easier to understand.
When listening to an interesting speaker or reading the instructions for the washing machine, you concentrate. But however much attention you pay to a written text or speech, you won’t be able to process all of it at once, let alone remember what you read or heard. That’s when visuals come in handy.
Every business has a logo. However, the concept of visual identity is much broader: it is a set of colors, fonts, patterns, and the rules for their combination. A whole range of graphic elements that help you maintain the brand image is what makes a business stand out among competitors.
In this case, graphic design is no longer used for visualizing information but rather for brand awareness and promotion.
This type of design is probably the most popular one, and when you hear someone say they need to hire a graphic designer, they usually mean a specialist who is good at branding.
The next big thing in graphic design is ads. To promote any business online and offline, you need a catchy advertisement that will draw the attention of your target audience and “sell” your product or service.
Any designer might help you create ad visuals. But if you need to develop the concept of your future ad, consider also hiring an art director or an experienced marketer who will work on creatives.
As we’ve mentioned before, graphic design helps people communicate their ideas and promote products. But sometimes, it can be directly a part of the product.
Just take a look at the wallpapers, a T-shirt with a flashy print, or even your phone case. Design is everywhere around us, and printing technologies allow us to work with any materials giving more freedom to creative designers.
The last type of design we’d like to mention today is the one with no pictures at all.
Does it sound strange to you? It might. But it’s a great example of how vital the design industry is nowadays.
When you read a good paper book or look through a magazine, you don’t usually pay attention to the layout of the text as long as it is comfortable for you to read. But the thing is that correctly chosen fonts, line spacing, margins, and word hyphenation help your eyes fatigue less. And it might take hours and days for designers to come up with the best possible combination of all the elements.
Digital layouts have their own nuances: the designer makes sure that you do not have to run your eyes across the large screen, that paragraphs differ from line spacing, and the transition to a new line does not complicate reading. This is mostly done by UI/UX designers who take care of websites, mobile apps, and software interfaces.
Finally, we’d like to point out that it’s impossible for one specialist to cover all types of design. That’s why if you are looking for a designer, make sure to assess their future workload and required skills beforehand and create a few positions if needed.
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These are two different directions that are closely related in the modern media field and require certain creative skills and experience.
Basically, the difference between a graphic designer and an illustrator lies in the volume of their work and the focus of their skills. Illustrators create sketches, drawings, infographics, and other things that you might call “art”, while designers work with images, text, color, typography to convey ideas or information for different visuals.
There is often overlap, depending on the skills of an artist and the requirements of a particular project. For example, there are some designers who know how to create illustrations, just as there are some illustrators who do graphic design.
In contrast to illustrators, visual designers work on brand communication (or at least its visual part) throughout different platforms. This might include websites, apps, advertisements in any form, packaging, social media images, and many other things.
The best way to describe visual design is to say that it’s situated at the intersection of UI/UX and graphic design. Usually, such specialists take care of the overall message that a business is broadcasting through its visual identity.
In small and medium companies, the line between these two positions is very blurry, and most of the time, one specialist covers both positions. But when it comes to bigger teams, there is usually a separation of the roles, and while designers take care of the creative part of the design and brainstorming ideas, production artists bring these ideas to life.
If you want to Hire A Graphic Designer, you should consider all the available options in the market. And trust us, there are plenty!
If you have a more or less stable workload, the most profitable and convenient thing would be to assemble your own team in the office or hire a remote designer. Sometimes, it’s easier to go through the whole process once and hire a full-time employee rather than look for a new contractor every time you need a Facebook post.
But what if I don’t have that many tasks, you might think? Well, then go for a part-time designer that will work for your team only when needed.
"A young professionals’ SMM team was searching for a senior designer to curate juniors and upgrade their skills. When I came, I’ve found lots of conflicts, gaps in processes and stuff turnover. Despite the general mess, it was a challenging and offbeat experience."
"A young professionals’ SMM team was searching for a senior designer to curate juniors and upgrade their skills. When I came, I’ve found lots
of conflicts, gaps in processes and stuff turnover. Despite the general mess, it was
a challenging and offbeat experience."
Supervising a freelancer is a kind of art (or torture). They might be totally unreliable when it comes to deadlines and the quality of work. And you never know how much you’ll end up paying by the end of the month, which is quite hard in terms of budgeting.
Yet, suppose you have a small business and an unstable workload. In that case, it might be easier and cheaper to scroll through freelance websites and find “your guy” than to hire in-house or look for an agency.
Pro tip: It is most convenient to work with a freelancer when you have a clear idea of the result or a detailed brand book. Otherwise, at first, you’ll be stuck in the search for a common language and style of work.
As a rule, these are young companies that understand the problems of small businesses well, ask for less, and are ready for short projects.
The difference between such small teams and freelancers is in the complexity of the tasks. For example, you can easily ask an agency for help with websites, video production, creating and running ad campaigns. At the same time, a single person can hardly ever cope with that many tasks at once.
A bigger agency can help you do any marketing activities, such as developing a strategy, creating visuals and text content, running campaigns, and analyzing their outcomes.
Of course, their costs are much higher compared to other contractors. That's why, usually, they only work with well-known brands and enterprises.
This is a relatively new type of service that has been gaining momentum for the last several years.
Such platforms offer design services for a flat rate, so you can stay within the budget and plan your expenses. Besides, they are much more reliable compared to freelancers and usually offer a much faster turnover.
Such subscription services work well for smaller businesses or as additional part-time design help, but they will never substitute a full-time employee or a design team.
Depending on your location and requirements, the average graphic designer’s salary may vary. And it’s pretty obvious - the cost of living in the US is much higher than in Europe or South-East Asia, so any local specialists will ask for a higher wage than their overseas competitors.
For this reason, many companies prefer to work with foreign contractors and cut expenses due to lower designer hourly rates.
Here, we’ve collected the average annual salaries of full-time graphic designers worldwide, according to Glassdoor statistics.
If you own a business and need a brochure, logo, or any other type of design, but you don't know a single person in the industry, you are likely to feel lost.
To help you out, we’ve collected the most
common ways to find a graphic designer:
If you own a business and need a brochure, logo, or any other type of design, but you don't know a single person in the industry, you are likely to feel lost.
To help you out, we’ve collected
the most common ways to find
a graphic designer:
If you want to hire a graphic designer, make sure to pay attention to several aspects, not only their CV and portfolio.
Top graphic designers have the skill to turn a vague idea into a grounded reality. Such professionals are usually self-sufficient and proactive. They don’t need excessive management and can handle most tasks on their own fast and efficiently.
Besides, they have usually worked in several different industries, which allows them to adjust their style and techniques according to your business needs.
It might sound obvious, but we can’t stress enough how important it is to look through a designer’s portfolio. Make sure to check it before the interview and ask your candidates to walk you through their portfolios during a conversation.
Pay attention to the way your potential designers describe their works and why they decided to include these exact graphics into their portfolio. This will let you get an idea of what each specialist values and how they will work in your team.
Reviews and testimonials will help you understand the designer's professional ethics, communication skills, and credibility.
They are especially important when looking for a graphic designer on freelance websites and forums since, as we’ve already mentioned, it might be hard to find a reliable contractor.
"I had an interview, and the conversation turned to rock music. After that, for the rest of the interview, about 40 minutes, we had a heated argument about who was the best guitarist, all about the rock music, and what kind of drugs Ozzy Osbourne used to get high.
PS: they didn’t give me an offer"
"I had an interview, and the conversation turned to rock music. After that, for the rest of the interview, about 40 minutes, we had a heated argument about who was the best guitarist, all about the rock music, and what kind of drugs Ozzy Osbourne used to get high.
PS: they didn’t give
me an offer"
When it comes to individual contractors, it’s always more efficient to create a job posting and wait for the applications. Because why would you spend hours looking for a suitable candidate when they are probably looking for you as well? ;)
Yet, if you don’t mind hiring an agency, the easiest way would be to search “graphic designer near me” and check the map. This way, you can also check reviews and make up your mind on the exact team you’d like to work with.
But nevertheless, we highly recommend you to consider hiring a remote specialist and working with professionals worldwide, rather than to look for an employee from a particular city like NYC or San Diego.
After the initial screening
of the candidates, you will probably want to invite
a few of them to the interview. And that’s
when all the fun begins!
We’ve prepared a list of questions to ask a graphic designer, which can help you find the best one
for your business.
After the initial screening of the candidates, you will probably want to invite
a few of them
to the interview. And that’s when all the fun begins!
We’ve prepared
a list of questions to ask a graphic designer, which can help you find the best one for your business.
After the initial screening of the candidates, you will probably want to invite
a few of them
to the interview. And that’s
when all the
fun begins!
We’ve prepared
a list of questions to ask a graphic designer, which can help you find the best one
for your business.
This question will help you define the critical skills of a candidate and the areas you can count on them. Are they developing their skills? Can they go beyond standard Photoshop and InDesign? Do they use the same software as other team members?
Depending on your needs, you may be looking for a strategist or just a good performer who wouldn’t take part in the initial steps of the project. The key idea is that you shouldn't force anyone to do the job they hate. So go for the specialist that fits best!
The correct briefing is half the battle. For this reason, it’s a good idea to find out which factors your candidates consider to be important when getting a new task.
There are so many online platforms offering such a service that it would probably take us another couple of weeks to cover all of them. So, for now, we’ve created a list of the top 5 websites to hire a graphic designer or outsource your design tasks.
Fiverr is one of the most famous freelance marketplaces.
You can get any design tasks done, from business cards and brochure design to logos, corporate graphics, and more. Lots of freelancers offer their design services on the platform, so you’ll always have what to choose from.
These two websites are the most popular portfolio platforms where thousands of designers worldwide share their best works. You can’t hire specialists directly through Dribbble or Behance, but you can find a graphic designer for your business and contact them for collaboration.
This Australian platform mainly deals with freelance graphic designers, so you might also give it a try if that’s what you are looking for.
Upwork is currently considered one of the largest freelance marketplaces worldwide. Like Fiverr, it will help you hire a graphic designer and get other services, such as UI/UX design, text writing, web development, etc.
Awesomic is an app that matches you with the best-fit designer at a flat monthly rate. It is a design subscription service with award-winning designers from Europe who work with small and medium businesses worldwide.
There are so many online platforms offering such a service that it would probably take us another couple of weeks to cover all of them. So, for now, we’ve created a list of the top 5 websites to hire a graphic designer or outsource your design tasks.
Fiverr is one of the most famous freelance marketplaces.
You can get any design tasks done, from business cards and brochure design to logos, corporate graphics, and more. Lots of freelancers offer their design services on the platform, so you’ll always have what to choose from.
These two websites are the most popular portfolio platforms where thousands of designers worldwide share their best works. You can’t hire specialists directly through Dribbble or Behance, but you can find a graphic designer for your business and contact them for collaboration.
This Australian platform mainly deals with freelance graphic designers, so you might also give it a try if that’s what you are looking for.
Upwork is currently considered one of the largest freelance marketplaces worldwide. Like Fiverr, it will help you hire a graphic designer and get other services, such as UI/UX design, text writing, web development, etc.
Awesomic is an app that matches you with the best-fit designer at a flat monthly rate. It is a design subscription service with award-winning designers from Europe who work with small and medium businesses worldwide.
Hopefully, by this time, you already know what kind of designer you are looking for and where you can find them. The only thing that’s left to do is make sure that all your paperwork is done correctly and you give your designer enough time and resources for proper onboarding.
And don’t be in a rush, come on! Sometimes, a good design is worth the wait. Even if you need to wait for only 24 hours ;)
It depends on a particular specialist and a marketplace you hire them from. For example, on Fiverr, you can get a logo done from $5, and on 99designs, you’ll need to pay at least $248.
In large companies and enterprises, graphic designers take care of the creative part, brainstorming, and generating design ideas, while production artists bring them to life. In smaller teams, graphic designers combine these duties.
The easiest way to find a local designer is to create a job posing on a dedicated website or LinkedIn.
Depending on the country, the average annual salary of a graphic designer can vary. For example, the annual pay in the USA is currently $49K, while in Spain, it is $31K.
There are plenty of freelance marketplaces, such as Fiverr and Upwork, design agencies, and design subscription services like Awesomic.
Make sure to ask them about experience and skills, the way they prefer to work (alone or in a team), and how they usually organize their work process. Besides, it’s a good idea to ask them to present a portfolio and dwell upon their favorite project.
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