Marina Rivon
Marina Rivón is a Professional Graphic Designer, Author and Principal Partner of Maremar Graphic Design. Maremar is a marketing driven graphic design studio based in the island of Puerto Rico. Her goal is to help business owners make the maximum of their visual identities and develop marketing materials that will help grow their businesses. She regularly publishes ‘Apuntes’ a free e-zine with articles and advice to empower her readers design decisions. You can subscribe to the e-zine at http://www.maremar.com
View all articles by Marina Rivon
Designers are from Saturn - How to Choose a Graphic Designer
Or not! Finding designers to interview for your next design project is a fairly simple process. Finding the right match for your particular job is more complicated. You will find that there are many different types of designers. From the independent professional to the larger design firms; from specialized shops that deal with one type of product (annual reports, packaging) to professionals that have a wider range of experience, although maybe not as deep as the specialists in their particular areas.
Making this type of decision can be very confusing. Maybe you’ve never needed this type of services so you don’t really know what to look for. Or you have used design services in the past but didn’t really feel comfortable with the results you got. This can be down right nerve reeking (and we haven’t even mentioned the financial issues). In this article we have put together a list of things that you should consider the next time you are “shopping” for design services, hopefully these pointers will help guide you through the process and ease the “pain”.
Your choice will be determined first of all by the nature of the task at hand, your needs and what you wish to accomplish. You are seeking a partner that will help you translate this into a concrete form that will ultimately fulfill your goals. This partner will need to understand the ideas underlying the project objectives in order to be able to produce a creative solution to your problem. This can only be accomplished if designer and client work together as a team to mold the product into its final form.
As you can see it is not as simple as finding somebody that will make things look “pretty”. This is an important business decision, graphic design is no longer a commodity in today’s business world and as such you should analyze your choices carefully. We have put together a list of six things you should consider while undergoing this process, but by all means, ask questions, many questions.
Things to consider:
Portfolio
As a point of departure you should check out the designer’s previous works, have they done projects similar to yours? Maybe not in your same industry but of similar scope, complexity. You might not find the exact type of piece that you will have them produce for your company but other pieces might demonstrate the capacity for managing a project with a scope similar to yours. Keep an open mind, remember we are dealing with ideas, concepts, creative solutions, each is unique in its own manner. You are not choosing from a catalog, you should look for work that demonstrates creative problem-solving solutions.
Style
Many designers have a specific style, you can recognize their work among work produced by other designers. This is not necessarily good nor bad, it depends if their particular style is a good fit for your particular needs. Other designers are more eclectic, they strive to be more flexible if you will, and their style is to adapt to whatever will be appropriate for the customers needs.
This can easily be appreciated while analyzing a portfolio. Work within a specific style will emerge like pieces in a puzzle, they all fit nicely into the same box, you should be able to identify different piece by a certain underlying unity as if they are all “family”. This does not have to be bad, just make sure it is what you want.
Experience
It is very important to be able to calibrate how much experience a designer actually has. How long have they been in business? Who is on their client list? Do they specialize in any given area, type of work or industry?
We talked before about the portfolio, but, what type of projects do they actually have in their portfolio? Is it as broad or as specialized as you need? Do they seem to know what they are talking about and not just bluffing?
References
Ask them for customer references, if they have done a good job they will not hesitate in offering the contact information. Once you have this information you can ask about their timeliness and responsibility.
Communication
This is the foundation of your relationship. You need to know that the people with whom you are dealing are receptive to your needs. They should prove from the get go that they are good listeners and know how to ask the right questions. A good design partner will help you in your discovery process, this is a long journey to travel alone they should be able to help guide the way.
Establish from the beginning if you are talking with the person that is actually working on your project or an account executive. Will you have direct access to the designer?
Also, ask questions about their pricing policy. Do you know exactly what you are getting for your money? Is their pricing policy clearly outlined or properly explained in an estimate so that you know what to expect before you have to start paying extra?
Chemistry
Above all, have fun, life is too short, enjoy your work and work with people that enjoy working with you. You might want to work with someone, but realize that there is just something that doesn’t “click”, you can’t seem to understand each other or you seem to be on different channels- STOP this is an instant recipe for disaster. The relationship with your designer should be based on trust, respect and mutual understanding. This should be a fun process for both of you. It is very important that you feel comfortable, don’t underestimate this, it can either make or break not only your design job but also your budget.
As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, ask questions, lots of questions about anything and everything you can think of. You might think that all designers come from Saturn, but, we are really just normal people trained to help you and your business. Good luck!
|
