Outsourcing Graphic Design

Brand Preparation Before Meeting With a Graphic Designer 

• What are your design needs?
  • What items are you looking to have created? Do you know what you need, or do you need a consultation?
  • Consider what visuals, if any, you already have. Do they represent your brand accurately, or do you need to replace them? Are you starting from scratch, looking to rebrand, or need new assets aligned with your existing branding?
  • Ask yourself what your goals are for this project and write them down for reference.
• What assets do you have?
  • What materials, if any, do you already have?
  • Do you have brand guidelines? If not, you may need them! This is the starting point for any designer or anyone looking to work on behalf of your brand. It describes how your business ought to be perceived, the visual guidelines to meet, and a direction for all interactions with your business.
  • What do you use right now when communicating about your brand? The logo files, colors you use, fonts, photos, etc. Put these together so you can share these assets with your designer if requested.
• What do you know about your brand?
  • This is typically summarized as brand identity guidelines or documents, but you may not have this outlined. If not, it is important to ask yourself what do you know about your brand, both as it is now, and as you want it to be.
  • What does your brand sound like, what does it represent, what are the goals, who is your audience, etc.?
  • What do you want it to reflect that it does not currently? What does your current branding do well? How do you want your brand to be perceived? Try to have some idea of what works and what doesn’t – what you want to continue doing and what should change.
• How involved do you need to be in the process?
  • Ask yourself how much control you want to have during the process. As the client, you ultimately get the final say on how your brand will be represented. But how much communication do you need in the process? Do you want to approve a general direction and let the designer come back to you with options, or do you need regular updates and to step in with changes?
  • Consider the designer an expert in visual communication, and you the client who gives ultimate approval of those concepts. Many changes during the design process may delay your project, but having assets ineffectively branded can damage the consistency of your brand. Consider the type of involvement you want to have, and you can be better prepared when communicating with your designer about rounds of revisions and how the project will be handled.

Questions To Ask a Graphic Designer or Marketing Agency

• What services do you offer?
  • Some designers specialize in one type of design, others may be jack-of-all-trades that operates in branding, print, social media, etc. Consider what needs to be done, and what the designer’s capabilities are.
  • Consider who you are talking to as well, if this is a freelance designer or part of a larger design or marketing agency, there may be further resources at your disposal. Do you also need copywriting done? Website building? You may need to outsource these tasks as well, and your designer or agency may or may not offer these services themselves.
• What is your design process?
  • This can give you a sense of how the designer typically works. At what point do they check in, how many revision rounds do they do, how do they prefer to communicate and receive feedback, etc? 
  • This is an excellent opportunity to see how your needs for involvement match up with their standard practices, and if you are compatible communicators.
• What do you need from me to do the job I have in mind?
  • Here, you can get into a bit more of the specifics of what you want. What your goals are and what items do you need that you figured out in the first set of questions? The designer has an opportunity to let you know what they would need for the special circumstances of whatever project you are coming to them for, and you can prepare to send those assets over for them to work with.

Need to Outsource Your Graphic Design Needs?