Unlike products you buy off the shelf, hiring a designer to develop your brand comes with many unknowns. Sure, you can look at their past work to evaluate style, fit and experience, but until you work with them, you’re never certain of what you’re going to get.
That’s part of the fun, but also part of the risk. The end product is intangible. The designer doesn’t know what it’s going to be (unless they recycle an old design) and nor do you. You hope it’ll be a collaborative affair, but again, you just never know. Just like that piece of chocolate you grab as a colleague carries the box through the office.
Having hired and managed many designers over the years, I’ve become quite good at spotting those with possibility, and weeding out those more interested in anything except for your business. There are many designers only interested in designing for the hippest companies around where it’s easy to be creative. But most businesses are not overly sexy like the Nikes and Apples of the world. In most businesses you have to dig deeper to find the creative spark. The unique personality that sets it apart. You have to make something out of nothing. And that’s what the best designers do.
I once hired an agency to help market a reseller program after several interviews. The creative they presented in the pitch was steller, their experience solid and personalities not overly egotistical. They showed a passion for doing great work. But that ended once they won the account. Then it was just another paycheck. And the work lacked passion and deadlines frequently slid.
Good brand design is an important part of making your content stand out. It helps your customers engage and connect with your company. It gives you a memorable personality different from every other thingamajiggerproducerservicer. It’s part of developing a sustainable competitive advantage. That’s why hiring a designer is risky. And most people don’t have an unlimited budget for a do-over.
While tested, but never fool proof, here’s my take on finding designers who are not what Thomas Friedman calls in The World is Flat – JAFA (just another fucking artist.)
The best designers:
- are curious and ask a lot of probing questions about your business. They want to know about your products and services, how they help people – and the type of person who buys your stuff.
- are people who think. They problem solve. And work hard to present innovative creative. Not just stuff regurgitated from the annuals.
- care more about creating design that gets results for your business rather than winning awards. Stay away from designers looking merely for a portfolio piece. This is a case in point.
- pay attention to detail. They take pride in the craft of good design. Type is well presented; letters fit nicely together. And they actually run spell check on their work before showing it.
- design for your business not their whim. They create designs that transcend the latest fads in type and color.
- are technically proficient in design software. They deliver production-ready files with images properly formatted and links and fonts included.
- never get defensive when you critique their work. They’re not prima donnas who don’t get that you’re paying the bill and it’s a collaborative process.
- demonstrate a range in their work. They don’t have just one style (goes back to creating design appropriate for your business).
- understand that this is a business and keep commitments. They’re on time for meetings and work, and meet the deadlines they’ve committed to. And when a deadline cannot be met, they communicate in advance and give you a revised date.
- have a backbone and know how to push back when you’re making unreasonable demands – it does take a good client to get good design, but that’s for another time.
- keep good records and provide detailed estimates. They know what the word budget means and how to work creatively within small and large budgets. Sometimes the smaller budgets force the best work because the design has to work harder.
- are passionate about good design and always learning, developing their craft.
- have broad interests in things outside of design. Noted photographer Jay Maisel always says “interesting people make interesting pictures.” The same goes for designers.
- are people you like to work with. It’s a partnership. It’s like dating or even getting married depending on how much design work you need.
In the never fool proof category, I’ve hired designers that exuded potential but quickly fell flat and those that seemed okay, but soon blew me away with their work. Through experience you get a nose for the good ones. Sometimes you’re just gonna get an icky piece of chocolate.
