How to Choose a Good Graphic Designer

1. Do you value responsiveness?

Having a responsive creative team is typically a wild and elusive beast.
Does the designer respond to every email?

Good question to ask:
Do you have a response policy on returning emails or do you prefer to respond to emails only after 5-7 emails asking if you’re OK and if you’re still around?

2. Is good communication important to you?

Be sure that the designer you choose asks lots of questions and takes notes. Getting a grasp of your brand vision is important to be able to convey it to your customers.

Good question to ask:
Will you keep me updated with how the project is going throughout the processes… or will you disappear like a night owl into the moonlight and emerge 3 months later with something that’s über creative and completely wrong?

3. Would you like your supplier to have experience and a strong portfolio?

It goes without saying, but looking at other projects they have done for real live paying clients is very important. A good designer can show you a number of quality projects they have done in the past that give you confidence in their skill, talent, and scope. Having experience in dealing with a number of different clients and similar projects to you will allow a good designer to make suggestions of what has worked in the past. On this note, students may seem like a cheap affordable option but bear in mind that student projects typically don’t have time or budget constraints and can often blow out on both.

Good question to ask:
Do you have some examples of relevant projects to what I want?

4. Do you appreciate a strong sense of marketing incorporated into your brand?

Understanding the principles of marketing is a core part of graphic design. Your graphic designer should understand how your marketing works and create a way for the design to communicate inline with your marketing goals. They should have ideas and insights into how you can get the most of of your marketing efforts.

Good question to ask:
Do you have examples of your marketing/advertising experience?

5. Would you prefer to keep it local?

Outsourcing, as we know, is a common practice in many industries as a way of cutting costs. This can have negative effects; increasing turnaround time, reducing the quality of the work as well as misinterpreting the brief. If you make sure that your work is all being done in house you will get a consistent quality. You might also appreciate being able to talk directly to who is working on your designs.

Good question to ask:
Do you outsource any parts of the process to someone I’ve never met who doesn’t understand my business and doesn’t speak English as a first language? (Sometimes very important details can be lost in translation)