Page Design Group

Choosing the Right Design Firm

Buying creative services can be very intimidating. You can’t see what you are buying before you buy it. Page Design offers some proven tips for evaluating a creative firm that should lead you to a satisfying conclusion.

Talent, service and price are the key factors. Every design firm should be evaluated on these three points. Many can satisfy one or two. But the firm that can assure all three is the one you can count on to deliver the results you want.

TALENT The talent of any design firm can be seen in that firm’s portfolio. When you meet with designers and view their portfolios, it will be immediately obvious if there is a good sense of style and artistic ability. But listen as well as look. If the designer merely talks about style and fluff and not about how he or she solved the client’s problems, a warning flag should go up. The presentation should be balanced between style and how the designer worked to meet the client’s needs.

SERVICE The most talented designer can also be the flakiest. You have deadlines to meet and you have a right to demand that your job is done on time. The best way to determine how a design firm serves its clients is to talk with other customers. Ask for a reference list of clients and call them.

PRICE Everyone has a budget and you will find a large discrepancy in price among graphic designers. My recommendation is to use talent and service to pre-qualify design firms. Then go for the best value among the best-qualified firms.

Big Firm or Small Firm?

Some clients like working with small, even one-person, design firms. The advantage being that the client can work directly with the designer and is more likely to be among the design firm's most important clients.

There is also a perception that a small design firm will have lower prices. Other clients prefer the relative safety and stability of working with larger design firms. A large design firm is more likely to be in business for the long term. This is especially important for clients who may need to have jobs revised and reprinted over time. A large staff is also more flexible and able to handle large jobs and rush schedules.

Clients who prefer smaller design firms are susceptible to the staff’s extended vacations, illnesses, maternity leaves, work overloads and other unforeseen schedule interruptions. A client's best bet is to find a large design firm with the best attributes of a small firm. The most important of these attributes is the client's ability to speak directly with the designer on the project.

Designers Who Listen

When you meet with a prospective design firm, come prepared to discuss your company and your projects. You will get an immediate sense of how interested the designer is in you and your company by the nature of the questions he or she asks. Look for designers who take the time to listen to what you have to say, rather than immediately jumping to preconceived notions of your situation or industry. Finding a designer who listens is like finding gold.

Design vs. Decoration

Decoration is an important element in graphic design. However, it cannot exist at the expense of all other elements. Graphic designers typically enter the field through a love of art, not through an intense desire to communicate. Yet communication is the primary goal in virtually all graphic design projects.

When you are interviewing graphic design firms, look carefully at their work to see whether the style dominates or enhances the message. A good graphic design solution is one that uses exciting, stylish graphics to attract and direct the audience to the message. If it looks great, but your only takeaway is “huh?”, then decoration has won out.