Tag Archive: Hire


Things to Consider When You Hire a Graphic Designer

Filed Under: Graphic Design
Sep.21, 2010

1.  Who is your target audience?

This will have a great impact on the style, content and message of your project. Some variables that can have impact on a design include the age range of your client base, their gender, their geographic location, and additional factors such as economic status and religion may also come into play.

2.  What is your message?

Make sure that you can tell a designer exactly what message you are trying to convey to your client audience. The overall message can be something as simple as thanking customers or announcing a new product. Once that is established, go beyond it to decide on the  “mood” of your product or service message. Is it excitement? Sadness? Compassion? Gather some keywords that will help with the overall style of your design.

3.  What are the specs of your project?

Decide ahead of time on the size of your project.  For example, a 12-page brochure will take much longer than a 4-page foldout. The amount of content can help to determine the dimensions and number of pages. Also decide if you need black and white or  2-color vs. 4-color printing as this will affect your final price, as will factors like paper stock and the size the number of pieces that you need to  print.

4.  What is your budget?

In many cases, you may not know your actual budget for a project.  Regardless, it is usually a good idea to at least have a range in mind. The designer may be able to alter some parameters (such as timeframe or the amount of design revisions to be provided) to fit within your overall budget.

5.  Is there a specific deadline?

Make sure to tell the graphic designer if the project needs to be done by a specific date. The job may coincide with your product launch, or another important milestone. If there is not a deadline, you will want to create a timeframe for completing the project and present it to the designer..

6.  Should you provide a creative direction?

Whenever possible, it is helpful to at least provide a little creative direction from your own imagination. Of course, the designer will be creating something new and unique, but some ideas rom you will help them get on the right track to your vision. Provide design elements that you already have in mind such as colors, fonts, or other previous designs or websites. It is also important to point out if there is an existing brand that you need to match that may already have a color scheme, font, logo or other element that needs to be incorporated into your new design.

7.  Should you request your own copyright?

Unless otherwise specified in a contract, the graphic designer retains the right to his or her creations, and will most often attempt to do so. When hiring a designer, you would need to specify if you plan to request the specific rights to own the newly designed logo. Copyright laws protect against additional use other than for the original business or product that the logo was designed for without proper compensation or agreement.

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Take Control Of Your Business – Hire A Professional Web Design Company

Filed Under: Web Design
Aug.15, 2010

Many companies consider paid advertising with google and yahoo these days. For many companies paying five dollars a click is just not affordable anymore. There is another way: you could setup a web marketing campaign. Many web design companies offer SEO and web marketing services. Instead of spending all your marketing money on Pay-per-Click advertisement these companies concentrate on distributing small ads web classifieds along with articles to blogs and include links to your website. These ads not only attract actual readers they also attract search engines that register the link going to your website. This way your website gets higher ranking and as a result more qualified traffic through organic search results.

The leading search engines, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, use crawlers to find pages for their algorithmic search results. Pages that are linked from other search engine indexed pages do not need to be submitted because they are found automatically. Some search engines, notably Yahoo!, operate a paid submission service that guarantee crawling for either a set fee or cost per click.

Search engine crawlers may look at a number of different factors when crawling a site. Not every page is indexed by the search engines. Distance of pages from the root directory of a site may also be a factor in whether or not pages get crawled.

Another thing that will help your ranking is constantly changing content on your site. High-End web deign companies offer content management systems for your site. Using the system you can update your site content on the fly and is is as easy as editing a word document.

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Read This Before you Hire a Graphic Designer

Filed Under: Graphic Design
Jul.23, 2010

When you own your own business, there’s never a dull moment. That’s why I wrote ‘Turn Eye Appeal Into Buy Appeal’. It’s the do-it-yourself graphic design handbook that makes marketing your business as easy as 1-2-3. There are some projects, though, where it pays to hire a graphic designer. When it’s time to hire a graphic designer, these 5 essential tips can save you a lot of time and money:

1) Figure out if you can do it yourself. If you are not a professional graphic designer, you could spend days – even weeks – to make a brochure or flyer that a professional designer could do in a matter of hours. For major projects that will be a big part of your marketing campaign, you’ll want to take advantage of the experience a graphic designer can offer. Once you find the right designer, you will have access to a consistent style of graphics for all your marketing pieces.

2) Check out their samples. Do you like what you see? If their portfolio includes the design elements that you are looking for, then you’ll know if their style is going to mesh with your style. And of course, you’ll want to see how their style will work for your type of product or service.

3) Get references. Your best place to start would be by asking friends and colleagues if they can recommend someone. Also, many graphic designers will include testimonials either on their website or correspondence. Don’t be shy to call… it’s why they’re there! You can also check with local printers. They usually know firsthand what the designers working style is. The website for the American Institute of Graphic Artists (AIGA.com) has a free listing of designers all over the country.

4) Interview your prospective designer. Talk about the size and scope of the project, what your expectations are, and any deadlines you may have. You can get a sense of their work ethic, and see if you will work well together. This gives the designer the chance to ask you questions, too. You’ll know upfront if they have the time and skill to take on your project.

5) Get it in writing. Once you’ve found the right designer, make sure all the details are outlined in the proposal or contract. Get it in writing and make sure you know what it does (and doesn’t) include. Don’t forget to read any terms and conditions (such as a deposit) and make sure you’re comfortable with them before you start the project.

Now you can go out and hire the graphic designer that’s going to make your marketing campaign come to life!

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