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This topic will be discussed with the following structure.
- Searching for a mixture of experience and enthusiasm
- Offering a fair payment
- Checking the portfolio
- Presenting the expectations
- Conclusion
This is the age of visuals. Because of that, many small and mid-sized businesses need to have a reliable designer by their side. Some business owners can make things work collaborating with a part-time designer.
When the workload overflows, it’s time to hire a full-time professional to take care of their own or their clients’ visual appeal. Since this person will play a huge role in your entire business, it’s crucial to identify the right candidate.
In the following five paragraphs, you’ll learn more about five major key considerations that make a fine web designer.
Searching for a mixture of experience and enthusiasm
In the present-day realm of the IT market, it’s not easy to find a reliable and skillful designer. Most CEOs of software development companies focus on programmers and software engineers.
While this is understandable, such a recruitment policy can neglect the importance of web designers in such companies. Not too much software development companies focus only on the development part.
Most of them need the knowledge and skills of an adept designer. And here many of them might come against a brick wall because spotting such a visual expert is no cakewalk.
For starters, you can try with freelance designers from Upwork or 99designs. The main problem with freelancers is that they aren’t committed to one client. Even though the first pick on your draft might have great ratings, he or she might not be able to finish a complex task on time.
What’s more, such designers might not share your enthusiasm about your project. If they’re working for several clients, their attention will be scattered. So, offering an experienced designer a full-time position will boost their motivation.
Note: you can find experienced designers among young design professionals, as well.
Offering a fair payment
The term fair payment can vary significantly from place to place. According to the data from the PayScale website, an average annual salary for a US-based graphic designer is $49,000.
On the other hand, the average hourly rate of designers on Upwork is $45 [source].
The truth is that today you can hire a full-time designer online at lower rates. For instance, if designers in your country charge $60 per hour, you can find an equally skillful professional at half of that rate. Apart from being more affordable, an online designer can turn out to be more efficient, as well.
What’s important, however, is to do your homework and offer such a designer a fair payment for their economic environment.
Moreover, if you want this remote professional to be your in-house designer, think about preparing an NDA-agreement. You can also have a verbal agreement with this expert in line with which he or she won’t work the same job for other companies. If that person is a freelancer, you can give them some time to finish the ongoing projects for their clients.
That’s the only way to ensure that this expert will be completely committed to your business and your business projects.
Checking the portfolio
We’ve already pointed out that a graphic designer can be both experienced and young at the same time. It’s the number and quality of projects that determine their experience and not their age.
This is where the portfolio comes on stage. Every aspiring designer will collect their best work in a design portfolio. No matter if it’s a website portfolio or a folder with their previous tasks, that’s the best proof of their experience and work.
Also, bear in mind that some outstanding designers have no right to share their works for other clients due to the NDA. If that is the case, you can ask them to do a task for you, which will showcase their talent and knowledge.
For instance, they can redesign one page on your website or create a completely new section for that matter.
And if you already have a particular design project on the table, you can give this candidate a specific task related to that venture. As explained by the custom software development Houston team squad, using this tactic will help the developers check if they can collaborate with that designer.
Presenting the expectations
Even though this might sound like common sense, many business owners and designers don’t click due to bad communication. What also happens more frequently than you think is that they don’t understand each other properly. This can be the case even when they speak the same language.
It’s both expensive and inconvenient to realize that you have different expectations. That’s why it’s crucial that both parties present their expectations before you close the deal.
This is even more important when you decide to hire a remote designer from another part of the world. For starters, work with your candidate to define what tasks he or she is obliged to do at their job. The payment that you give to them should refer only to those defined requirements.
Also, if you expect that the number of these responsibilities could grow over the course of time, add that in a special annex. That’s the right time to arrange the terms for those extra tasks with your designer, as well.
Moreover, put everything in writing before you close the deal and sign the contract. That way, both you and the designer will have enough time to think about the terms and conditions of your collaboration.
If you apply these HR, legal, and financial features, you’ll reduce the risk of falling out with your designer.
Conclusion
Adding a new member to your business crew is never an easy task. You always have to weigh the pros and cons of every candidate and see how they would fit into your existing team.
When you’re choosing a full-time designer, the process might get even more complex. This person should be able to work with both your clients and your developers to create proper visuals.
It takes some time and energy to recognize the right design expert for your team. It doesn’t mean that the candidate with the best portfolio will fit into the given context. You need to check whether he or she can cooperate with your engineers in the first place.
Also, business owners should consider the idea of hiring a remote full-time designer. We hope that our tips will help business owners in the IT-field choose the right designer for their professional needs.
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