Despite economic uncertainty and unforeseen global commerce delays, the entrepreneurial world is booming. Established businesses, large and small, are rebranding; they’re updating their logos, rewriting mission statements, and turning to marketing professionals as a way to lead their company into the future with purpose.
In the owner-operator sector, more people are finding success with their side-hustle. Hobby projects after hours or on the weekends are turning into profitable ventures. Even when a business is small, making it today requires a slew of marketing collateral and design.
When you’re looking for a professional designer, it’s because you don’t have time. You don’t have the time to do it yourself, the time to learn, or the ability to utilize any in-house talent. Looking for a freelance designer or a design agency can seem straightforward, but there are some nuances to watch out for.
I need a logo for my brand.
Logo design is one of the most popular first projects for which any client hires an agency. Like with any marketing or design project, the process of finding a logo designer can help with discovering the right agency for any marketing or creative business design need.
As an owner, operator, or executive of your company, you know your brand. You understand your team, your customers, and the unique attributes you bring to the table. Your goal is to find a design team that can produce a logo that encapsulates all of that history, personality, and reputation into a single visual product.
Choosing an agency or designer based on skill alone might not be as easy as it seems. Almost any designer or agency you come across will have spectacular pieces in their portfolio. Some might even have a long list of known past clients, which you’d recognize from your everyday life. However, remember that artistic skill alone doesn’t immediately translate into business success for you and your new logo.
Look for the industries they’ve worked within the past and what sorts of clients they’re working with now. Does the agency or designer have a history of working in your sector? Have they produced work for companies like yours before? Do they come recommended from one of your partners, peers, or customers? To have an effective and memorable logo, the designer will need to understand who you are as a brand. In addition, they’ll need to understand the type of customers you have, the region you’re in, and find a balance of what looks great for you, your sector, the current state of brand design, and design trends of the future.
Filter by reputation and work.
When you’re assembling your shortlist of designers, assume each of them has equally impressive work. For logos, brochures, billboards, print ads, digital campaigns, or website design, it shouldn’t be too hard to find an agency that can deliver top-notch products. But, since that’s very likely to be the case, you shouldn’t let it be the deciding factor.
Look at their reputation. How long have they been operating? Do they have a long legacy of successful work, the time within the industry, or any design awards? An excellent creative designer can whip up a great-looking website or landing page for themselves, making it seem like choosing them is the best business decision you could make. But they might not have experience working with an extensive client team or delivering on a tight schedule.
Reading honest third-party testimonials or reviews is the best place to start. See what their past clients said about them, why they were happy with the finished product, and if they’d recommend them to others.
Look for a business partner.
Last month marked our 17th service anniversary here at Matcha Design. We’ve listed these tips on searching for a designer because that’s how most of our clients end up finding us. In the unfortunate cases, those clients learned the lesson the hard way, bringing us in on a project that was left abandoned by another firm or where the finished product they received wasn’t up to the client’s standards.
For the better part of two decades, we’ve helped a few specific sectors attain market dominance through the virtues of excellent design. But, while all of our past projects have great technical prowess in professionalism or looks, that’s not what makes them unique. Awards are not won on design merit alone. The work needs to transfer something. It needs to mean something to the client, their customers, and have that weight pass on to anyone who views the finished piece.
As designers, our role is to understand our clients and pass on that story to their audience. So, in addition to the highest standard of design, what we deliver is unmatched service. We work to learn your brand, ease your pain points, and develop a solution that fits within your team dynamics and timeline. That’s why our clients are our partners and not just another account number on a giant ledger inside a goliath agency.
