Despite the surge in DIY website and graphic design, there’s nothing quite like the peace of mind that comes with hiring a pro. All of a sudden *POOF* your problems regarding time and quality disappear and you’re able to focus on business and leave the details to someone else. Which is why you become dismayed and frustrated when you’re inbox is filled with emails from your designer, and your timeline gets stretched out because you’ve still got details to deal with. What gives?
Designers are amazingly talented and seem to be mind readers. The reason you’ve hired them isn’t just to recreate the images you have in your head, but to stay competitive and up-to-date, whether with a website, a new logo, graphic design images for your social media and marketing materials, or trade show booth displays. In order to get the most from your time and money with them, you’ve got to consider the additional ideas that your designer presents. Just because you didn’t think of it first doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think about it at all. And there are a lot of ideas, fads, and trends for you to contemplate. As a result, the design process is multi-step and requires your undivided attention along the way.
The first part you’ll need to sort through is the brainstorm. You’ll be sent various designs to choose from that are in rough form. If you’re working with a graphic designer you’ll be looking at sketches, and if you’re working with a website designer you’ll be looking at wireframes, which are static images of what the various pages of your website could look like. Your job is to identify what you do like, and what you don’t like. At this stage, you can borrow elements from 
various designs and ask that they are incorporated into one. The key to successful brainstorming is that there are no wrong answers – and if you don’t ask, you’ll never know what could be! Make yourself a cup of tea, set aside a good hour, and go through each idea carefully. Print pages, draw all over them and send photos to your designer if you don’t know how to put your asks into words or drawing on screenshots with your phone is agonizing. And send your results back to the designer ASAP so that they can get on to the next step in a timely fashion.
Your list of praises and criticisms should be on everything from colour and font to functionality. “Can the mascot’s shirt have our logo on it? Will the headline automatically update with my latest blog post? What’s that do?” Feel free to include examples from other designs that you like, and to be very, very picky. This is the time where changes are often free to make. Also, be prepared for your designer to offer reasons why your ideas might not be ideal.
The next steps could be a lot of back-and-forth between you and the designer as ideas are tweaked and built upon. Your timely response is critical. Ask questions, make suggestions; be active in the process so that you get the most for your money, and to avoid disappointment. If you weren’t picky enough before this stage and you want to go with a different design you may be in for an additional charge because by now the product is in production and changes take hours of your designer’s time.
Lastly, you’ll get final designs to play with, but – and this is crucial – they aren’t final until you sign off on them. This means you have to provide approval in writing to your designer that you’re happy with the product. Make sure everything is spelled correctly, facing the right way, and that it all works. At this point the final graphic file will be released to you, you’ll get a tutorial of your website and it will go live, and you’re good to go.
Jelly Triangle is pleased to help fulfill all of your graphic and website design needs! Call us at 519-624-8888 to book your free consultation or contact us online here.
