How to Set Your Freelance Graphic Designer Up For Success

When it comes to branding and marketing, visuals matter. Whether people engage with your social media posts, landing pages, ads, and other marketing content or not, often boils down to the quality of the images you use. Sure, you may have been able to handle graphic design in-house for a while, but now you recognize it’s time to bring in a professional. So, you’ve hired a freelance graphic designer. Now, all you need to do is sit back and let them work their magic, right? . 

Nope. This is just the beginning. Your graphic designer comes to you with specific skills – skills they get paid a lot of money to use. But, the results you get depend on your setting your designer up for success. Here’s how to do that.

Manage Scope

Get the most for your money by keeping your designer focused on mission-critical tasks where they add the most value. Don’t distract them with unrelated requests and side tasks. Talk to other stakeholders, and ensure that everyone is on the same page with this. Remember, the freelancer’s hourly rate is going to be the same regardless.

Give Them The Access They Need

Your graphic designer needs access to do what you need them to do. They will need to be able to log into your system, use any graphic design tools you’ve agreed to provide to them and access your digital assets library. Depending on the level of trust you have and the specific work you want them to do, you may even need to give them the keys to the kingdom so they can add or change things on your website, blog, or social media. The faster you have them set up, the sooner they can jump in and be productive

That said, technology is only half of the picture. Your graphic designer also needs access to information and people. Give them contact information for people they can turn to for questions about your business and products, procedural issues, and tech problems.

Be Responsive 

Now, they know who to go to for the help they need. That’s great, but you have to be responsive too. When you or team members are slow to respond, work stops. That can impact deadlines and the quality of the deliverables you need.

Communicate Problems Expectations Needs And Desired Outcomes

Why are you hiring a freelance designer? What problem do you need them to solve? What are you trying to accomplish? What do you expect from them in terms of skills, time, and productivity? If you can articulate this to them in detail, you’ll be off to a great start.

How the angry are dealt with by the expert negotiators

Listen to Them

We get it. You have a clear vision of what you want. Perhaps you are starting a campaign and your target audience is a single, mature lady. You know your customers. All you need the graphic designer to do is execute your vision.

Then they tell you they think it’s a terrible idea, and that it will fail miserably – using gentler words of course. What do you do now?

You listen to them. Does this mean you give up your vision every single time? Of course not. It just means that you hired an expert for a reason. There’s more to being a graphic designer than having artistic skills or being able to use fancy tools. Your designer understands how people interact with visuals. They understand what visuals can do (good or bad) within the context of the content, platform, product, and audience.

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Final: A Thorough Hiring Process is Key

There’s a familiar phrase in carpentry. Measure twice cut once. The obvious point being that you save work and heartache by putting in a bit of care and effort on the front end. The same is true here. Take your time as you look for the right freelancer. Have important conversations. Talk about things in very concrete terms. Ensure that anyone you hire understands what you want and that you understand their needs too.