7 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a New Brand Design Firm

Assessing a graphic design or brand design firm can be a daunting task particularly when you are starting a small business. After all, what is good or bad brand design. Isn't design subjective? The answer in short is No. Good graphic design or brand design successfully communicates the clients intended message and encourages the desired response from customers and prospects. Sadly, this is not always the case for brand design firms. Communicating the clients intended message is the most important task, when any graphic designer starts a new project.

Most graphic designers are focused on the artistic, creative process, after all this is probably what attracted them to the design industry in the first place. This seems harmless enough at first but there are many dangers when business people start a working relationship with a new graphic design firm with this kind of mindset. Most business people are more concerned about results rather than artistic flair. This thinking is often in direct conflict with the graphic design agencies and can result in design projects that miss the mark. Don't get me wrong, style and artistic flair is extremely important however there are far more important aspects when it comes to creating good graphic design. It's not often a business person approaches a design firm because they want art for art sake. More often than not they will have branding or marketing objectives they wish to fulfill.

Business owners should select graphic designers the same way they make any other business decisions, based on how well they contribute to the objectives of the business.

Your brand design firm must understand:

• having a long-term strategy for every aspect of your business is important

• business decisions should be based on research and not guess work

• the subconscious mind plays a huge part in your customer’s decision-making process

• true creativity includes not just artistic but scientific understanding

• getting your brand colours, shapes and fonts right is important to represent your business well

If your graphic designer understands and values this way of thinking you should be able to pick it up based on the way they present themselves and what they communicate. They will often have a methodology to ensure they design with these business objectives in mind.

Some questions you could ask your brand design firm are:

1. Is there a science behind graphic design? How would you apply this to our projects?

2. How will you identify our brand personality and how will that relate to the designs you produce?

3. Will you develop a design strategy for our company? What will that involve?

4. Do you have any questions regarding our brand values?

5. How will you select the colours, shapes and fonts used within our projects?

6. How do you charge, for example what are your logo design rates?

7. Do you think our current corporate image design would have any negative impact on customers? How would you improve it?

When interviewing graphic designers try to get a sense of there attitudes toward these questions. When you start directing the conversation towards some of these aspects of design and business in general you will get a clearer picture of how suited that particular graphic design firm will be for your business.