3 Things To Ask Your Designer BEFORE Hiring
Ever been in the middle of hiring a website and brand designer and wonder what you’re supposed to even ask to know if you’re choosing the right person or agency?
Add to that jargon, different package options, stacked on general indecisiveness (at least for me), and making a choice feels like a heavy burden that won’t go away.
In this podcast episode, I go over the top 3 things you should be asking your website and brand designer before hiring them.
Side note: there are a ton more questions you can ask but these are the ones that are commonly forgotten about in my experience.
How many variations of the logo will I be getting?
The problem: You got a beautiful logo created but it’s too wide to fit on your IG profile or your new logo is stacked and it’s taking up too much vertical space on the website.
To solve this issue, make sure you’re asking how many and which variations you’ll get. Your final logo typically determines the number but generally, you’ll want your primary logo and 1 or 2 more.
The first variation set (and most important) is stacked versus horizontal. If your main logo is two words stacked on top, see if it’ll take up too much vertical space on a website. Check if it’s what you’d like on your social media (and if it fits).
Oftentimes, a beautiful stacked logo will be handed to me for a new website. Unfortunately, it’s too tall with the icon, followed by 2 lines of text. Instead, I end up breaking it apart into a web-friendly version. On the flip side, when I’m designing a logo, I tend to provide a horizontal and stacked version for the client to choose from depending on the situation.
Next, you’ll want to see if you can get the primary logo broken apart, if it applies. For example, clients often get their logo with an icon next to it. It’s lovely until you place it as the profile on social media where it gets small. Instead, I export out certain components.
For example, if you have a sprout icon on the logo, I’ll hand that off as a separate file for you to use. Rarely, there’s a need for the text-only to be shown. Having that already exported our makes your life so much easier.
Finally, see about getting the items in versions of your color scheme. For example, if you have solid green and blue in your logo, you might get the primary 2 color logo, but you’ll also get files in only green and only blue. You can also get black and white versions.
Why? There are often times when you’re being featured somewhere and the host or organizer asks for a logo. If the contrast or color is too close to the background, it’ll blend in. Instead, you can send them the logo in another color within your palette and they can adjust.
How many pages of a website am I getting?
Problem: You’ve signed up with a website designer and as you’re going through the site map you’ve realized you now need double the pages you originally thought! You’re not sure if that’s even included in your package?
To be honest, this happened to me a lot when I was first starting out as a website designer. Now, I try to go through all the pages needed during the initial discovery call in order to get that out of the way.
If your designer hasn’t asked you how many pages you need, start to make a list on your own. Think about the typical pages:
Home
About
Contact
Services (general)
Specific Service Pages
Legal Pages
Blog
Shop
Category Pages for Blog and Shop
Now think of your marketing plan and how your site will support it:
Social media link page
Freebie/Lead Magnet page
Sales Pages
Questionnaire/Intake Pages
Locked Content Pages
FAQ
Shipping Policies
With the list of pages you need, go back to your designer and ask which package best fits you. For example, I don’t count legal pages as a page because they’re literally copy/paste with almost no formatting or design while other designers do count it.
This way, you avoid annoying your designer by surprising them with work that’s out of scope and you’ll also get exactly what you need to launch the website.
Do you offer training after the website has launched?
Problem: Your site launched 2 months ago and you need to do 1 little change. You’re already out of the support timeframe from your designer and have no clue how to even log into your site.
The solution is getting some kind of training. Depending on the package and website designer, you might get support but I fully believe that training is the best.
When you’ve been trained, you’re empowered to either DIY the edit or hire the designer again. The main thing is that it’s your CHOICE. Especially when it comes to a change that is short and sweet but also needs to happen quickly, you’ll need to know that you can handle it.
My training sessions are always recorded so that you can keep that video with you, share it with staff members, and watch it again as needed.
Those are my top questions you should ask a designer before hiring them for your website or branding project.
Make sure to comment on what kind of site you’re building and the one thing you love about it!
