How to Successfully Outsource Graphic Design in 2021

Finding it difficult to decide whether or not to outsource your graphic design? You've come to the right place! Since we have a lot of experience when it comes to talking to companies looking to outsource their design work, we have a thorough understanding of the different avenues available as well as the positives and negatives of each one. Plus, as an unlimited graphic design subscription service ourselves we can understand what truly makes a flawless graphic design workflow. In this article, we're taking a look at two key features we feel are the most important to make sure of when choosing your graphic design service.

Scaling up creative content

An obvious option when it comes to outsourcing graphic design is to hire a freelancer. Freelancers are relatively quick to hire, usually offer pretty good flexibility when it comes to graphic design demand, and cost on average between £30-£50 per hour. Another option that is popular is to use marketplaces. Apart from the risk of unprofessional graphic design being quite high when using marketplaces (since you don't often have chance to really review your designer before hiring), there is one common denominator that stands out as a huge negative in both of these cases. When you are looking to scale up your creative content, your design workflow will be clunky and unreliable. Why do we say this? The reality is that most freelance designers have multiple clients to look after at any given time, meaning that you won't be able to rely on a large volume of graphic design tasks being returned in a speedy way. With marketplaces you will usually have to hire designers on a project-by-project basis, which means that the time you are trying to save will get spent chasing up design work and submitting new tasks in a time-consuming way.

Ultimately, outsourcing to freelancers and marketplaces is a viable option only when you have a few graphic design tasks per week. If however you're looking to ramp up your marketing efforts and produce a medium to large volume of design tasks, using freelancers and marketplaces is going to get expensive fast.

Designers that understand your brand

One thing that we can categorically say matters when it comes to outsourcing your graphic design is this; find a designer than understands your brand.When you think about it, what is it that makes a strong brand? One definition states a brand to be "a particular identity or image regarded as an asset." So, consistency in your identity and images is absolutely crucial to your business. The only way to do this is to find a designer that knows what you stand for, who you are, and what it is you want to tell the world. Most freelance designers will try to gather as much information about you and your brand as possible when they first set about working with your brand, but what happens when you need to scale up your creative content and they can no longer support the volume and turnaround times you need? The process of teaching a designer those crucial points about your brand start all over again with a new freelancer, and that means either downtime in your design workflow or work that doesn't meet your brand style perfectly.

The perfect outsourcing solution would be one that allows you to work with a design team who get you and the style of design you're looking for effortlessly, right? It doesn't make much sense to rely on marketplaces for this as since you will often have to submit your work project-by-project, there is a chance that the same designer won't be working on every piece of work you submit. This is important when first building a brand, because if you don't have a consistent style you will be making it harder for customers to recognise you instantly.

The newest way of outsourcing design

So with it in mind that the two fundamental priorities of an outsourcing solution would be the ability to effortlessly scale your creative content and to consistently rely on a designer that understands your brand, what's the best solution? Well, it has to be an unlimited graphic design subscription plan. Let's take a closer look at why choosing Design Cloud addresses every single one of your needs.

• Affordability

Our plans start from just £549 per month, which means that you'll have access to much lower hourly rates as well as still accessing the high quality design you need to make an impact.

• Productivity

Design Cloud plans are used really often by agencies and in-house marketing teams, and work to relieve an internal team of the pressure of producing a high volume of day-to-day design tasks. That frees up your team to spend time working on the projects that really matter to your business and ultimately leads to much better productivity across your team. On average, each simple design task will be completed in around 1 business day - meaning you can get through that graphic design to do list in no time at all.

• Scalability

When you take out a Design Cloud subscription, you will be assigned a UK-based designer to work through your design queue task-by-task every business day. As your business grows and you find you need higher volumes, you won't need to worry about training another designer. Simply add another designer to your plan to up your graphic design production! Every plan lets you work on an unlimited number of brands, so you can rely on a graphic design subscription plan that's ready to grow when you are.

• A tailored service

We prioritise creating a service that is as similar to an in-house team member experience as possible. In fact with the PRO plan, you can even communicate via a Slack Channel with your designer for the most seamless experience possible! Our platform is designed to ensure that our team get to know you and your brand as best as possible by never switching your designer unless you ask.

Learn more about Design Cloud

If you want to learn more about why Design Cloud is the monthly graphic design subscription you need, why not book a demo today? On this 15 minute call, we can discuss your particular setup so that a service expert can give you an honest evaluation of how Design Cloud can work for you. Book a demo today!