How to find the right freelance designer

Looking for the ideal freelance designer for your project? In this article, I’ll walk you through the essential steps to find the talent who will best meet your needs.

There are many types of designer; here we’ll talk in particular about UX Designers, UI Designers and Graphic Designers.

Design has become an essential profession if you work in the digital sector. A designer’s mission is to create the layout, visual identity and usability of a website.

A good web designer must be both creative and have graphic and technical skills. They need to be able to visualise how a site looks (the site’s graphic design) and how it works (turning a design into a functional website).

Here are our key tips for finding the right freelance designer!

Why hire a freelance designer?

Engaging a freelance designer can bring many benefits to your project. First of all, designers can bring a fresh, creative perspective to your projects, as well as specialist skills in specific areas such as graphic design, user interface design or user experience design.

Freelance designers offer greater flexibility and adaptability than a full-time member of staff — we talk about this in our article on why hire a freelancer rather than a permanent contract (CDI). They can also work remotely, which lets you collaborate with talent from all over the world.

The skills to look for in a freelance designer

When you’re looking for a freelance designer, it’s important to consider the specific skills you need for your project. Here are some key skills to look for in a freelance designer:

1. Technical skills: Make sure the designer has the technical skills needed to deliver your project. In particular, skills in design software such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator or Figma, as well as coding skills if necessary.
2. Relevant experience: Ideally, look for a designer with relevant experience in your field or industry. That’s a guarantee they understand the specific challenges you face.
3. Creativity: Creativity is an essential skill for any designer. Look for a designer with a strong ability to generate original, innovative ideas.
4. Communication skills: Communication is essential for a successful collaboration with a freelance designer — and with any freelancer, for that matter. Look for a designer who is comfortable communicating effectively, asking relevant questions and listening carefully to your needs and goals.

The different types of designers

As I said in the introduction, there are several branches of the design profession, including:

• Graphic designer: the person who will create your company’s brand image. They develop designs that are rolled out across different media. Their goal is to improve your brand’s branding.
• The web designer works more on the aesthetics and visual aspect of your site and your digital media. Their goal is to make your site attractive and user-friendly, to make it easy to use and pleasing to users’ eyes. A good web designer will strengthen your company’s appeal.

The web designer role breaks down into two specialisations, the UX designer and the UI designer:

• A UI designer, or user interface designer, is in charge of the graphic design of digital products’ interfaces.

• A UX Designer’s mission is to imagine and design user journeys based on user behaviour.

• The illustrator has a far more artistic than technical profile. They create drawings, sketches or rough drafts, in pencil or using software, which you can feature in your company’s visual communication. Illustrators essentially provide complex works of art for media ranging from magazines to websites.

• The Motion Designer aims to create graphic productions incorporating video, 3D animation, special effects, sound or typography.

• The Product Designer, for their part, designs digital products according to a set of specifications.

You can also find specialists in mobile app design, logos, animation, and so on.

So your needs must be clearly defined, so that the freelancer you choose has the skills that match what you’re looking for.

Interested in design and want to learn more? I suggest you read our article on ethical design.

The steps to hiring the right freelance designer

Step 1: define your needs

Start by listing all your needs in order to draw up a set of specifications you can pass on to your future designer. It’s important to provide a complete, detailed document so that they can grasp your expectations from the outset.

To draw up your list, you can ask yourself the following questions:

• What do I need? A website? A graphic redesign of my site?
• What message do I want to get across to my future clients?
• What visual identity? Any graphic design ideas?
• What are my deadlines?
• What is my budget?
• What exactly do I expect from my freelancer?
• What goal do I want to achieve? (Is my ultimate aim to generate new leads? To improve my brand image, or my communication strategy? To make my website more attractive? …)

If you have a clear vision of what you want, you’ll save time. If, on the other hand, you don’t really know what you want, you can choose a senior freelance designer who will be able to guide you with their expertise.

Step 2: choose the right designer from all the profiles

Once you’ve pinned down the type of designer you want, you can start browsing profiles on dedicated platforms. Obviously, if you need a freelancer specialising in both motion design and graphic design, make sure you select profiles that have both skills.

Don’t hesitate to look at several profiles and take a look at their portfolios (if they have one) to immerse yourself in their world and get a clearer idea of how they work. You can also visit their website or social media.

It can also be useful to see what types of companies they’ve worked with. This will tell you whether your designer is more used to large groups, start-ups, and so on. That will inevitably influence the way they work.

To find your ideal designer, you can go to our contact form and do a free brief with one of our agents. They will take care of finding you the best freelancer to match your needs! dgitags saves you time and offers you a quality service by pre-selecting the right people for you: experts in their field and suited to your project.

Looking for a designer in 24 hours flat? Read our article “dgitags.io finds your graphic designer in 24 hours”.

Step 3**: getting in touch**

The final step, of course, is getting in touch with the designers you’ve identified.

During this interview, don’t hesitate to be direct and set out your needs concretely. It’s important to ask the freelancer how they plan to work on your project. Listen carefully to their recommendations and their vision of your project; this will tell you very quickly whether a collaboration is possible.

You can also ask them again which companies they’ve worked for previously, as well as for examples of their work. This will help you better understand their artistic choices and see whether they’re compatible with the ones you’d like for your brand.

Déborah Lévy Bencheton, freelance UX service designer at dgitags.io, believes that “beyond the ability to be a designer from a technical point of view, there are soft skills that are essential, such as adapting quickly or being able to have a business vision by asking yourself the right questions. In a company, you have time to adapt and be trained. As a freelancer, you have to understand the stakes straight away. That’s what makes a good freelancer. You also need good analytical skills. A good freelance designer is someone who can manage several projects at once (the admin side, negotiation, delivery, etc.)”.

According to Déborah, the last point not to underestimate when hiring is “interpersonal skills”. Indeed, “the freelancer is going to join a new team that’s already in place, so they need to know who does what and respect other people’s work while asserting their expertise without imposing it. In reality, being a good freelance designer means being a diplomat”.

To sum up, the right freelancer is one who can be flexible in various situations and is motivated by your project! There’s no point having the best designer in Silicon Valley build a showcase site — and what’s more, their motivation might not be there.

When hiring your freelance designer, you can assess some of the skills mentioned above by giving them a practical exercise.

This exercise will let you assess the designer’s mindset beyond their portfolio and past experience. What matters is “the process the person goes through, understanding their approach. The technical side is easy to teach someone (e.g. learning to master a piece of software), but having the right mindset is different: product thinking, relationships with the team, etc_._” says Déborah.

To do this, you can give them a case to work on during the interview or to prepare at home.

It’s advisable not to give cases directly linked to your company, so that the freelancer doesn’t feel it as “free work”.

You can also assess their attitude in role-play scenarios. For example: “If such-and-such an event happens in a project, what do you do? How do you react?”

That brings us to the end of this article. The dgitags.io team hopes you enjoyed it and that it has given you a few tips for hiring the best freelance designers. Thanks to Déborah for her insights.

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