

How to get awesome graphics within your budget - neeharc
http://blog.shoutt.me/post/45862628603/how-to-get-awesome-graphics-within-your-budget

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danielvinson
Just going to chime in a bit as someone who has worked a lot in the past doing
freelance design work -

This is bad advice for anyone who expects a great designer who you can
communicate with easily and will understand your product and customer. This is
great advice only for somebody who knows EXACTLY what they want, why they want
it, and how it should be done.

$20-$25/hr will (very likely) get you either:

* A highly skilled designer in a foreign country without a firm grasp on English, American culture, or software (or whatever your industry might be). They will not be familiar with the ideals, customs, culture, or values of your customers. There will be hours wasted in communication and scheduling.

* A designer either currently in college or high school in the U.S. (I charged $20/hr when I was in 11th grade many years ago). This person will likely be O.K. at design, and have a good grasp on the customer. They will likely not know what they are doing with billing and time management, in addition to having other priorities, so your project has an alarmingly high change of being under-quoted and be delivered past deadline.

* On a rare occasion you get lucky - you might for example find a designer who just got laid off and doesn't know how much to charge and under-quoted the project. Or maybe you found a recent grad who just needs money to live while they search for a job. Either way - don't expect this.

Most customers are looking for somebody to work with them for 15+ hours
planning the project, giving relevant insight (like what designs work well for
what demographic etc.), and estimating costs/schedule. That is why designers
don't normally bill hourly. Many of my customers when I freelanced were billed
more for time spent in meetings with them than for actual work, mostly on
$2,000+ projects.

My recommendation is this: If you want a good designer, stop trying to do the
work yourself and pay somebody who really knows what they are doing to do what
they do. The 8-10 hours of your own time spent looking for a deal on a
designer is likely more expensive to your company than the $500 extra it would
cost you to hire an awesome designer.

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neeharc
If you can afford it, then I would recommend spending more on a designer as
well. My circumstance puts in me a position in which I can't afford to spend
more than $20-$25. I assume that there are more people in such a circumstance.
These are tips and tricks where you are trading your time to lower your
expense on graphics.

However, I do believe that there are enough people around the world who can
communicate easily and can understand what you are trying to do. I have worked
with people all over the world and have been very happy with the outcomes.

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corry
"Learn a bit of Photoshop yourself" - this is great advice. Even little stuff
like how to export images, how to show/hide layers, how to move items around,
how to edit text will give you major return.

There's the $$$ saving aspect, but I've found the biggest benefit is actually
the time saving / faster iteration ability. Get a design and wonder what it
would look like without the background? That 'what-if' is either two clicks in
PS for you... or a day of writing the designer an email, him fitting it into
his workflow and sending it back, and you looking at the image.

This also lets you repurpose existing designs for other things (e.g. taking
that cool graphic on your website and re-using it on your marketing brochure).

After a few projects you'll have recouped the cost of Photoshop, and you'll
have gained a very useful skill.

tl;dr - basic Photoshop skills save you time and money

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neeharc
Yeah . I always make sure to get all the assets back from my designers and
repurpose them multiple times, sometimes across projects altogether.

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hashgowda
Do you also decide the designer based on, how they handle feedback loop?

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neeharc
Yup. Feedback plays an important role in iterating over your designs. You want
to get a designer who is open to taking feedback. You also want to make sure
that they have a strong vision and are not afraid to put their foot down if
needed

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timlovelee
maybe spend a bit more on your website devs though,
<http://i47.tinypic.com/15qzrbt.jpg>

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neeharc
Yeah . That's something we are aware of and plan to fix. We still haven't
optimized our site for mobile or tablet .

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akshaykrao
Pretty cool ! Love the photoshop bit :)

