
Ask HN: How to handle tasks that require design skills as a freelance web dev? - n4bz0r
Occasionally, clients ask me to make a new page or a new &quot;widget&quot;. If something similar isn&#x27;t already implemented on the site, it requires certain graphical design skills to make such things from the ground up.<p>I like to believe that I have a good taste for design, but lack of experience, and overall poor &quot;design vocabulary&quot; wouldn&#x27;t allow me to make such things <i>efficiently</i>.<p>As my clients are usually small businesses, they don&#x27;t have a designer nor willing to find one. They feel comfortable with having a single guy handling everything. And that&#x27;s understandable in such market. But I have no idea how much should charge for the way-beyond-secondary skillset.<p>Sometimes I try to explain, that I&#x27;m not exactly the right guy for the job when it comes to &quot;drawing&quot;.
The common argument is: &quot;it doesn&#x27;t really matter as long as you can deliver something that works&quot;.<p>I love to make my clients happy, so I don&#x27;t turn them down immediately. Maybe they really are in need of just <i>something</i> in order to function properly. So I try hard to make the thing.<p>Results aren&#x27;t exactly awful, and clients <i>seem</i> to be happy. Sometimes I even like the end-result myself. But at least half of the time it doesn&#x27;t look good enough to <i>me</i>.<p>I never had a complaint, but I feel bad charging the same amount I ask for my primary skillset. And the time spent is just ridiculous compared to the other things I do!<p>For example, I can make a markup and implement backend in, say, 2 hours. And then, there would be 5 to 8 hours that are spent tinkering with fonts, images, colors, spacings.<p>How should I charge? Should I avoid such feats? Should I hire a designer? Or maybe I should develop needed skills myself as I am kinda already stepped into it?<p>It&#x27;s also worth noting that I never have never hired a freelance designer, so it&#x27;s a bit frightening.<p>Please, tell me about your experience.
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muzani
I hire designers as one of the first things on any freelance project. They're
fairly cheap and bring a lot of value.

I have decent design skills and experience, but normally other people can do
it faster, cheaper, better. I didn't even hire a _great_ designer. She just
did the work better than me.

It might be worth paying out of your pocket for it. Every time a good designer
comes in, client confidence increases to the point that they practically
double the budget. E.g. someone who planned for 4 sprints of work initially
ends up confidently paying for 8 sprints instead.

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auslegung
If it was me, I’d learn design. As a software engineer I’m sure you’re great
at learning already, and learning new skills is great for your brain. Plus it
will likely make you more valuable in your market.

You said your clients seem happy with your work already, learn design and blow
them away.

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stephenr
I think it’d be useful to have a freelance designer you can punt jobs to -
even if you just agree to pay them what you charge for their time, if it saves
you the hassle and gives more reliable/efficient results for clients.

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gshdg
This. I established relationships with a couple designers and would
subcontract work to them. In turn, they eventually started referring me
clients. It worked out nicely.

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Jack000
if it's just crud, a bootstrap ui kit can make things easy. Copy/paste the
HTML, add some interactivity and you're done.

I actually can design but still use UI kits because it's so much faster.

