Dear founders, read this before you hire your first designer
The difference between a mediocre and a good designer is the ability to ask thoughtful questions.
Preface
I’ve been working with amazing innovators and visionaries in tech for over a decade. One of the most difficult decisions to get right is hiring design, whether that is hiring an individual designer or a design firm. The founders of Giant Shoulders and our team has been on both sides of the fence, hired by startups to build brands and products, but have also hired designers and design firms as part of startups and growing businesses.
We started Giant Shoulders because we believe that a stronger relationship between strategy and design can help companies go further faster by building effective brands.
1. Good design is strategy x execution.
The difference between a mediocre and a good designer is the ability to ask thoughtful questions. We can debate the merit of a certain design, but decisions often come down to personal taste and preferences, and these things can change over time.
On the other hand, the effectiveness of good design is objective and measurable. It begins with knowing and understanding the problems you are solving and for whom you are solving them. In our hiring process, we focus less on the designers’ visual solutions, and more on their ability to identify and solve problems. This gives us valuable insights into how they think, what they value, and their process (this process also applies to hiring design firms).
2. Not all designers are the same.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but not all designers are the same. I am not talking about their temperament, but their skillset, which can profoundly impact your business. We often come across job postings looking for a designer who can do marketing, write copy, design your app’s UI/UX, manage the product strategy, and develop brand identity. That is a tall order for a team, let alone a single freelance designer. Here are two steps to help identify which type of designer you should hire.
First, understand where you are as a business. The earlier stage you are, the less formal strategy you need. At this stage, you have a small team, and the plan is to build MVPs and see what sticks. As you grow, the more you invest in strategy, the more unified your design output, from brand to marketing to product.
Secondly, prioritize what kind of design is most critical – brand, marketing, product – and hire based on your priority and outsource the rest. It will be cheaper in the long run, your designer will be happier, and you will find more bandwidth to work on other parts of the business.
3. Purpose drives design, not the other way around.
Good design is all about being intentional. The clearer your intentions are, the better your design will perform, which is also true for your business and brand.
Clarifying your intentions and making them knowable is an essential first step. Start by writing down who you are, what you stand for, and why you do what you do. By doing so, you formalize the collective expectations, which form the foundation in which you build your culture, identity, and soul of your business. This clarity gives your team ownership and autonomy to be creative to move towards the common goal, and give designers a clear purpose for their design.
Brand Development workshop with Brave
4. Good design builds relationships.
Design is both the outcome and the process. Design is a process where you present an idea, learn from the feedback, gain trust, and build relationships. You are probably already doing this externally with your customers, getting feedback to develop better products.
The same process can be applied internally to build trust with your designers or creative team. We design to serve our clients and their customers. To us, good design is about people.
5. Trust the process.
Trust the design process and commit to it. New ideas are fragile; the design process creates a framework that helps to give them form and allow good ideas to separate from the rest.
When new ideas or designs are presented, you can help move the process along by asking designers probing questions – what is the intention behind the design and what problems are they trying to solve?
By doing so, you and your team will start to look beyond the subjective nature of style to have a more in-depth conversation about how effectively the design solved the problems.
Finally: Taking a leap step of faith
Working with creatives can be difficult because we tend to see the world differently than those trained in tech or business. You don’t need to understand how creatives perceive the world, but you will need to acknowledge the difference to enable an effective left brain/right brain collaboration. It takes courage to let others take the lead, especially in design, where decision-making can be subjective.
We hope that this gives you valuable insight into the value of design and the steps to take to hire the right designer or firm. Please reach out to us if you need help identifying what kind of design or designers you may need to help grow your business.
