You’re hiring the wrong designer.
What do you think of when you imagine the designer you’re going to hire for your company? Smart, creative, experienced, fast, risk taker, hard worker, obsessed, pixel perfect, great portfolio, codes too? Well, whatever it is, I can guarantee you’re imagining it wrong. It’s ok, everyone does it. Hiring a designer, without being a designer, is difficult.
Ok great, so it’s time to find your designer. What’s the first thing you do? Devour Dribbble? Hunt Behance? There are so many designers out there right now it’s insane. All types of skill sets. There area designers charging top dollar with little or no experiences. Then you even get these designers that call themselves “Product Designers” or “Visual Designers” and other trendy names. So how do you choose?
When looking for your new designer, don’t settle for a half baked pixel junky. If you do, you’ll have to hire 2 or 3 designers instead of just the 1. I guarantee your company has done this in the past. Mainly because you are in a rush to hire or you simply didn’t look for the right things when hiring your designer. It’s ok, I’m going to get you out of this jam.
The key to it all…hire a creative designer. They don’t have to be a genius at math or have read the latest book trends, but you do want someone that could pitch you the wildest movie in a matter of seconds. Someone whose mind is nearly uncontrollable (in a good way.) Someone that can design and think at powerful levels. Someone that can take an almost square 300x250 banner ad and turn it into a circle, thinking “INSIDE THE BOX.” Making things work with limited space. A creative problem solver. They key here is to hire a natural creative. Not a box artist.
To find the right designer, here are just 5 things you can look for:
1. Is this designer dedicated to the most creative design possible? If yes, then 9 times out of 10 this designer spends most of his time in Photoshop and away from code. Hiring a designer that can code as well is tricky. Normally, they’re both ok at design and ok at code. It’s not always the case but there are some rare breeds out there, unfortunately, that’s only 1% of them. You want to find someone that focuses on one skill set, and one skill set alone. You can hire any X-Twitter, Google or Facebook developer to do the code. Let your designer design. Coders code. If not, you’re doing it wrong.
2. Can this designer work creatively with unique user interfaces? Does this designer only make pretty boxes? Do they crave on pixel perfection? Is their portfolio filled with the same work, just different colors and placement? If so…probably not the hire you’re looking for. You want to find a designer that has a clear style, yet can do any type of work needed. They should be able to maniuplate photos to create the craziest mind blowing scenes. They should be able to create realistic textures and objects in PS. Look for designers that make crazy interfaces, it’s always easy to dial them back. It’s harder to make someone that can only create simple interfaces dial it up. Don’t forget that.
3. Can this designer creatively solve big user experience problems? For instance, are all of their iPhone app concepts in their portfolio representing the same old bottom tab bar with icon/text or have they concepted something different, i.e. Path’s “+” menu.
4. Has this designer ever worked with branding creatively? Not necessarily creating one, but working with one. For example, working with Facebook and only being able to use a specific set of fonts and colors. This is important because some many websites today have 1000's of inconsistencies. You need a designer that knows how to keep things tamed when needed.
5. Ask where they get there creative inspiration from. They’ll probably say sites like Dribbble, Behance or something like Awwwards. But you should hope they say other things like from the outdoors, traveling, surfing, driving, walking downtown and people watching - something besides the internet. Heck, even magazines (non-internet related). Stepping outside of the computer feeds our creatives brains.
Here’s a couple things to be weary of:
1. Watch out for titles. Product Designer, Interface Designer, UI/UX Designer, Visual Designer, Art Director, Creative Director…blah blah blah. We all hate titles, but when you’re in the market to hire - be sure to take note of what the designer calls themselves.
For instance, a Product Designer. If a designer calls themselves that they probably know their way around an interface. They’ve hopefully actually made a few products themselves and know how to design pretty much everything from GUI, UX and yes, even branding. If they can only do part of that, they are not a Product Designer. The start-up space is swarming with “Product Designers” who merely only do UX with a side of GUI. Usually never touching a brand or knowing how to build a product based on one. Developers are even calling themselves Product Designers these days, it’s a very miss-used term so be weary of it. It’s probably the latest trendy word to throw around in the office. To help filter through the title, just ask the designer why they call themeselves that, hoping that the first response will be something like “I’ve created a few products like…”
Now, here’s the important one, Visual Designer. This is a very vague term. In the “design world” being a “Visual Designer” purely means one that can design. So if you are only wanting someone that can design you a box, pop on a gradient and sell it to you saying that it’s awesome…you’re probably making the wrong hire. Of course, this all pertains to the individuals portfolio and past experiences. They could just be down playing their skill set. When I sort through potential hires, most Visual Designers are not the best problem solvers when it comes to difficult UI descisions. Also, no designer today in the tech world would really ever call themselves a “Visual Designer.” It’s almost like us calling ourselves “Graphic Designers.” It’s not always true, but usually. So again, be weary.
2. The used car salesman. Some where along the way companies/agencies thought they should only hire designers that can sell. This is a really bad practice. Sure, it helps if they can chat about their work but do you really want them to sell you something you don’t want, like a used car salesman would do? Don’t hire a designer just because they can talk. Don’t hire them because they give great pitches. Hire them because they are talented. Hire them because their work is like no other you’ve seen. Some of the best designers out there are the quietest because they are constantly thinking. My favorite creative designers of all time are listeners, not speakers.
Final Thoughts
There’s a term I throw around a lot, “buy nice or buy twice.” I get emails all the time from clients saying they had to fire their designer, who they cheaply hired to save some money or that just couldn’t get the job done, and now they’re in such desperate need of a good designer to redo the work and get them out of their jam. Sadly, these companies say they are design focused. A new trend in the tech world which is just being thrown around like a hot potato.
So guys, don’t settle for less. Spend some time and hire the creative designer you want and need. Hopefully these little tips will help you along the way.
And don’t forget, buy nice or buy twice.
