How A Great Designer Can Help Your Business

These days business owners can set up a website in less than an hour or have a friend whip up a logo for next to nothing, but how well will it really serve their business? For some, doing it yourself may seem like the best option, but the help of a design professional can provide the extra polish a company needs to fully engage its audience.

Benefit from a designer’s experience

Working with someone who understands the principles of design, good communication, web standards, and how it all comes together is the difference between a merely functional public presence and an effective one that sends the right message and gets the results you want.

Keeping it simple

For small businesses, the prospect of branding and building a website can seem daunting. Where to start? How do you find the right designer? Will it cost an arm and a leg? How many meetings will you have to attend? It doesn’t have to be an ordeal.

Over my career as a designer, I’ve worked on small teams and I’ve worked on large teams. I’ve been a cog in a machine and I’ve been a one man band. There are benefits to both ways of doing things, but I’ve found that the best experiences come from working small.

A titanic of a company needs a legion of workers to keep it afloat, but small businesses need a dedicated advisor who will listen and take the time necessary to understand what the company needs.

Maybe you don’t need a specialist

More and more, designers are expected to be masters of typography, color, and layout; but also web design, user experience, and even coding. Some designers do motion graphics work. They are art directors, photographers, and also copywriters. Specialists are still out there but many designers simply can’t afford to be good at just one thing.

In my time as a designer, I’ve spent a year designing graphic tees for a large international clothing brand; three-plus years designing presentation decks, web ads, web pages, email and print marketing for start-ups; three years designing exhibition spaces; all while building websites as a freelancer. This experience makes it hard to know how to respond when people ask what I do. Usually I say, “I’m a designer.” When asked what kind of designer, I say that I do a bit of everything.

It’s true, some days I’m creating wireframes, trying to design the perfect UX. Other days I’m designing a logo or writing copy for a client’s website. If there’s a project that requires a skill I don’t have, I reach out to my network to find the right person to pull onto the project team or take on the job.

What this means for clients is that I’m someone they feel comfortable turning to for more than just fixing their website or designing their business card. I’m someone they can bounce ideas off of. I’m an advisor.

How I can help you

  • Not sure how you want your company to look? I’ll help you find the right face.
  • Need a website to sell your pickled wares? I happen to love both.
  • Have a set of wireframes but need someone to design the pages? I’ve got you covered.
  • Need someone to make your copy sing? I can do that.
  • Maybe you just need to move your site from one host to another. No problem.

Have a project for me? Let’s get started

Posted on April 27, 2015