Graphic Designer: What is the cost of hiring?

Why hire a graphic designer?

A graphic designer will use their knowledge of art and design to create visually attractive promotional material. They can help you with your branding and will work on your marketing material in print and the digital world. A graphic designer works with the marketing department to help develop advertisements that can increase your brand awareness.

Contributions of a great graphic designer:

• create logos, letterhead, brochures, and website elements for your company
• work with software and hardware to produce materials
• keep up to date with the latest design trends

Deciding between a full-time vs freelance graphic designer

Most graphic designers will start off their career working at a marketing agency or something similar so that they can practise their skills and get to know what type of design work interests them the most. These jobs would be full-time permanent jobs and most graphic design jobs in this category would come with a regular salary and benefits. For this type of position, you would want to be able to provide the graphic designer with enough work to be continuously working on a project, and have a budget that would allow you to pay them a proper salary.

Some graphic designers will eventually decide to work for themselves, working for individual businesses on a particular project or group of projects. An example of this would be a graphic designer who helps new businesses with their branding, creating things such as logos and a letterhead. This freelance graphic designer would be best suited for either new businesses or for short-term projects that require a graphic designer.

What are the different types of graphic designer?

Graphic designers can specialize in particular areas of marketing and often take on different roles in the design world. Graphic designers are very versatile and may specialize in things such as website design or social media marketing. Since a graphic designer has a wide variety of skills, they can specialize in an area that they find the most interesting. The following is a list of different types of graphic designers that could be more suited to your business, depending on what you’re looking for.

• UX Designer: Responsible for designing, implementing, and testing new software.
• Web Designer: Responsible for creating websites for an organization.
• Social Media Marketing Manager: Responsible for all digital marketing campaigns on social media.
• Brand Developer: Works with the client to develop the brand and what it looks like.

Where to find a graphic designer

To find the right graphic designer for your business, consider trying out a few different recruiting strategies:

• Freelance networking sites: A freelance networking site, such as Upwork, will allow freelance graphic designers to upload a portfolio so that companies can search for a graphic designer that is right for their project. This is a great place to go as you can ask graphic designers to bid on your project, making the decision-making process easier.
• Graphic design schools: Graphic design schools will often offer internships for their students, which is a great way to find help and create connections that may be useful in the future. They often have job boards for companies that are looking to hire new grads, so connecting with a graphic design school can be incredibly helpful.
• Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC): This professional association for graphic designers in Canada can help you hire a great graphic designer. They have a job board where companies looking for graphic designers can post available positions. They also have events throughout the year so that you can meet people in the industry and possibly hire a graphic designer through networking.

Post your job online: Try posting your graphic designer job on Indeed to find and attract quality graphic designer candidates.

Skills to look for in a great graphic designer

A great graphic designer candidate will have the following skills and attributes as well as work experience that reflects:

• technical skills to work with graphic design software
• time management skills allowing them to work on many projects at once
• attention to detail
• creativity and artistic eye
• organization skills to keep multiple projects on track to meet deadlines
• ability to take criticism and be flexible in design choices

Writing a graphic designer job description

A thoughtful description is important for finding qualified graphic designer candidates. A graphic designer job description includes a compelling summary of the role, detailed list of duties and responsibilities, and the required and preferred skills for the position.

When writing your graphic designer job description, consider including some or all of the following keywords to improve the visibility of your job posting. These are the most popular search terms leading to clicks on graphic designer jobs, according to Indeed data:

• Graphic design
• Designer
• Art
• Illustrator
• Web design
• Web developer
• Photoshop

Interviewing graphic designer candidates

Strong candidates for graphic designer positions will be confident answering questions regarding:

• Experience with difficult clients.
• How they work in a team and what happens if there is conflict in that team.
• Explaining how a design will attract customers.
• Success at gaining customers for the client through their marketing campaigns.
• How they deal with possible critique of their work.

Need help coming up with interview questions? See our list of graphic designer interview questions for examples (with sample answers).