Choosing Between In-House Design Team, Design Agency and Freelancers?

Choosing between in-house team, design agency and freelancers?
Jan. 26, 2012
Over the past year Brand Creative has seen a rise in companies recruiting in-house designers. Some employers have suggested that there are many benefits to having an in-house design team including cost and better control over their creative but what is the best option?

Designers work in three main environments; in-house, design agencies and freelance. An in-house team benefits a company by understanding the company and its goals. An in-house designer will have a good knowledge of their customer or product and be able to put this at the forefront of their designs. This will add value and result in a quick turnaround. It can be very time consuming for a client to explain to a design agency or freelancer what they are looking for whereas an in-house design team will have a good understanding of this and be able to come up with the goods quickly. The company will also have more control over the designs – watching them develop throughout the process and be able to make changes quickly.

This does seem appealing but in-house design teams can become a little stale and this is why some employers are searching for designers from an agency background to make the move to client side. Design agencies are renowned for coming up with fresh, exciting designs and their designers are ahead on new, innovative ideas and strategies. Designers from agencies are being employed by in-house teams to provide fresh ideas to a company if the company or brand wants to change direction; a designer who has been with the company might not be open to these changes or not too sure how to do this.

Some clients decide to just work with a design agency but this process can be long, laborious and costly. From the initial brief to the final design it can take several meetings and the Creative Director that you may have initially met with will not necessarily work on your designs. With freelancers it is just the one individual so you know will be working on your designs throughout the process.

Freelancers do have their advantages for companies who are just looking for sporadic design work to be carried out. They are known for their flexibility and working with one individual has its advantages over working with several designers. Freelancers can be costly so if a company is asking their freelance designer to do work on a regular basis than they may have to re-think their strategy.

“The amount of in-house designer jobs has increased significantly over the past year,” claims Ursula Colman, Managing Consultant at Brand Creative. “Clients are looking to bring their design team in-house so they can have control over their designs and cost. Not only are these employers looking to recruit other in-house designers but they are very keen to interview designers who have worked for an agency. This all depends whether agency designers are willing to make the move to client-side but in a tough market designers appear to be open to different sectors.”

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