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.”

SOI - HAND IN

Open publication - Free publishing - More graphics

SOI - Feedback

I have just had a group tutorial regarding SOI and DC with Lorenzo and he helped with my rationale statement, here is a slight update of it but it still is not the final one:

Concept driven type, layout and finish in the luxury retail market with a focus on branding, publication and packaging. 

SOI - First Draft

Open publication - Free publishing - More draft

Progress Crit

As a whole year we made a list of 5 things that we all need to focus on:

1. Typos

2. Context to brief shown on portfolio online and paper based.

3. Quality of images and relevant content.

4. Consistency of personal identity.

5. Design is in the detail.

This is the feedback that I got from a crit we had based on looking at our online and paper portfolio and also business card and stationary. At the moment I want to re photograph my product shots from all of my projects and therefore I only have an online portfolio of my work. My business card got feedback that I think is very valid. I will be changing these things and will post new ideas for my card on here soon. I would like my business card to have some kind of concept and not just be a simple card to hand out. I would either like it to be interactive or unique income way. I will have to explore how to do this further.

Here are some logo and layout designs for my card so far:

I wanted the typeface for the logo to reflect my design name 'Tiny' and so a sans serif font seemed most appropriate, however I didn't want it to understate the branding. The tallness of the typeface adds authority and power to it making it still seem like a legitimate and trusted identity.

I played around with positioning, scale, weighting and content to see how things would work together on the page. I wanted the design to look sleek, minimal and luxurious. I think I am still half way to completing the final card. I need to take into consideration and experiment with different type of stock and print finishes to make it stand out better.

ISTD Brief 2012

Module 1 - 1st Brief - Layout+Print Finishes+Ltd. Ed.

This is the second draft of the Ultimate Layout brief. And to be honest as I direct my ideas of what I want to design more closely the brief seems to keep evolving. The first draft was about looking at typography skills and trying to create the 'perfect' layout and if there could be anything perfect within design because everything is open to opinion. I thought this was an interesting brief, however it lacked structure and meaning in the real world.


The second draft of the brief is below and focuses towards an insert for Elle magazine. Again looking and layout and typography, but this time it had a meaning and more of a focus.

However, what I would really like to get out of a layout/editorial brief is an exploration of stock, materials, print finishes, and innovative thinking in the tight constraints of magazine making. Having chosen an already well established company there are already man very tight constraints on what can be produced and then to be able to transfer it into mass production.


So...

My updated first brief (and hopefully finalised) is as follows:

Create a high quality in store look book for Harvey Nichols showcasing the wide range of exclusive brands they stock.
To accompany the in store look book a smaller and cheaper to produce book will be made, with the same contents, for customers to take away.

The purpose of the look book is to give the customer ideas as to what they can buy and it could be coupled together in styles, colours, etc to express a lifestyle.

The type of people who shop in Harvey Nichols don't need to look at the price. No prices will be included in the look book, instead it will be advertising a lifestyle 'if you buy this you will be...'

The look book will experiment with print finishes and materials to give an overall exquisite experience to the customers.

The look book won't only have in store clothes it will show what has been on the catwalk, tips and trends. Like a mini 'style yourself' instruction manual.