5 reasons you should hire a freelance designer vs a design company

Photo by Evangelos Vlasopoulos

It is common for some clients to feel reluctant about hiring a freelance designer as opposed to a design company, but there are a lot of advantages to hiring a freelance designer, five of which are listed below:

• Flexibility

Freelance designers tend to be a lot more flexible when it comes to design ideas and time lines. They make sure they offer their clients flexible service in order to meet their design needs. Also, for a freelance designer, it isn’t always 9-5, 8 hours a day while working on a project, so, clients may even get revisions back within a couple of hours, which helps in speeding the process.

• Direct communication

Communication is key when it comes to having great design, which completely matches the clients’ expectations. With a freelance designer, clients can be sure to get lots of ideas and solutions to their design problem. Also, with direct communication, clients can be rest assured that they are communicating to the right person who is going to be working on the project and the information will not get passed along or misinterpreted.

• Cost control

Hiring a freelance designer also lets you have a better control over the budget and control costs. Since freelance designers who are self-employed usually work from home and don’t have overhead costs like rent and additional bills, their rates are usually lower than a design agency’s rates. Also, big design firms are looking for big projects because their services are less scalable. They consider small projects unprofitable but that’s not the case with freelance designers.

• More control over quality of work

This goes back to being able to communicate the exact idea to the designer that is working on a particular project. Clients that are working with a design firm can not be sure of who’s working on their project, a senior designer or an intern. The quality of work will be very different in both cases. However, when a client chooses to hire a freelance design, he/she can thoroughly look at the portfolio and decide if that’s the kind of work that he/she is looking for or not. The quality of work will not change because that one designer is the only one who will be working on the project.

• Reliability

Since freelance designers work for themselves, they are not going to quit the job or fire themselves, once they’ve taken on a project. It can be different with a design company. The person handling a particular project may have to quit the job or may get fired for whatever reason and someone else will have to replace him/her. This can cause a lot of confusion and hence, the clients may not get exactly what they are looking for. With a freelance designer, clients can expect the same person to start and finish their projects.

These are only 5 of many reasons. Can you think of any other reasons for hiring a freelance designer versus a design firm?