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Key Thing to Ask When Hiring Designers

by 44 Comments

Hiring designers is tough. The term itself has such a broad definition, and a wide array of accompanying skills. A lot of people associate designers with people who “make pretty pictures.” But it’s really so much more than that.

In my mind a designer has to have a number of skill sets that together will add huge value to any tech / development team. But it’s easy to get blinded by “pretty pictures” and “slick designs” without really knowing if a candidate is the right fit. When you look at many designers’ portfolios that’s what you’ll see: lots of fancy, slick designs and lots of designs that mirror current, popular design trends.

So how can you hire the right designer?

Joshua Porter nails it on the head in his blog post, What metric are you designing to improve today?

The basic point that a designer focused exclusively on, “making things look better” isn’t really focused on the right things. There has to be a point beyond, “looking better”. There has to a metric – and preferably one that’s measurable – at the forefront of design.

It comes down to intent.

And that’s what you need to ask designers about during an interview — “What was the intent behind that design?”

If the answer is consistently, “It sucked before, I made it look slicker,” then you have a designer obsessed with pretty pictures and no reason.

Joshua writes:

If there is one undercurrent of design these days it is this: design is becoming more strategic and thus more important to business success. With this power comes great responsibility. As designers we must be accountable for what we produce, and that means we must start aligning our work with concrete business metrics.

When hiring a designer, find one that’s already gone through this process – of aligning his/her design efforts with key business metrics. Or at minimum, find a designer that wants to do that. This will separate out a lot of designers that might be great at “making things look better” but who don’t really get the purpose behind design, and won’t be flexible enough to execute on design as it’s tied to key business metrics.

Filed Under: Recruiting

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  • Hehe 😀 I am designer as well and this article was really fun lol 😀

  • knoxvillewebdesign

    Thank you for this post Ben. It is moving in the right direction and getting the thinking cap on which will not only benefit designers but also clients.

  • Pingback: Hiring a designer: a client’s perspective | David Airey, graphic designer()

  • davidcohen

    I agree with you, but at the same time believe great design leads, instead of follows. Sometimes, instead of designing for a business objective, we design for taste and beauty, that might not have much provable ROI or strategy. Still, design for the art of design has a value.

  • Nice tip for our next hire… Always more puzzled about hiring designers than programmers. Thxs 😉

  • Key Thing To Ask When Hiring Designers

  • gokhanht
  • wahyubumi

    Despite of fing 'right brained' designer, we should find designer with good attitude, so they can resposible with their works

  • funny, my friend's a designer.

  • Thanks for the info! This could help a lot to my applications as a designer. 🙂

  • freeblogssite

    Great post, I absolutely agree. I also think hiring a web designer who speaks English good is something many of us like 😛

  • gokhanht
  • gokhanht
  • gokhanht
  • makemylink

    Thanks for your valuable info. Good does and don't before hiring designer. Will forward to our HR dept. to follow your tips before hiring designer.

  • Definitely right! References are also really important.

  • plastikkart

    Definitely right. The most important thing is the references of the designers

  • the pyschology behind the design of offices and business premises is very interesting and it would not make sense to hire a designer and not implement some of the theories on how design influences business

  • i think the key things are if he creative stylish and a pro at what he dose
    those are the important things if you ask me
    as a designer

  • flodby

    Good does and don't before hiring designer.

  • I'll keep that in mind the next time I hire a designer. I also feel that designing is more than just the graphics.

  • leningbox

    I once tried to hire a designer but when you dont know how much time its gonna cost for him its very hard to make a good price for it.

  • I have been a designer for 5 years now, great article, I enjoyed it.

  • I'll keep that in mind the next time I hire a designer. I also feel that designing is more than just the graphics. Thanks for sharing.

  • Thomaslounge

    Thanks for this wonderful post. I could try on this my current project.

  • Thomaslounge

    Much appreciated post. I can use this ideas to my current projects.

  • Are you saying that someone who is new to designing shouldn't be given a chance? After all, everyone has to start somewhere, right?

  • samjaffer

    Today in this economy, designers are becoming more and more business oriented due to the fact that sites are becoming competitive. So one must assure the employer that aside from the creatives, one must also have a business sense to go with company vision.

  • maryanna_kornienko

    He-he! I have an experience of hiring designer. And strongly convicted that design helps (in ads for instance) to express the KEY idea of project, the main thought, headline… using means of visual comprehetion, nonverbal percepyion of person (ppl) for whom all this stuff is done. On my mind, the main thing here is not in a talent to create nice pictures. But in talent to deeply feel and understand FOR WHAT and FOR WHOM are you doing all this? And real problem is when “designer” strongly declines any recoomendations and gives just nice pictures in result. It really sucks. Oh, i'd like designers would merely understand main principles of sphere they working in while creating pictures.

  • I tend to disagree regarding the importance of references. Smart people will always line up the best references they can find. Unless you're really asking pointed questions to references, you're not likely going to get more than, “Ya, that person is great.”

  • custommagnets

    Great post with some really good suggestions. We have a whole department of top notch graphic artists who create award winning designs for custom magnets. Having a great artistic design is one thing, but having it relate to the business and convey their overall message from a business stand point is in a whole different league.

  • sinnersynx

    As a designer I would say that this article is really funny…

  • bedavachat

    thats a good site thanks for information admin Bedava Chat

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  • The best designer must show the relevancy between the information the design has in it with the business need. he shouldn't concentrate on designing a beautiful page.

  • tile_cleaning_kansas_city

    What Joshua wrote is so true. Most designers these days are helping to create landing pages and calls to action. They wont be able to successfully does those things if they're just focused on making pretty pictures.

  • unique_gift_ideas

    I know that I like it when designers can give me in-depth explanations of why that designed something a certain way. It kind of gives you a glimpse into their thought process, and it might give you an idea of their future designs.

  • I have been an interior designer for 7 years. Great post, I can relate, thanks

  • dape

    Always use a trusted company for design, SEO and SEM accountable to the customer over a sustained promotion campaign. Keep it simple and leave it to the professionals.

  • semmyw

    Hello Ben this is a great post! thank you very much!
    web 2.0 images |
    web 2.0 graphics

  • Hiring designers is tough. The term itself has such a broad definition, and a wide array of accompanying skills. A lot of people associate designers with people who “make pretty pictures.” But it’s really so much more than that.

    In my mind a designer has to have a number of skill sets that together will add huge value to any tech / development team. But it’s easy to get blinded by “pretty pictures” and “slick designs” without really knowing if a candidate is the right fit. When you look at many designers’ portfolios that’s what you’ll see: lots of fancy, slick designs and lots of designs that mirror current, popular design trends.

  • swapmycouncil

    One must assure the employer that aside from the creatives, one must also have a business sense to go with company vision. But it’s easy to get blinded by “pretty pictures” and “slick designs” without really knowing if a candidate is the right fit.

  • drivesafely

    I think finding a good designer is not a very much tough job if you are ready to pay a good sum of money.

  • drivesafely

    I think finding a good designer is not a very much tough job if you are ready to pay a good sum of money.

  • Pingback: The Spec Work Argument - Are We Missing Something()

Ben Yoskovitz

Founding Partner at Highline BETA, a startup co-creation company that launches new ventures with leading corporations and founders.

Previously I was VP Product at VarageSale and GoInstant (acq. $CRM), and Founding Partner at Year One Labs.

Angel investments include: Breather, Spoiler Alert, SendWithUs and others.

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