Even the most talented and experienced Internet marketer or businessman needs help every once in a while. Graphic or web design that meets your business goals takes commitment and the right amount of skills. Not everyone has what it takes to create banners, promo ads, and websites, which is why graphic design outsourcing has become a popular option for many. There are several factors to be considered in outsourcing graphic design work to ensure that you gain the best quality, competitive pricing, total confidentiality, and unparalleled customer service.

Graphic Design Experience

In the outsourcing business, it would of course be in your best interest to look for an individual or a service that has significant experience in the line of work or aspect of your business you are outsourcing. You will be surprised at the number of companies offering graphic website outsourcing at competitive prices. In choosing a firm, have a look at how many websites the outsourcing company has worked on and whether they fit your standards. See also if the websites they made are search engine-friendly. If outsourcing to an individual, ask for a work portfolio.

Web Design Infrastructure

When we talk about web design infrastructure, we are referring to the tools a graphic design outsourcing company uses. A web design company must have experience working with the latest software and network infrastructure. Its team members must be knowledgeable in different platforms such as Windows, Linux, PHP, ASP, .NET, MySQL, MSSQL, C++, VB, and so on. Choose a service that distinguishes between its art department and customer assistance to allow for better communication.

Graphic Design Team

It is an excellent idea to hire the services of an entire company when graphic design outsourcing because they usually employ a number of skilled professionals to work on your projects. Graphic design is an art but more than that, it is also a form of science. The team you are outsourcing to needs to harbor unique and innovative ideas in software programs like Photoshop, Dreamweaver, animation programs, CSS, and HTML. They must also be able to execute these ideas well and foster a deep understanding in the importance of striking a balance between aesthetics and functionality.

Professionalism

In graphic design outsourcing, the two transacting parties must establish good communication lines from the very start. If a company does not seem to foster a harmonious relationship with its clients through proper coordination, language proficiency, and constant communication, your projects are bound to fail. Professionalism should be exercised in all aspects such as pricing, communication, and timing. You must be able to express your ideas without having to worry about time constraints, connection problems, and hidden costs.

Maintenance

Maintenance is an essential aspect in graphic design outsourcing, especially in web design. You must choose an outsourcing service that allows you to incorporate changes, make additions, apply corrections, and do other modifications any time it is needed. Come up with a set budget and style sheet once you have chosen a graphic design outsourcing provider. This avoids unnecessary mistakes and some basic problems as you go along.

Studies show that nearly 70% of readers here at Graphic Design Blender either own their own freelance design business or hope to start freelancing in the near future. Something that many freelancers fail to do, however, is work effectively with others to reduce workload and increase income.
If you’re anything like me, you started your freelance career with hopes of getting paid to do what you love most while maintaining a fairly flexible schedule. Unfortunately, you only have so many hours in the day. In addition you have some clients who simply want something outside your area of expertise.

Sound Familiar?

When this happens, there are a few options you can take. You can simply turn down work you are not qualified for or don’t have time for. You can refer them to friends you might have that do know how to best meet the clients needs. Or lastly, you can network with others and create outsourcing opportunities.
What is outsourcing?

Outsourcing in freelance design is simply the act of transferring the workload from yourself to another person. If you lack time or skill to complete a particular project for a client, for example, you might hire another freelance designer to do the work for you while you manage the client relationships.
When is it a good idea to start outsourcing?

Outsourcing in design can be a controversial topic. Many designers would argue that, if you are not qualified for the job or don’t have time to complete it, you should refer the client to another designer and get over the fact that you just lost a job or a client.

But what if a long-time client of yours comes to you and asks for something that you may not have time to complete or lack the necessary skills. Are you simply going to reject your client, send them on their way, and burn the relationship bridge you have worked so hard to build with them?

Of course not!

This would be an opportune time to work with other designers or freelancers in order to fulfill the needs of your client. Everyone wins: the other freelancer you work with gets paid, you maintain a client, and the client gets what they need.
How to effectively outsource design work

1PHASE ONE: START YOUR FREELANCE COMPANY
If you haven’t started a freelance design company yet, this is obviously the first step. You need to create a branding platform, begin to find clients, register your business with all the appropriate government entities, and do all the behind-the-scenes work to get your freelance business off the ground.

2 PHASE TWO: FIND SOME GOOD CLIENTS
After you have everything up and running, you should work hard to find some good clients that will be able to support your freelance business. These clients can include large businesses that need a lot of work done, clients that need material (particularly web material) frequently updated, etc. Before you can think about working with other freelancers, you should have a steady flow of work coming in to your business.

3PHASE THREE: MAKE SOME GOOD CONNECTIONS
After you have learned the basics of running a successful freelance design business, it’s important to network with other people-especially others who possess skills you lack. This will open doors and present outsourcing opportunities later on.

There are a million places you can make good connections with people. Stay active on twitter (follow me), facebook, stumbleupon, digg, and other sharing and social media sites. Another tactic you can use is to send messages to your followers inviting them to send their information to you through an online form (I use google docs). These forms can help you organize your contacts and information from other freelancers who might be interested in working with you. Make sure they tell you who they are, where you can see their work, how you can get in contact, what they specialize in, etc.

4PHASE FOUR: MAKE A BID REQUEST OR DELEGATE
After you have begun making good connections with other freelancers, begin delegating the surplus work you have to the freelancers who most qualify for the job. If you are unsure who might offer the best experience and best price, you can also send out a bid request. Essentially, you would send out a message to the potential freelancers informing them of the opportunity and ask them to bid on the project. Have them include time schedule and price. This will help you choose a candidate better.

5PHASE FIVE: WORK AS A LIAISON BETWEEN YOUR CLIENT AND FREELANCER
At this moment, your role changes. Whether you like it or not, you have now become a manager. You work as a account manager-facilitating communication between freelancer and client and assuring everything is completed on time and as expected.

While I love design, I have truly come to love working with other freelance professionals who are more skilled than I am. Managing the relationship between client and freelancer can really make you feel like you are running a legitimate freelance business.

6PHASE SIX: FINISH THE PROJECT, COLLECT, AND PAY
Now the good part. The last step is to work out all the payment between client and freelancer. Make sure that all deliverables are given to the client and that the freelancer also gets paid as promised. Some freelance designers feel guilty about collecting money for themselves on a project like this, but if you have done your job properly, you managed the project well-which is what you will be getting paid for. It’s legitimate.
Last, a word of caution

I would offer a word or two of advice for any freelancer who is interested in adding the art of ourtsourcing to their freelance business. First, remember why you are freelancing in the first place. Don’t get so wrapped up in managing and making money that you have no time to design. You love to design-so be sure to keep the best projects for yourself and really enjoy them. Second, remember how you feel when clients hire you and then treat you poorly. When you hire a freelancer, treat them with the utmost respect, trust their opinion, and work well with them to create a professional product.
Will you be outsourcing soon? Add your opinion

Now it’s your turn. What do you think? Is it a good idea to start outsourcing some of the work that you dont have time for or lack the necessary skills to complete? For those of you who have started outsourcing, what tips can you offer the rest of us that might help in our endeavor to take this step in our freelance careers?

Source: Graphic Design Blender

Step 1
Join the Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI), since it’s the only way you can order items for customers directly from the vendors. You must be a member. It’s a high fee, more than $1,000 a year. However, if you are serious about making good money, it’s the only way to go.

Step 2
Know the benefits. As an ASI member, you will receive 50 percent off everything you order from ad specialty companies. If you work under some else’s membership, you split the 50 percent profit.

Step 3
Get a good supply of samples and catalogues from the ASI vendors. They have plenty of free samples available for new and existing members.

Step 4
Order a nice give-away for yourself. When you call on customers, you want to make a good, creative first impression. The owners and salespeople in the promotional products industry are typically the designer of the clients’ promotions. Larger ad specialty shops may keep an artist/designer on staff, but you will do all your own designs.

Step 5
Hire a professional artist to work on special jobs. Many commercial artists work freelance. Use her to work up spec samples when you’ve landed a big appointment.

Step 6
Take a year and learn the business while working for a larger ad specialty firm before you start your own. Find one that does not require you to sign a non-compete contract, so that when you leave, you can get right to work on your own company.

As Director of Design for Cincinnati-based product development firm Kaleidoscope, Demetrius Romanos leads a team of multidisciplinary specialists in design, strategy and research. Over the past seven years his team has worked with clients that include Motorola, Procter & Gamble, International Trucks, Staples, Evenflo and Ethicon Endo-surgery.

Demetrius recently answered some questions for us on the process of working with a product development firm and on today’s consumer market.

Q: What kinds of details should your customers keep in mind when conceptualizing their products?

A: Different yet similar to the real estate world’s mantra of “location, location, location,” with a product it’s all about positioning, positioning, positioning. Even more basic than that is just being honest enough with yourself to look at your product idea and ask a very blunt “so what?” What’s so great about my product, and why would anyone spend hard earned money for it?

Q: Do you ever have to turn people down and say, “This will never work?”

A: Well, not so much turn down, but try to open their eyes a bit. As consultants we’d be doing our clients a disservice if we didn’t offer solutions to their problems, since that’s what we’re paid to do. A lot of time it’s getting back to the core question of what is their product trying to solve, which you could likely accomplish several different ways.

Q: What are today’s consumers looking for as opposed to consumers 10-15 years ago? How are they different and how should your customers’ product ideas adapt to their changing needs?

A: The biggest difference we’ve seen is that consumers are seeking to make a connection with their products. This makes designing products far more challenging because a gadget alone that does what it says is not good enough. Whether it’s an MP3 player or a toothbrush, a product now also needs a soul.

Q: What effect does a downturning economy have on consumers, and therefore also have on you as a product development firm and the number/type of customers you get?

A: With consumers it comes down to choices. If there is any money left after housing, energy and food costs are covered, what will people spend their money on? That’s a big part of why the connection with a product becomes so critical. As for us, the number of clients can remain the same but will vary in the type of work. The focus shifts to more recession-proof industries like consumer goods and medical equipment.

Q: Is there anything at all that you are doing differently to compensate for or adapt to the current economic situation, or is it business as usual?

A: It’s not quite business as usual for many companies right now so you have to be really focused on what your goals are as an organization. We’ll tend to focus on two areas to grow our business: 1) Recession-proof industries like medical equipment and consumer goods, and 2) development of our own intellectual properties.

Q: At what point in the process do your customers come to you? Do they already have a prototype, or are they just sitting on an idea?

A: Our clients span the range from one side, where they don’t even know what it is they need yet, all the way to other clients having an item that they may just need help getting manufactured. We’ll engage at any point in the process, which is why flexibility and adaptability are so critical in consulting.

Q: Once your customers come to you, where does the process go from there?

A: This depends on where we’re engaged, but the primary point of entry is that a client needs to enter a market with a product. We’ll do research and strategy to define the consumer needs, positioning and business opportunities, with the outcome driving design concepts. We’ll then start broad then focus in on the design and engineer of those concepts, working our way down to the direction for manufacturing. At that point we may even assist in selecting the appropriate vendors and may serve as a liaison during the manufacturing process to maintain design integrity.
Read More…

But not many businesses thoroughly understand the benefits of outsourcing. It’s true that outsourcing can save money, but that’s not the only (or even the most important) reason to do it. As many firms discovered during the outsourcing “mania” of the early 1990s, outsourcing too much can be an even bigger mistake than not outsourcing any work at all. The flat economy caused many companies into huge layoffs and subsequently outsourced functions that were better kept in-house. Wise outsourcing, however, can provide a number of long-term benefits:

Control capital costs. Cost-cutting may not be the only reason to outsource, but it’s certainly a major factor. Outsourcing converts fixed costs into variable costs, releases capital for investment elsewhere in your business, and allows you to avoid large expenditures in the early stages of your business. Outsourcing can also make your firm more attractive to investors, since you’re able to pump more capital directly into revenue-producing activities.

Increase efficiency. Companies that do everything themselves have much higher research, development, marketing, and distribution expenses, all of which must be passed on to customers. An outside provider’s cost structure and economy of scale can give your firm an important competitive advantage.

Reduce labor costs. Hiring and training staff for short-term or peripheral projects can be very expensive, and temporary employees don’t always live up to your expectations. Outsourcing lets you focus your human resources where you need them most.

Start new projects quickly. A good outsourcing firm has the resources to start a project right away. Handling the same project in-house might involve taking weeks or months to hire the right people, train them, and provide the support they need. And if a project requires major capital investments (such as building a series of distribution centers), the startup process can be even more difficult.

Focus on your core business. Every business has limited resources, and every manager has limited time and attention. Outsourcing can help your business to shift its focus from peripheral activities toward work that serves the customer, and it can help managers set their priorities more clearly.

Level the playing field. Most small firms simply can’t afford to match the in-house support services that larger companies maintain. Outsourcing can help small firms act “big” by giving them access to the same economies of scale, efficiency, and expertise that large companies enjoy.

Reduce risk. Every business investment carries a certain amount of risk. Markets, competition, government regulations, financial conditions, and technologies all change very quickly. Outsourcing providers assume and manage this risk for you, and they generally are much better at deciding how to avoid risk in their areas of expertise.

Source: allbusiness.com

During the past decade, there has been rapid growth of design outsourcing as a key
operational driver for companies to compete globally, increase productivity, and improve
profitability. Manufacturers are transforming their product development models from
local cross-functional operations to highly collaborative global operations, where skilled
resources dispersed around the world are leveraged to optimize value-add and
reduce cost.

Definition of Design Outsourcing

Design outsourcing is a process that enables companies to engage with design partners to deliver a design activity, the design of a single component, a subsystem, or an entire system. The process
consists of communicating outsourcing requirements and contractual agreement on project scope. Project documentation and CAD model definitions are shared. Furthermore, a project plan is implemented,
regular project and acceptance review are conducted, and final project work products are delivered…Read the full report.

I’ve met alot of designers in my limited experience that complain about the “sketchers”. Sometimes designers with an aptitude for sketching get labeled as being shallow or non-creative. However, I see sketching as a means to and end rather than the end all. When all is said and done, regardless of how flashy the sketch may be or how killer it may look, the essence of why we sketch ideas as designers is seeded in effectively communicating those ideas to our clients. Sketching is our language of communication.

Sometimes we sketch for fun, but most of the time when working, we sketch for clients or other designers. The sketches that go into your sketchbook are of a different quality than those you would show to your fellow designers in a review or to a client in a meeting, but both sketches have their uses nonetheless. Take this for example, you’re in a restaurant on a lunch break and something comes to mind. You quickly jot it down on a scraggly napkin so that you don’t forget the idea. That sketch too has its purpose. Although it could be the killer idea of a lifetime, the communication may be lacking from you to the client and may be more of a self communication tool.

So then what are the different types of sketches you ask? Well fortunately you are in the right place, at the right time, reading the right blog.

1. Personal Communication Sketches aka the Doodle:

These are the scraggliest of the scraggers. The dirtiest of the dirty. They sketches that tend to live in the sketchbook or on discarded pieces of paper. The purpose of doodling and sketching so roughly is for you the designer to work out the issues with form or function, but in a looser more empathic way. These sketches tend to be most present at the genesis of the product concept. For me, these are the doodles I do when preoccupied in thought on the bus or train as I try to fiddle around with new ideas or sketch techniques.

2. The Thinking Sketch:

Al little more focused and refined, these sketches are usually alot cleaner than the scraggly doodles you find in a sketchbook. You may find yourself showing these to other designers, so you can make certain assumptions as you sketch and use cues that your colleagues would pick up on suck as hatching and contour lines. Simple gestural sketches could also fall into this category. . .

3. The Technical Sketch

Designers bridge the gap between art and engineering. (you can decide for yourself what your role or mantra is) As such, sometimes it’s necessary when sitting and working with an engineer or clay modeler to then speak on their terms. That means pulling out the ol’ exploded views, cutaway views, and cross sections to help communicate your vision for the product your designing.

4. The Presentation Sketch:

This is where you bring out the big guns. These sketches tend to be a little more refined and thought out. you can think of them as being a little technical yet a little emotive. They serve to captivate the viewers interest while then explaining the concept visually. For a client that does not have the visual thinking skills of you fellow designers, it may be necessary to be a bit more explicit in how you explain things in your sketches (hence the technical aspect). Notes, callouts, different views – this is where you’ll want to be overt in how you express the idea.

5. The Emotive Sketch:

The gushy, over the top, killer sketch whose soul purpose is to make your viewer stare in awe at the killer sketch/render in front of them. Yes this is what tends to be the automotive sketch. Descriptive yet very emotional. I rarely do these much as I tend to work in 3-d once I get past the presentation sketch phase, but don’t get me wrong, I totally dig these and love a good emotionally and visually captivating sketch.

Source: ID Sketching