Choose and work with a designer

You're probably making design-related decisions in your business every day. You may be modifying your products, building your brand or improving the processes behind your services.

Using a professional designer or design agency can help you strengthen this decision-making and ensure that your design focuses on your customers' needs.

Benefits of professional design

You can draw on a designer's skills throughout a project, from strategy and idea generation to implementation and evaluation.

Designers can contribute most when they're involved from the earliest stages to help generate new ideas. They can then visualise those ideas and test them to shorten time to market and increase the chances of success.

Why you need a designer?

Designers can help you deliver a broad range of projects including:

• a new website to communicate your brand and offer an online sales platform
• a new or updated product to keep you ahead of the competition
• packaging to make a product more attractive or easier to sell
• new branding to reposition your business or launch it in a new market

They can also help you to:

• improve your internal or external communications
• improve working or retail environment to boost productivity or sales
• make your business more sustainable
• research your customers' needs and wants

Choosing the right designer for your business or product is not always straightforward. To give your project best chances of success, you will need to find someone who is competent, creative and the right fit for your business and budget. You will also need to work out what way you will collaborate - on a consultancy basis, hire them for a period or employ them into your company.

Reasons to hire a graphic designer

Graphic designers are great at communicating messages through visual mediums. They can create and assemble images, typography, etc to improve the aesthetic appeal of your business. They can help you:

• create a stand out brand
• make your business more professional
• appeal to new audiences
• provide expertise and a specific set of skills to your project

If you are struggling to find the right person or agency for your project, you may want to seek help from business support organisations such as Invest Northern Ireland.