I'm looking at sites like elance.com / odesk / freelancer / etc. to hire a graphic designer for my next project.
I've never hired through any of these sites, but heard it can be hit or miss. Anyone have any experience with any of these sites and tell me:
Which site has given you the best experience?
What are the average prices for a utility based app design?
How to get the best artists to bid on your job?
What are some general tips / things to watch out for?
General rule is that you get what you pay for. The best graphic designers won't even bid if your target amount is too low. Graphic design is so important I would pay as much as I could afford to get the best.
Make a project with big budget and cross your fingers someone worthy makes a bid. It may take some time and you might not find anyone good enough for you, depending on your standards. I had to re-post one project twice before I found someone really good. There are hundreds of wannabe artists who bid on everything, not even reading the description, so prepare yourself for a world of painful digging through crap.
And be sure though to select someone who has portfolio which has *exactly* what you're looking for. Don't go thinking "he's good with this, I'm sure he'll do good with [your thing]". Find someone who has in his portfolio *exactly* what you need.
Also, beware of studios. Their portfolios are often impressive, but you have no guarantee that the artist assigned to your job will have the skill you admired in their best pieces.
It's a royal pain in the neck, but in the end, it's worth it. Good art won't make your app/game good, but crappy art will make sure, that people won't even give it a try.
I could not realize about the bid. If this is a bid then where the auction for this will be held.. Just joking
Make a project with a massive budget and without the graphic design you can't delight even a bit...
And be sure though to select someone who has portfolio which has *exactly* what you're looking for. Don't go thinking "he's good with this, I'm sure he'll do good with [your thing]". Find someone who has in his portfolio *exactly* what you need.
Definitely agree with this. It's hard to get *exactly* what you want in a portfolio, but I've had enough cases of a portfolio looking pretty good, but the actual job not going too well. One good experience I had was telling a designer to modify what she already had in her portfolio to tweak it a bit for my uses. That time worked out pretty well.
__________________
Follow me on Twitter: @dacaposoft
Not much to add as the advice given here is solid.
This holds true for hiring coders aswell. Most likely be a few misses before you hit on a person that is up to scratch and you can communicate well with. Make sure you have skype or the like and build a good relationship.
I always get a fixed the price for the job, even if you break your project into smaller parts. There will always be a little movement but this way I always know within a few hundred quid where my budget is.
Telling apart good coders from bad ones is even harder than figuring out who the good graphic designers are.
After all, you can immediately tell whether a visual design is good or not.
With code, things may look okay, but may end up being impossible to maintain, or worse could be riddled with little bugs that you aren't able to figure out until it's too late. That's why I became a coder myself.
But for me, finding the right designer and a good illustrator is still something I haven't quite done well yet. (In the meantime, I've found that my PS skills are improving out of sheer necessity, but thankfully they've come to where I can create some decent graphics for my needs.)
__________________
Follow me on Twitter: @dacaposoft
I found a designer on Elance who does awesome work and the cost is very reasonable(relative to my expectations). He even created a mockup before I awarded the job. That helped to show me what he could do, and is why he got the gig. This was my first time using any of the freelance sites and I found a great designer I can hopefully keep going back to.
That being said, and based on other's experiences I was lucky to find someone good right away. If anyone is interested in working with the designer I found, message me and I will give you his info.
I found a designer on Elance who does awesome work and the cost is very reasonable(relative to my expectations). He even created a mockup before I awarded the job. That helped to show me what he could do, and is why he got the gig. This was my first time using any of the freelance sites and I found a great designer I can hopefully keep going back to.
That being said, and based on other's experiences I was lucky to find someone good right away. If anyone is interested in working with the designer I found, message me and I will give you his info.
Judging by your avatar, if this designer made that he must be very good!
Don't hire on a time basis (hourly/daily etc), so always make it fixed cost. Hiring hourly/daily etc seems a cheaper way of doing it, but trust me it's not. Whether the graphic artist means it or not, you will find yourself spending a lot of money without much to show, as good quality visuals take time, and you will need much of that extra time (working things out, trying variations etc) to be absorbed by the graphic artist and not you.
Style is so important. You might find someone who is great at vector work, but useless at bitmap, or they might draw great characters but can't handle layouts/colour schemes very well. So make sure the person you hire is actually good at the particular kind of art your want in your app/game.
Communication. As has already been said, the person you talk to on the contracting site might well end up not being the person who is actually doing the work. It's hard enough putting an idea across to someone who is in the same room as you, let alone someone who is half a world away and who for English is a 2nd language. Make absolutely sure that you can communicate properly with the person who is actually doing the work.
Lastly, like most things in life you get what you pay for. People who are good, KNOW they are good, and will charge accordingly. What you have to decide is whether that extra quality is actually worth it, and you will earn extra through your app/game because of it.
re: point 1, the really good graphic designers always charge hourly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GameViewPoint
My advice would be...
Don't hire on a time basis (hourly/daily etc), so always make it fixed cost. Hiring hourly/daily etc seems a cheaper way of doing it, but trust me it's not. Whether the graphic artist means it or not, you will find yourself spending a lot of money without much to show, as good quality visuals take time, and you will need much of that extra time (working things out, trying variations etc) to be absorbed by the graphic artist and not you.
Style is so important. You might find someone who is great at vector work, but useless at bitmap, or they might draw great characters but can't handle layouts/colour schemes very well. So make sure the person you hire is actually good at the particular kind of art your want in your app/game.
Communication. As has already been said, the person you talk to on the contracting site might well end up not being the person who is actually doing the work. It's hard enough putting an idea across to someone who is in the same room as you, let alone someone who is half a world away and who for English is a 2nd language. Make absolutely sure that you can communicate properly with the person who is actually doing the work.
Lastly, like most things in life you get what you pay for. People who are good, KNOW they are good, and will charge accordingly. What you have to decide is whether that extra quality is actually worth it, and you will earn extra through your app/game because of it.
re: point 1, the really good graphic designers always charge hourly.
Exactly, that's what the last paragraph of my response was about. Not everyone can afford the hourly rates of top graphic artists, and if you are new to hiring it's probably wiser to hire on a fixed cost basis, and see how that goes.
Exactly, that's what the last paragraph of my response was about. Not everyone can afford the hourly rates of top graphic artists, and if you are new to hiring it's probably wiser to hire on a fixed cost basis, and see how that goes.
in my experience it is worth it to pay hourly and get the good designers. it doesn't end up being a whole lot more expensive simply because a good designer won't sandbag you and can get it done in a fraction of the time. My current designer can finish something literally 10x faster and significantly better than some other designers I have worked with that charged a flat fee.
I would personally avoid flat fee like the plague and shop for a good designer that charges at least $50/hr. I don't know any good designers that charges less than that. Then just give them a small project to start out with (maybe just an icon or something). If that is satisfactory let them do your entire UI. I've found that just like with developers the best designers are an order of magnitude faster and better quality than an average one.
Also the really good designers are not JUST photoshop heads. They do UX and UI which is invaluable for a mobile app. Developers can do this themselves but most designers are much much better at this just because of how they are wired.
Don't go cheap on designers. Even if you are paying $125/hr for a designer (which I have) that is a STEAL compared to the value they give your app. I would skimp on everything else and literally go all in on design. This is blasphemous coming from a developer myself, but I would even skimp on code quality and ship a spaghettified mess that looked gorgeous and had a fantastic UI/UX.
Don't go cheap on designers. Even if you are paying $125/hr for a designer (which I have) that is a STEAL compared to the value they give your app. I would skimp on everything else and literally go all in on design. This is blasphemous coming from a developer myself, but I would even skimp on code quality and ship a spaghettified mess that looked gorgeous and had a fantastic UI/UX.
We have examples of developers who have used our templates to make their apps stand out.
This beats having to go DIY in Photoshop and if you don't have the budget for a designer, this is an alternative....
Tip 2: Don't try to contract out the design for the whole app. Try doing it one screen at a time.
You might have to spend a little bit of money but this way you can get a feel of different designs and then go for the designer you like the best.
Believe me, if you find one designer you "click" with, you can almost make sure you will hire him/her time and time again.
__________________
Your apps don't have to be ugly because hiring designers are expensive. Click here to fix that ->iPhone App Designs
I'm not sure I entirely agree with this, certainly at the early stages of the relationship it is often a good place to start and benchmark. It is also good for the client to gauge value and understand the process.
Quote:
Also the really good designers are not JUST photoshop heads. They do UX and UI which is invaluable for a mobile app. Developers can do this themselves but most designers are much much better at this just because of how they are wired.
This is absolutely true and is vital to an apps flow, feel and chances of success..
Quote:
I would even skimp on code quality and ship a spaghettified mess that looked gorgeous and had a fantastic UI/UX.
Now there's a developer I want to work with! All power to you sir!
I got my staffs from this site. Even though they are not expensive they still deliver good quality of work. Some people are hesitant to hire on the remote because they believe that when its cheap the output is poor but actually you just need to properly screen before you hire to ensure that they are competent and capable for the job.
If you want to hire a skillful developer, ask him to complete first some kind of Developer test like "iCode - iPhone Developers Quiz". If he will pass this or another test - continue conversation. Otherwise you will get a "Student" with lot of problems in future (Your app will be crashing etc).
Tips for Hiring Graphic Contractors
Linear Mode
