You may be trying to decide between going with a freelancer and hiring a creative agency for design work. There’s often an assumption that the two are very similar and many think it’s a better decision to go with a freelancer due to lower costs. But this is far from reality as you need to hire depending on your situation. Here are some key differences between the two, so you can make the right decision for your company.
Freelancers are great at what they do
If you need minor graphic design work done, it’s a smart idea to go with a freelancer because of the simplicity of the project. However, you have to remember that freelancers usually specialize in one or two areas. Very few have all the skills necessary to deliver cross platform results for a complex project like a web design project or company branding. We often as a interactive agency hire freelancers for their protocol expertise to help on project. If hired wisely and not only based on initial cost or savings factors, freelancers can be great add-on to the in-house team.
The advantages of an agency
In comparison, a creative agency will have a team to work on your project. Different parts of your project will be assigned to team members that specialize in their respective roles. For example, in a web design project, one person may handle all the graphics, somebody else may focus on the visual branding, and a few experts may work on the site’s user experience. Because each individual part of the project is being worked on by a specialist, projects often come together faster and require fewer revisions.
In branding and marketing, collaborative efforts typically have far better results than projects handled by only one person.
Resources and expertise needed to complete the project
Freelancers usually don’t have the expertise required to handle all aspects of the project equally well. They may understand the importance of creating a visually appealing website design and can create a clean layout, but they may not understand things like SEO compatibility, user experience, usability, and accessibility or things like site architecture. Even if they do, it is unlikely that they’ll have the time and resources to implement the best practices for all areas of design.
An agency, design firm, or web design company that has experience and expertise will understand the importance of these areas of website design. They’ll also have the capability to implement the best practices for all areas of web design. For example, an agency will go the extra mile in creating the best possible user experience by approaching it from the user end perspective and testing it for optimal performance. Because of its complex and time intensive nature, very few professionals will go through that process.
Staying on budget
Going with freelancers can end up costing more in the long run. In many cases, you’ll have to hire a separate freelancer to work on multiple aspects of your project. This process can be complicated and time consuming because you’ll end up having to be the project manager. Hiring multiple freelancers can also cost you more in the long run due to delays and revision costs. There’s nothing wrong with going with a freelancer if you have a small project. But when it comes to more important projects, going with an agency is always the better decision.
By going with a design agency, you know that there is a project manager on board to make sure every aspect of your project is making progress, or Creative Director to make sure that all parts of your visual branding are consistent and presented correctly. The best part is that you only pay for the quote rather than paying multiple service providers. And because you’re relying on a team that’s communicating with each other, you can expect to get the project completed quickly and with very few errors. This is economical because it reduces revision fees and increases your speed to market.
Large vs. small agencies
Some businesses and brands think that by going to large agencies, they’re guaranteed high quality work. However, that is far from the case. Many large agencies outsource their work to smaller agencies or design firms, because of the volume of work they get or simply to make a bigger profit margin. It’s cheaper for them to outsource than hire full time employees, so they’ll have a core staff to work on the most important projects and use partner firms, subcontractors or freelancers to handle the rest.
Small creative agencies, like us, focus on teamwork & creativity to compete with bigger agencies
In our case, our team is carefully crafted and consists of talented individuals that excel in their area of expertise that work together to achieve the same goal. For this reason, we’re able to deliver outstanding results in a shorter amount of time. We’re also able to offer competitive pricing as we have lower overhead.
Opposite to a large creative agency, where everything needs to pass by bureaucracy lineup, we are able to be more effective for a client’s bottom-line, able to have close control over the brand cohesiveness, stay more open-minded, and creative and this way we have more fun with the projects.
No comments:
Post a Comment