Freelance web designers constitute a large portion of freelance online marketplaces. They are in high demand.
Businesses turn to freelance creatives to capture the visual essence of their business. The business value of design translates into excellent first impressions, increased trust, and a boost of company authority.
What Does a Freelance Website Designer Do?
A website designer who works freelance can provide specific web development skills independently of an employer. They can solve existing WordPress issues, add a feature or completely revamp a website.
To illustrate the importance of design, let’s consider Shopify e-commerce.
Shopify developers are in popular demand because they provide skills to develop Shopify apps. Shopify apps are one of the most lucrative business endeavors that help people gain profit traction.
The Main Benefit of Hiring Freelance Creatives
For clients, the best part of choosing freelance experts is that they can narrow down the search to find someone who knows exactly what they do.
In order to find the perfect match for a website design, you yourself have to know a bit about what each creative professional does. And that is not always the easiest question.
Business owners spend days, weeks, and even months to compile a perfect creative team. It takes weeks and several back-and-forth exchanges to even finish a logo. What if you need to develop several localized websites from scratch?
You are often unsure whether you need only a consultation, a short-term contract, or a person employed full time for six months.
The biggest advantage of working with freelancers is that you can scale projects, roles, and skills according to your current business capacity.
Freelance Web Designers vs. Freelance Web Developers
Defining what a freelance designer can do for you can be confusing. Many people consider the job description of a web designer to be synonymous with the job description of a web developer. Although there is an overlap between certain design and development areas, most web designers will be highly specialized in one or the other skill.
Freelance UX Designers
Some freelance web designers work exclusively with UX design, in which case they are called freelance UX designers. A freelance UX designer is responsible for the overall “feel” of the website. They strive to make the user experience more enjoyable and captivating. The task of UX designers is to pick up the best of the worlds of functionality and aesthetics of a website and create a pleasant user journey across the website features.
Freelance Web Developers
On the other hand, a freelance backend developer will work on the server-side of a web application and its seamless incorporation with the work of the frontend developer and everyone else working on the website development team.
Working as a freelance web developer is a great gig. There is a lack of top-notch web developers and designers. Therefore, they cost a lot.
Freelance Graphic Designers
Freelance graphic designers are focused on developing graphics and graphics arts for printed materials or websites. A typical task for a graphic designer is designing a logo.
For instance, a graphic designer who works freelance on Fiverr can create a Fiverr logo design for competitive prices. Hiring someone to make a Fiverr logo is one of the most affordable options to rebrand your business. (How easy (or complicated) is to find the right designer is an entirely different question).
If you haven’t chosen the platform, freelance graphic design can be altogether a bigger issue. There are tens of dozens of online marketplaces to hire people. A reliable platform with global talent is not easy to find. But there is a hidden bonus: once you accrue some experience in using at least one of them, you can replicate the same process on others, as well.
Read more: How to Hire Upwork Freelancers for Your Remote Team
Skills Required for Freelance Website Designers
Being a good web designer includes so much more than solid web design and development skills. A web designer needs to:
- Know their specific industry well
- Showcase skills through a professional portfolio
- Be e nitpicker for detail
- Understand (and intuit) what the client wants
- Communicate ambiguities in an approachable way
- Have a system that will optimize the web design time and cost
- Handle stress in the face of approaching deadlines
Freelance web designers work per hour and per project. It is imperative to define the project requirements clearly before you hire a freelance designer.
The same goes for any freelance professional – a freelance motion graphics designer, a freelance copywriter, or a freelance WordPress developer. In this way, you will spare yourself from unplanned delays and failed execution.
However, it is equally important not to overextend your deadlines simply because you weren’t sure who is the right expert to have on your team.
When Working with Freelance Experts, Watch for This
While many website designers can match most of the above bullet points, especially technical skills, they fail to pay sufficient attention to soft skills such as client communication. Many don’t know how to sell themselves in a way that is fair and transparent. Moreover, they don’t have an established system to manage projects and value the client’s time in the same way. When there are misunderstandings about resources, the project outcome does not meet the client’s standards.
There are also many excellent website design experts. But when they have all of the required abilities, at least to some extent, they set up their own companies and become CEOs. Automatically, they cost more. That delicate balance between cost and quality can be accomplished if you learn how to hire reliable and competent freelancers who are available for others and prioritize clients.
Scale Your Freelance Web Design Team
As a client, you need to judge correctly to find the set of skills that will match your needs and ensure you:
- Get what you pay for
- Have some quality guarantee
- Avoid being the second fiddle on someone’s long list of projects
- Escape the nightmare of micromanagement
- Shrink the hiring process
The last point is as important as the first four, if not more. The quality of your hiring decision will affect the quality of the project, which, in turn, will affect the quality and the generated revenues for your business.
Tip for choosing a web designer: Ask the freelancer to describe the process of web design within time and budget and to provide two references.
Decisions and mistakes you make when selecting a website designer can convert into either profits or losses. Let us help you streamline this process with templates that work.
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