We know hiring a designer for your app or software is a long-term investment. You want someone who will be there for you through and through! So, how do you find the best fit for you that meets all of your needs?

You can go through a hiring process to find someone (which typically takes 1-3 months and then another 1-3 months for them to get acquainted), or you can hire an agency on a rolling month-to-month basis.

Here are some reasons to consider when looking at both options:

You don’t have enough work for a full-time designer

A lot of times when you begin your app or software, it’s a big undertaking to take on a full-time designer. An agency is a perfect model for this because you can increase or decrease the hours that you’re using them on a month-to-month basis!

You want quality work

Hiring freelancers or in-house designers is a luck of the draw! People typically find freelancers either off of popular sites like Upwork or Fiverr, but it often ends up being a higher cost to you to have to micro-manage the design direction or redo the design entirely if it isn’t what you expected.

An agency can ensure the quality of work because they’re experienced in designing and building apps and software just like yours!

You want someone with experience

You’re building a whole platform and managing people is a tough gig. Working with freelancers or in-house designers if they’re not experienced in product management or creative direction can be difficult and time-consuming for both you and your designer.

You’ll likely end up hiring two people, a product manager/creative director and then an UI/UX designer to execute the work. An agency helps you keep this to one cost vs. two separate hires, saving you time and money.

You want to launch quickly

Designing an entire app or platform can take a single designer more than 6 months. If you’re looking to launch quickly, a design agency is a good option for quick design and development sprints where you have a group of designers helping you design at a faster rate.

You aren’t a creative director but you want it to look great

The classic “I don’t know what I want, but I know what I like” is a common problem that agency models are built to solve. Freelancers or in-house designers may need more direction or context, but agencies have the prior experience to ask the right questions in discovery to get inside of your mind and create your vision!

You want your design team to grow with you

If you’re growing your team, you have to spend time individually finding every designer as you get bigger and bigger.

An agency has a handful of designers who understand your platform and business at a deep level, so this is an easy transition with a design agency because the staff is already built it and can grow into your outsourced design team.

Looking to work with a design agency for your next project? Contact us at info@irisdesigncollaborative.com.

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