‘Need Graphic Designers? Illustrator Wanted?’ Is a standard ad message from a company or entrepreneur advertising to attract local or freelance creative talent for work on their new project… if that’s why you are reading this article, great you’ve come to the perfect place! You can contact and hire me for your illustration and graphic design needs here.

Or you can read on, and I’ll tell you what’s wrong with the above ad message…

When searching for a talented artist or designer, what you’re really saying is you need graphic designers or illustrators who are professional.

To the uninitiated, it can be a tireless task to find the right freelancing professional who can satisfy your work requirements. When I started my art and design service business, I discovered many of my new clients previously had negative experiences working with bad artists or hiring cheap designers who were just totally unprofessional, and it was the client who took the biggest loss out of the deal. So if you need a graphic designer or want to hire an illustrator, consider these 4 tips to help you hire a freelance artist professional.

1.      Go Professional, if you need graphic designers or an illustrator.

If you need graphic designers or illustrators, the first objective is to make sure you are dealing with a professional. Here are the three “P’s” of professionalism that you should remember: presentation, personality, portfolio.

Presentation: As soon as you land on a portfolio website, look through artist reviews, use the contact form, and start communication, you should be conscious of how a person or business is presenting themselves to you. Are they positioning themselves as an expert or seasoned professional? If a person cares enough about their presentation, they will likely care more about the needs of their client.
Personality: Whether you meet in person, video chat, or phone, you’d want to get a vibe from the person to see if you can establish a healthy working relationship. So take the time to speak with them verbally to evaluate if they have a pleasant demeanor, have excellent listening skills, and can communicate effectively, all of which are critical for any creative collaboration. But more importantly, pay close attention to the character or integrity of the individual, both will offer insight into their value system, which can shape how they will handle a business relationship with you.

Expert Advice: Avoid any artist or designer who wants to limit communication to strictly email for the entire project.

Portfolio Website: If the artist does not own a domain for their portfolio website, or if they have a website with a messy design. Chances are they might not be the right artist or designer you would want to entrust with your design project. Here a few questions you should be answering when looking through an online portfolio site if you need graphic designers or an illustrator for hire.

• Does the artist have their own a website?
• Does that website have a clean design?
• Is the portfolio easy to find and navigate?

All of these are vital bits of intelligence you can gather to help you make your decision on if you are dealing with a professional or an amateur.

2.      Does the portfolio showcase the skills you need?

Style: When reviewing portfolio websites, you want to determine if the artist or designer is showcasing an artistic style that can be relevant to your project goals. For example, if your fixated on finding a children’s book illustrator then you don’t want to commission a portrait artist who doesn’t have any children book illustration work in their portfolio.

Quality: It’s also important to review the quality of their work, and determine if it is professional and ready to be released to the public? Whenever an artist is showcasing their work publicly, then everyone is going to assume that it will represent their best artwork. So if you come across any portfolios where the majority of the work is unfinished, messy sketches, or photo-bashed clip art, then either the artist has not yet reached an adequate level of professionalism to understand the power of presentation, or they simply are unqualified. In any case, those circumstances will not fair well for you and them, because it doesn’t instill confidence to anyone that the artist or designer can create professional quality work that will get you results. Whenever I finish a client’s project, there is a legitimate expectation that the deliverables will be at a quality and in a format that is ready for print or release immediately. So if you have a need for a graphic designer or illustrator, you must be certain they are showcasing final quality work at a professional level to instill confidence that they can take your project to 100% completion!

3.      Is there a creative process for the graphic designer or illustrator?

Every professional artist will have an organized process of service to ensure that your project will have reliable structures and milestones. Clients are not entirely aware of the process a graphic designer or illustrator goes through to create their designs and illustrations, so there should be time set aside to discuss the step by step process of creation and collaboration.

4.      Social proof.

If you need graphic designers and an artist for your next project work you want to pay attention to what others are saying about working with them or their social proof. As in authentic testimonials or references from past clients of the artist or designer, because 3rd party feedback can offer you honest insight from those who’ve already invested in the process that you are embarking on.

If you need to find a graphic designer or looking for an illustrator to hire for work on an upcoming project, go to my online portfolio site page or request a free consultation by filling out the project form and get a quote of my art design rates here.