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Website Designer – how to pick one. Freelancer, Overseas, Agency???

Posted 26/June/2014 by vicky

Let’s face it, there’s just too many of us (web designers) out there! There are web designers, web developers, freelancers, web design companies, digital agencies and then there’s outsourcing overseas.

I will be honest, I don’t envy you if you are looking for a web designer, the choices are endless and it takes some planning to work out which option will be best for your project not only now but most importantly in the long haul.

First the Freelancer. If you are a startup you may have a limited budget initially so a Freelancer can seem like a great option. The freelancer generally excels when it is a single project, a basic design that doesn’t require a team behind the project and doesn’t have complex functionality.

The good side to hiring a freelancer is that they can probably turn around your project pretty quickly and for not too high a cost. The downside is support and the long haul.

A freelancer probably won’t be able to offer you the same high level tech support a digital agency or larger website company can offer you. The other worry with a freelancer is that if times go quiet, they may shut up shop and then you are left with no web designer and no one who knows the history behind your website. You need to look for another developer who can work with what they built and most developers will tell you to start again because working with someone else’s code is never a good way to start.

Web Design Companies and Digital Agencies.  Web design companies and digital agencies are the place to go when you have a project that requires more than basic design and functionality. Unlike the freelancer a bigger agency will be able to support you for the life of your site, even if staff come and go you will always have the support of developers who can jump on your project and support you with adding extra functions or changing the design etc.

Choosing the right website company or agency comes down to your requirements, your budget but also the partnerships you will form. You need to know your agency understands your goals and aims and can incorporate the essence of your business into your design.  A digital agency or is generally the best choice if you are looking for a company that specialises in a certain framework, at Neubreed we specialise in Drupal development for example.

Outsourcing Overseas.  It’s cheap and it’s quick and it’s quality…hang on a minute! We know these things don’t work together.

If you are going overseas, you will definitely get your project built for a cheap price and it may be produced quickly but the likelihood is it won’t be as you imagined. Time and time again we hear stories of consumers looking to save money by going overseas only to find out their brief for the project got lost in translation and they end up paying full price again with a local web design agency. It is not to say their haven’t been people who have successfully had projects produced by going overseas but these people are generally developers who know how to brief other developers on what they want.

Picking the right web designer is a big decision so take the time to research, ask questions, talk to designers quoting you about what others are offering so you can understand their offering and truly compare apples with apples.

If you would like to understand our offering in more detail, give us a call today! 02 8007 0218