Finding a Perfect Graphic Designer

Today, I wanted to give props to my new graphic designer.

I’ve been doing internet marketing for over 3 years now and one of the biggest challenges always surrounds outsourcing.  I cannot begin to tell you how much money I have spent over the years paying freelancers to do jobs like writing, coding, graphic design, social buzz, and general administration.

Now this post is not necessarily about “how to outsource”.  I have written posts on this and it is really not the point I am trying to make here…this is more of a story.

In this case, it deals with graphic design.

Now me (personally) have a lot of my own online strengths, but graphic design is not one of them.  I can get away with much of the simple stuff (I have a trick to do that, too, which I plan to share soon with TruGuru members), but when it comes to ideas and the concepts of logos, I am usually pretty lost.

For the past few years, I went the “affordable”, even “cheap” route.

I have tried using freelance services like eLance or Rent-a-Coder and have had some mild successes.  The logos and graphic designs were OK.  I didn’t jump up and down, but they did provide some relatively basic logos and banners for about $100 (and for that price, they were all done overseas).  It was relatively cheap, but was not quite what I wanted.

I then decided to start using Logo and Graphic Design services.  These are companies online that specialize specifically in logo design.  They usually have packages…you’ve probably seen them:

“For $250, you’ll get 5 mock-ups.  You can then accept one and make a few modifications to it!”

These services did as they advertise, but there was a huge communication gap between myself and the designers.  Most of these designers I found are in Brazil.  (Nothing against the Brazilian’s ability to do logo design, but there was this huge communication gap between the reps and the designers that resulted in not exactly what I wanted.)  The process took a bit longer than I liked in two of the three cases I have done this.  At the end, my “vision” was not satisfied, but again, at least I had a logo.

About 2 months ago, I made the decision to re-design all of Tru-Guru.  But this time, I didn’t want to “settle”.  The “image” and graphic design were very important to what I wanted accomplished and communication with a solid graphic designer who understood *my* vision was crucial.

I contacted many of the top graphic designers in the business and asked a handful of established online friends (those whose graphic designs I liked).  I called them.  I emailed them.  I detailed my thoughts and time-lines.

Some of them were just plain arrogant.

Some of them were very costly.

Some of the would barely respond to my requests.

I “interviewed” about 6 different graphic designers (and I was willing to pay more of a “premium” for this, too).  At the end, I found Dave Grau. He was referred to me by Coach Deb Micek (she’s awesome, BTW…follow her on twitter @CoachDeb).

At the end, our communication was strong.  We skyped.  We emailed.  He always responded.  And he provided many iterations and concepts without any complaining.  At the end, he got it!  My “vision”, that is.  And in this case, much of it had to do with his patience, his graphic design ability and his communication.

He created designs for the logo, book covers, 3D ebooks, CD-ROM labels, etc.

After completion, he is still there to make a change or two (and in one case, I needed a whole new design, which we prompted completed at a reasonable hourly rate).

I wanted to tell this story because this lesson keeps repeating on me…

When outsourcing, focus on the quality and communication FIRST!  Trying to find bargains or getting tasks done cheaply almost ALWAYS results in moderate/poor results and a waste of money.

You get what you pay for, but your communication with your freelancer from day 1 is just as important.

In this case, there were many other more well-known graphic designers I could have gone with (most who were more expensive, too!), but it wasn’t until I started to talk to them, too, that I was able to find David.

Thanks again, David!  I appreciate both the job you did and the way that you did it!  If you are really serious about getting a quality, top-notch graphic designer, you should really consider David!

To see David Grau’s portfolio, visit:  http://www.davidgraudesign.com

cheers…matt

P.S.  If you watch the video above, you can see a preview of the new TruGuru logo and theme.  What do you think?  Leave me a comment below!