Ep. 48 - What to Expect When Hiring a Design Agency

In this week's episode of the Digital Wrap-Up, Kaylee joins the show to talk about expectations businesses should have when reaching out to design agencies, freelancers, etc. for graphic design (or any) work. 

This conversation stems from several painful experiences that Kaylee and Riley have both experienced in their years of meeting with individuals who need to hire them for various types of marketing work.

The expectations discussed include:

1. We can't read minds
2. We can't always turn projects around in two days - don't come last second and expect to get it turned around right away
3. We can't use photos pulled from social media - we need quality photos (or you need to hire us to do photos as well)
4. We aren't experts in your field - we need additional info to help us understand your profession and what you're needing (and don't use acronyms!)
5. Always double check if the design agency prints your products for you or not
6. Come prepared with the right sizes you need for all designs 
7. Time is money - this is what we do to make a living. We can't do things for free, no matter how much we know/like you

The last point on the list is the one that Kaylee feels most passionate about. As an industry, we are undervalued and people assume we can do things for cheap/free for various reasons.

That's simply not the case. Our time is valuable. The time we spend on your project is time we could be spending on other work as well. Don't expect us to do things for cheap or free. We have to make a living too.

And from the Harden Digital & Design standpoint, our prices are low compared to the industry standard. So when we get people who try and guilt us into doing things for cheaper than what we price, it's a real frustrating experience.

Are we passionate about this topic? Yes, because we've experienced it countless times.

If you are a business owner looking for help, hopefully this conversation can give you a better understanding of our processes and why we do things the way we do.

In the end, it's to save us both time and save you money.

Tune in to hear the rest of Kaylee's personal rant section ;)

If you'd like to support the Digital Wrap-Up, visit https://bit.ly/DigitalWrapUp.

Transcript

Riley Harden: 0:00

What should you expect when reaching out to a freelancer or graphic design agency to get some design work done. In today's episode of the digital wrap up, I have our creative director Kaylee join me. And we talk kind of all the pain points that go into working with clients who don't have any expectations or don't know what to expect when they come in, reach out to us for logos, pamphlets, advertisements, billboards, whatever it may be that you need graphic design work done for, we kind of cover all those expectations in different topics that you should be thinking about before you reach out so that we can make the process more smooth, save you time and save you money. Welcome back to another episode of the digital wrap up. My name is Riley and I'm the host and I'm the CEO of hardened digital and design. Happy to have Kaylee back on the podcast today. Gonna be talking about graphic design. She's our creative director here. And she works with clients ranging from all of our social media clients to some local magazines that she designs, she creates infographics. So she does everything graphic design. And today we're going to be talking about what to expect when you work with a graphic design agency when you do outsource some of your graphic design work because there's a lot of small things that most people don't think about whenever they reach out to a graphic design agency like hardened digital and design. So first of all, thank you for joining me and welcome back.

Unknown: 1:55

Oh, thank you.

Riley Harden: 1:58

I know, it's something we're working on with both you and Hannah getting more comfortable in front of the mic. So. But I'm always glad to have somebody else to sit here and talk to and so I guess kind of you've had this idea of wanting to talk about this for a while now. Because it's something that I think when we're talking about all this, whenever you get emails from clients, or people who reach out, this is kind of like each one of these things on the list kind of kind of comes up with almost every single client that we work with.

Unknown: 2:36

Yes. And I wanted to not make it when I was frustrated. Because unfortunately, the list came from a lot of frustrating communication. So I didn't want to go about it when I was just mad or Yeah, I need I needed time to like actually make a good list and make it helpful to people versus just me complaining.

Riley Harden: 2:57

Yeah, which in a way it is complaining, but that's okay. It's it's helpful complaining at least Yeah, I mean, it's something that as a small business owner, whether you're starting a business from scratch, or you're maybe a bigger small business that just need some one off designs, because you have people running your shop and store and all this, they don't have a graphic designer and Canva is great, but it can't do everything. Definitely can't design. I mean, you probably can but books and magazines and trifold brochures, but stuff like that trust an actual graphic designer with the good software's but yeah, this actually came up today again with one of our clients, but hopefully you're cooled off a little bit and I'm chill now. Okay, so I guess let's go ahead and jump into it. And we're just gonna kind of go over the main things to be thinking about in a list here. So the first one you mentioned is we can't read minds. What exactly do you mean by that?

Unknown: 4:06

I just mean, we have clients that come in and they're like, hey, I want to fly. Like, okay, cool. That's a good start. That's a great start. You want a flyer? But for me, like I can't just whatever you have going on in your head, I can't see that. So if you're just like, can you make me a flyer for this event? Like I that doesn't help me? Yeah, so need more than just even if you're not sure what you want it to look like. And this could be with anything. This could be a website, this could be social media graphics, this can be anything. Like, even if you're not sure what you want. If you've seen something that someone else said that you're like, I don't want it to look like that. Or I really liked this example ring samples. Yes, you could bring me send me hundreds of logo samples. And that would be better than zero. Yeah, because I can't just just jump into. It happens a lot with logos too. I guess I can't just jump into it with zero direction. Yeah. Because what happens is we waste a lot of time. Yeah. It goes both ways. Like, I'm sure that's wasting their time, if I make you five logo options, and none of them are what you were thinking in your head, but if you didn't communicate with me, what was in your head? So before you go into a project with the designer, like even to samples? Yeah. Or if you, this is how I got into graphic design in the first place. I don't know if I've ever told you this. But I worked at shoe Carnival in high school, and they did a rebrand. And all of the posters were awful, in my opinion. And I was like, Man, I could do that so much better. Yeah. So even if you see something and you're like, Oh, I hate that. That gives me more information, then you just come in with nothing. Yeah,

Riley Harden: 5:55

it should carnivals still around. Yes. You're still there. Okay. I didn't know that. But yeah, I mean, so like, examples of what you like, what you don't like is great. But also on the information side of things. It's not just always designed. Specific. It's information. Yes. Because people will come in with, I want a flyer, here's the name of the event. Okay, we need a description, dates, times all this stuff. And if it's not just a flyer, if it's a logo, we need to know more about your business. What do you do? What type of services do you provide? We have a whole

Unknown: 6:29

questionnaire but people are like, Why do you need all of this? Like, because all of that matters?

Riley Harden: 6:35

The inspiration? Yeah, the thought behind it is important when you're talking about branding, in terms of a logo, or, I mean, any type of design that you're doing, it's not just, Oh, I like blue and red and don't use blue and red. I like blue and yellow. And those are my favorite colors. They don't match the brand. So but I like him, let's throw them on a fire.

Unknown: 6:59

But the content, you're right, the content is a whole other aspect of preparation that a client would need to do before. It happens with websites for us a lot or happens with magazines. Like, I can't write that information for you. Yeah. Like I don't first of all, I don't know anything about the event. I don't know anything about specific industries. So if you come to me and you're wanting a billboard ad, like okay, yes, I can absolutely do that. What do you want it to say? Yeah. And then I like, Oh,

Riley Harden: 7:35

yeah. And we'll give some creative thought behind it too. So like, even if, like, bring literally anything, and we'll be like, Oh, it kind of make better or make more sense or read better. If we rephrase that headline of the the, or where you phrase the wording on the the bad to say this instead of this, or it just looks more visually appealing to say this, instead of this like will give you some idea of inspiration. But we need a starting point. We can't start from scratch. Like even when we started our business, we had to have some right starting point.

Unknown: 8:14

It was hard for me to even our website was hard for me. Yeah. Because I'm not a writer. So that's especially like that is one of my things I'm working on. Yeah. I can't just make stuff up, especially if it's an industry I know absolutely nothing about. Yeah, we've had a couple different construction websites, or I have a friend who does excavation. And the thing is, I was like, well, can't you just make me a website? No friends, I cannot.

Riley Harden: 8:45

I mean, it will be bad. But we need the pictures. We need the text I need the about info. Like I tell people tell people when they ask, well, can't you just write is like, Yes, I can. Doesn't mean it's going to be factual. No, I will. I can happily make stuff up for you. But

Unknown: 9:05

But you guys are the ones that know about your business. So if you can't even tell me about what you do, yeah, there's no way I'm going to be able to describe accurately what you do.

Riley Harden: 9:19

Yeah. And that's, that's a bigger issue. beyond just having graphic design services, you need to figure out what you're doing with your business in general, because you can't talk about that us then you probably haven't talked about it between you and your business partner or whoever. So you probably need to figure that out. But like, I'm happy to create a whole backstory about your business. It'll be super creative and fun, but it's gonna be you started this business with your dad and 1930 and whatever. I'm just gonna make stuff up. So

Unknown: 9:54

and especially if it's very industry specific, like if I don't use the right I can't even think of a better word besides lingo. Yeah, I don't know if lingo is a common word these days. But if I don't use the right terminology, are people going to see what you're presenting them and be like, Oh, these people don't know what they're talking about? Yeah. Because that's what I do. If I go to a website, and the grammar is wacky, or they don't capitalize things, I'm like, not they're out. So, yeah, I guess I don't want to put people in that situation. I don't want to see an ad in a magazine that just you know that that's not correct. So yes, design wise, we need some inspiration. But content wise. It happens with websites with magazines is like, they come in just thinking we're going to do all of that. So I guess if you're a new client, and you're looking to an agency for help, just know that you're going to have to put in some work as well. Yep. It's not just you hired us in that it? Yeah.

Riley Harden: 11:03

It's not just you pay us and we do everything. Yes, you're paying a lot of money for the services we provide. But there's still some work on your end that you have to come prepared with, or at least get to us before we can really start on stuff. Website builds, we can build the the layout and the framework of it. But that's all we can do until you

Unknown: 11:25

don't tell us the information. Yeah, we've run into that. We've also had, like the Boys and Girls Club, their national branding guidelines. had specific paragraphs already written for this purpose. Yeah, that was one of the easiest websites we had, because somebody at some point thought ahead. And I already wrote all of this.

Riley Harden: 11:50

So and so in that specific instance, the local chapter, whatever they are, they didn't really have to do a lot of content creation, because existed, it existed already. So if they're listening, if you are high, but if not like that specific instance, we didn't have to go back and say we need this. Listen this well, there's a few things like hours and days, like, specific some specific stuff, but the general about and all this type of stuff, we didn't really have to usually that's a task to track all that down from clients when, when starting a project with them, but they had it all kind of, yeah, it may. Two days,

Unknown: 12:35

I think faster all around for everyone. If you sit down beforehand, like we can give you an outline, and say these are the pages that we think that you need. It's the same for a magazine for me, like this is the general outline of what we need to put in there. But you have to come up with the content. And we

Riley Harden: 12:58

need more than one sentence. Yes. So but kind of on the same, the subject of the Boys and Girls Club, in their branding guide, their whole packet that we got. That's kind of the next point on your list is branding rules. Yes. This applies a lot to bigger, bigger companies, or more established companies, not necessarily startups in per se, but in a way, it still kind of

Unknown: 13:27

should apply to everyone. But I guess we've talked about branding so many times, and how important that is, to me as a designer, because I don't want to put something out there that doesn't improve your brand. Like, I don't know how to explain that. Really. Besides, if your brand has rules to follow, I want to follow them. So if you come to me, and you're like, hey, I need this. Here's what I already have done. I can match that. If you send me a 35 page booklet of these are the exact rules, spacing, fonts, colors, I can design you whatever you want, because there are parameters and I can follow that. Yeah. I don't like to do it wrong. Yeah. So if you work for an organization that has brand guidelines, bring those Yeah, send me those. I love that.

Riley Harden: 14:26

We like them from the beginning from the get go would be great.

Unknown: 14:29

Yes. And also, if your brand doesn't have that, then think about it ahead of time, and we can start on that. Yeah, so if this is the first thing you've ever designed, print wise, or you're just starting out on social media. Like don't just jump the gun, create something and then the next time make something completely different. So it's also something to think about ahead of time if you haven't already established His rules.

Riley Harden: 15:00

Yeah. And like when we have people reach out to us starting a new business, or they've had a business, but they don't have a logo. And they asked us to create a logo for them, and then we quote them this price. And I'm like, why is that so ridiculously high price like, nobody's ever actually said that. But we can tell that we get that vibe. And that's because, like our logo package for people, new businesses, or businesses that aren't well established or bigger, we provide, essentially a mini branding kit from the very beginning that has the logo, it has the colors, it has the fonts, it, we create this in a PDF and give that to you. In addition to all the logo files, it

Unknown: 15:44

establishes your business, yeah. And then say you don't use us for future design projects. But you have this information you can send to the next person, we would rather you come back, obviously, yeah, but either way going into it. It'd be like, companies that don't have a logo, and they just type their name out. That's fine. Honestly, as long as everything else you do matches, like, if one day you use these scripty, curly fonts with green everything, and your next design is red with

Riley Harden: 16:18

Comic Sans.

Unknown: 16:20

Sure, Comic Sans, that's not what I was gonna go for. But if it's completely different, even that is mismatched, and that bothers me. So I don't want to add to that. So if you've done things in the past, and I can match that, I would much rather do that every time just to keep the consistency.

Riley Harden: 16:39

Yeah. And when we're talking about this list, and everything on it, we're talking in general terms, we're relating back to a lot of experiences we have with some of our previous clients, or people, previous people who have reached out, but what we're talking about applies to working with most, if not all, design agencies or graphic designers.

Unknown: 17:01

You're gonna want the same thing. Yeah,

Riley Harden: 17:03

contractors that are graphic designers, they're all going to want this type of material information from you from the beginning. So whether you go with us, or you go with somebody, because you've known them, like whatever reasoning, that's we're not here just to sell our products or anything, it's just from a designer standpoint, this is the frustrations that come with working with clients sometimes.

Unknown: 17:26

And it just speeds up the process. If you spend a little time beforehand, thinking about what you need to take with you for a meeting for a first attempt at a design. Yeah, just an streamlines the communication of we're not going back and forth. Oh, you didn't tell me that. That's where I get frustrated. Like, I'll do an entire set of designs, and then come back and be like, just kidding, here are the actual things I need guidelines, new logo, blah, blah, blah. So just to keep it. So Nobody waits. I don't want to waste anyone's time either. So if I can be upfront about it, and say, Hey, this is what I'm going to need. Maybe that will help us out.

Riley Harden: 18:14

Yeah. And speaking of time, I'm going to jump out of order here a little bit. But you mentioned turnaround time is one of the big pain points a lot of times too. I guess I know what you want to say. But just expand on that there in terms of how quickly turnaround time is what your expectations should be all that

Unknown: 18:36

I think a lot of people come to us last second. And there are some projects that I might be able to turn that around for you in two days if I don't have previous things going on. But yeah, for you to come in expecting that if you contact me on Thursday morning. I'm gonna have it done by Thursday afternoon, or is Friday completely unrealistic? Yeah. So I would love it if everyone prepared and gave me like two weeks. That's what I tell my magazines. That's what I tell bigger projects is like that's the minimum. Yeah. Because first of all, we have to do edits. So even if you gave it to me ahead of time, it's going to be a process. So the turnaround time, I think everyone just kind of does things last second now in life in business. People don't plan their entire quarters advertising anymore. Yeah, that would be awesome. I would love to have, you know, months at a time, that on the schedule, but in general, I would give people two weeks like if you want it done well and you wasn't it done thoroughly incorrectly? Doing that in a day, it's just going to be sloppy work.

Riley Harden: 20:07

Yeah, you're gonna miss stuff you're going to, there's going to be typos in it like we edit and proofread as much as possible. But at the end of the day, it's on you when you're putting that product out, right. So if you don't have time to thoroughly review it, before you submit it to us after we give you drafts back, and then you push something out within two days of sending it to us even get designed one, we're not going to do it, but to

Unknown: 20:34

what happened we did comes back and they're like, oh, this was a mistake.

Riley Harden: 20:38

Yeah. And now we spend more time if we're billing you our

Unknown: 20:43

money. Yes. So for everyone's sake, especially if it's something that's going to be printed. If you get that printed, and there's an error, because you wanted to rush it. Or you want me to use a stock photo, because you don't have the time to go take an actual photo of your actual product. Yeah. Because you want this by tomorrow. I don't know how to say it really nicely, but like, It's not my fault that you wait. Yeah, till the last second.

Riley Harden: 21:15

Yeah, planning needs to be thought out. And I've

Unknown: 21:19

had to tell people before, like, I can't, I can't do that in one day. Yeah. There is no way in the universe. If I've got other project deadlines that I've had. And those people got their stuff to me early like they were supposed to. That's gonna be my priority over.

Riley Harden: 21:38

Yeah. I mean, that's how we structure it is we do the jobs that come in first, unless somebody pays us extra for a rush job or something like, that's another thing is, you could spend more money and get it rushed somewhere, but still quality. Right? There's still that factor. But yeah, we do stuff as it comes into us. We're not just gonna move your stuff up to the front of the line, just because you didn't plan. You didn't plan ahead. Yeah. So I mean, timing. It's, I'll admit, I don't follow that rule with Kaylee. But it's different when, if you have an in house graphic business, yeah. If you had an in house graphic designer who's sitting across the aisle from you, and you can just be like, Hey, can you knock out this YouTube thumbnail real quick? Sure. Once I get to a stopping point, like, that's fine. But doing it when you're outsourcing it to somebody else who you have no idea what they're working on,

Unknown: 22:31

especially the scope of the project. Like, it's another one of those things about content. If you come to me and you want, or demand that this needs to be done today, but you don't have half the information already. You don't have photos. You don't have this, like, first of all, how am I supposed to do that? Yeah. That's another one of those. Like, if you're prepared, you come to me with everything you need. Guidelines. Everything is laid out ready to go? Can I knock it out? In a couple of days? Probably. Yeah. But if you come in completely unprepared, and then expect me to pull something out of thin air. That's not going to work? Or it's not going to be effective, I guess. And maybe that's part of it is like, once again, I don't want to do it wrong. I don't want you to spend money on something that isn't the most beneficial for your business.

Riley Harden: 23:26

Yeah. And I think that's different. Like that's kind of, in a way what sets us apart from like working with Fiverr, fiver will however you say it, or like these one off, like, I don't even know all of them. But like, they don't give a shit that you don't have this info or it doesn't look great. They're going to charge you 20 bucks for a logo and then see if they send you a logo. Like we actually care about your business. We actually care how you look what your your branding is your website, your flyer, like we actually put some care and love into it. And it's not just bring you in, get your money ship you out, right.

Unknown: 24:08

I read brand guidelines, like I'm probably the only person in the universe. But I've worked with clients who like I know their brand better in one day than they know. And they've worked there for however long. Yeah. Like I if you provide that for me, I'm going to read it. And I'm going to follow those. And I don't like when people are like, Oh, it's fine. Like this is what I want. It doesn't matter if it doesn't follow the guidelines like that drives me. Yeah, I don't want to do it wrong. I don't want people to waste money. I don't want people to waste time. I'm trying to be helpful. Yeah. Like we're trying to provide the best product for you. So

Riley Harden: 24:49

yep, we care and we put that care into everything we do for our clients. So kind of transitioning to the next one now. Umm photos. This is a big one.

Unknown: 25:02

We've talked about this before. Yeah, on podcasts because it's a constant problem coming to a designer, and then the only artwork you have has been pulled off of Facebook. So not only do you have to provide us with content for things, you'll have to provide photos that are going to be the quality that we need to print. Yeah. I don't still don't think people understand that when you put a photo on a social media site, it shrinks that way down. Yeah. So the resolution is now going to be 72 for the web. And it's going to be you know, this big. Yeah. Which looks three by three at 72 dpi. Looks fine on your phone. Yeah. But if you blow that up to 300 dpi, it's going to be about Yeah, this big. I can't print that. Yeah. So especially if you want professional quality print products, you've got to provide high quality photos. Yeah. If you want to use stock images, and you find something online, you want to pay for that. Be my guest, that's perfectly fine.

Riley Harden: 26:15

Yeah. And there's free stock images out there too, through like Pexels Pixabay. Unsplash. Like there are options out there for finding stock, real generic photos,

Unknown: 26:26

if you want it to be specific to your business, hire photographer and get good quality photos. Like, I can't stress that enough. If you use crappy photos. Even on social media, if you use crappy photos, yeah, it looks bad. If I go to your website, and the photos are all blurry, and I can't even tell what your product is. I'm not going to shop there.

Riley Harden: 26:52

Yeah. And that's not even, you know, printing out pixelated stuff on banners or sliders, whatever it may be. It just is a terrible look. And there's so many other options. I mean, everybody's iPhone, everybody's What do you have Google Pixel nowadays should be to get at least a bare bones higher quality image than pulling something from Facebook, right?

Unknown: 27:17

Straight off your phone, sometimes will work just fine. iPhones are crazy these days. Yeah. But as long as you don't put it on some other site first, it's going to shrink.

Riley Harden: 27:27

Don't be like, well, I took it on my iPhone, and then I upload it to Facebook, but I couldn't find my camera roll. So then I just downloaded it from Facebook. That's not gonna work that doesn't that does the exact process we just talked about that does not

Unknown: 27:39

show. And once again, it comes down to timing. If you don't plan ahead. Yeah, you didn't get the photos you wanted. So here, I'm going to pull this that I've had on my phone for three years. It's not going to work. So yeah. And I will be the first one to tell you. My photography skills are not like, world class. There are so many people out there that are so good at photography, product photography, everything in that realm that like, I'm just never gonna be on that level. Yeah, so like, that's what we specialize. I would so much rather. You pay good money for like fantastic photos. It's going to sell your product. Yep. 30 times over versus terrible photos. Especially in like, I get it. We do a lot of I do a lot of history books. So some of those photos are gonna be blurred a little. They're 100 years old. Yeah, that's this is a scan of a photo that's 100 years old. That 100% I understand. But if you have the capability to get better photos, you should every time. Yeah.

Riley Harden: 28:48

It's that one I run into a lot with websites. For sure.

Unknown: 28:53

Yeah. In websites a little easier, because it's still the web and you can still have

Riley Harden: 28:59

a little bit yeah. Yep. So

Unknown: 29:03

you have a little bit more leeway. You have a little bit more

Riley Harden: 29:05

social hero images at the top or banner images they like then they're stretched. But you

Unknown: 29:11

notice that if you are trying to make a full width banner image, and they send you a crappy photo, yeah, it is so obvious.

Riley Harden: 29:19

Yeah, it sucks that you know, like paying a company to build your website paying a company to design all this stuff. It is absolutely more expensive than doing it yourself or hiring some random person on Fiverr but you unfortunately when you own a business you're running a business you have to pay for quality stuff like that's just how the world works if you want stuff done right if you want professionals to do it and not just some amateur and the Philippines to do it, you have to pay I mean in like in by industry standards, what we charge is way, way lower charge so There's kind of, you have to understand that expectation of it does cost money to get good work done. And there's a reason for that.

Unknown: 30:10

And that's on my list as well. We'll circle

Riley Harden: 30:14

back to that one at the end. Like that's

Unknown: 30:18

the number one thing people don't believe in, unless it's their business, and then they want. Yeah, it blows my mind. Anyways, that's a whole tangent.

Riley Harden: 30:28

Yeah. So we we've talked about, we've kind of talked about the experts in your field quite a bit now. Yeah. Is there anything you want to expand on that? I mean, we've touched on it, it like literally everything, from flyers, to brochures, to one pagers to websites, again, it just all circles back to, we need more information, because there's a reason we're in the digital marketing field, you're in the healthcare field and know all these terms and phrases and all this stuff that we don't know. So, my number one, Tip two, kind of related is, don't use acronyms in anything that you do for the most, because

Unknown: 31:12

the general population won't know what that is. Yeah,

Riley Harden: 31:14

even when you're like one of our your clients. I'm not gonna name them, but even when they're sending stuff that's really specific for the medical field. Don't just assume everyone's gonna know, like, if you're presenting something, and we've designed it for you don't expect everybody at that presentation to know exactly what this five letter acronym means. Spell it out the first time you present a handbook for our sakes so that we know kind of what we're talking about. If you send us with all these different letters and stuff, like then we don't that's we don't know what that means. We don't know the design inspiration, what it should look like how it should flow,

Unknown: 31:55

you have to think about your audience. Before you write any content. Yeah, I guess that's, that's part of it is like, Yes, you are the expert in your field. But you also have to know that if you're going for the general public to understand you might have to tone it down a little bit on the I don't know how to say besides, like, damn it down. Yeah.

Riley Harden: 32:25

I mean, that's a general practice for all content writing, not just when you're getting stuff designed, like, you need to dumb stuff down, you need to make it readable by anybody, no matter what industry you're in. And you don't

Unknown: 32:38

have to put paragraphs upon paragraphs to explain something that can be done in five words. Yeah. Like, the simpler it is.

Riley Harden: 32:51

If you want to get real technical, and use all these acronyms and fancy email, Oh, yeah. And email and a phone call to that specific person in that group of people that, you know, are going to understand that, sure. But when you're making a website,

Unknown: 33:08

you don't need paragraphs of text in an ad. That's a huge pet peeve. Yeah. That's not even

Riley Harden: 33:13

on the graphic of an ad. Yeah, definitely. You're not doing that.

Unknown: 33:17

We don't need that. But people get, Oh, I must include every single speck of information. So I guess it's both ways, like, yeah, you're the expert in this. But you also got to know when like to call me. Yeah, of this is just way too much overload. So we've, we've had it both ways before, of some people don't have any content. And some people, I'm like, this is six pages worth of stuff you're trying to fit on one page doesn't work. So I am more than happy to cut out What, me as someone who doesn't know anything about your industry? If I'm reading it, and I'm like, Okay, we don't need that, then you probably don't need it. Same with anything medical, like, if I don't understand it as a normal human being. Yeah. Is anyone reading this gonna understand it? So

Riley Harden: 34:14

And don't assume if don't assume that we know what to cut? Right? Again, that's we're not the experts. And if we do end up cutting something, because you've provided no feedback or guidance, don't get upset with us that we cut this wrong thing is like, yeah, we'll we don't know. We're taking our educated guests there.

Unknown: 34:34

I can tell you ahead of time. Like, that's not going to work. What do you want to cut out? I'm here for that, too. Honestly, sometimes I'd rather you give me too much. Yeah. So I guess I'm, I'm on both sides of this one. Yeah. But the were we actually supposed to be talking about

Riley Harden: 34:54

this the expert out. We're not the experts. Yes. So yeah, whether it's content or too much content. There's a happy medium in there. And yeah, I think I'd be on the side of, I prefer more content, but then we need to work with you to dumb it down. Yes.

Unknown: 35:12

I'd rather you give us too much and be like, Okay, I'm gonna pick and choose this information, this information. That's the most important. As is, I don't know, maybe it happens a lot, because we've done so many like, construction ish. Yeah. projects of like, I might need a roof on my house. So if I am your client, and I'm looking at your website, and I don't understand what the heck you're talking about. Maybe we should work on that. Maybe there needs to be more explanation. Or, to me, the brands of roofing that you use are not important. Because I don't know the difference. Yeah. So there's just a lot that goes into thinking about the correct information. What's actually necessary? Yeah, I don't know. It's, there's a lot to think about before you can just come in and say, Please make this for me. Yep.

Riley Harden: 36:13

Yeah. So one last thing before we get to Kaylee's rant section is specifically dealing with printing. So we've talked about all this stuff, designing all this stuff. But when you reach out to an agency, you should always double check. Do they print? Or do they not print? Because us, like, we don't print in house, we'll design everything you want. And we'll there's a couple options from there. But we don't have a printer. And we have a printer. We don't have the right printers, right equipment, all that we can design it. But then what do we do from there?

Unknown: 36:58

We send we send it. So then also, that's something that you need to know in advance. Because like, if I don't print magazines, here, I don't print posters, banners, etc. I need to know what size specifically like printer specs ahead of time. Yeah, once again, we won't waste any time that way. But if you're gonna print, even like postcards, business cards are kind of standard. So that's a whole different thing. But like, I don't print those. So I need to know what you want. Yeah. Whether it's even t shirt designs, like, I need to know how big you want that to be. I need to know, if you want like a six foot banner or like an eight foot table around there, I need to know all of that information ahead of time. Because then I've got to send it somewhere else I need to know if they need their marks and bleeds. How they want their PDF sent. Like, there's so much information ahead of time, I guess. And like we have printers that we work with on the regular that if you want me to send it to them. I know exactly what they want.

Riley Harden: 38:15

Yeah, yeah. And we have those relationships most design agencies probably do. Yes. You know, when you reach out to a print shop, a lot of times they have graphic designers. So then you can you know, then it's kind of paired together, you probably assume that the print shop can print. Yeah. But a lot of times design agencies in specific don't always print will partner with people will you work with people closely like there's two here technically in Tipton that we could work with three even I think, which is crazy to think about, but in this small town. But we also have somebody that's not encrypted that we work with that we've used before. And we'd be happy to take those files, send it to the printer, because we know the terminology. We know the phrasing that they want, like bleed and size and all this stuff. But we can also just send you the files and say here have at it.

Unknown: 39:14

If that's all you want, and you want to get it printed wherever. Totally fine. That's fine by me as well. I just need to know the sizing. So because I have a lot of people that are just like, can you make me a poster? Yeah. Okay, well, how big do you want that to be? Do you want to be front and back? Does it need to fold? Like, even with brochures, I'm like, I know how to make a trifold brochure. That's my favorite freaking thing. Yeah, I will make those all day every day. But the way it comes in, people don't think about this either. Like the way I design it, the way you look at it when I send you a proof like it's flat, so it doesn't look right. Yeah, just it's all these little quirks. But all of it is once again stuff you have to think about Yeah, ahead of time, or I'm going to ask you 6000 questions, and it's gonna get overwhelming. So we're trying to make the project a really long podcast about a list of things to think about. But printing is a big one. Because if you're on a budget and like a design fee, and then another print fee, it's something to think about. Yeah. Or if you just really love my designs, which would be great. And you want me to do and you'll pay somebody else to print it. Cool. I'm here for that. Yeah.

Riley Harden: 40:35

Yeah, so I think that touches on everything on the list, except for the last one, which we kind of hinted at earlier. I'm going to call this Kaylee's personal rant section of the podcast, and we're gonna have it real recurring Every time she's on. So let's go ahead and just talking about, you know, I'll open the mic to you to kind of talk about this last one.

Unknown: 40:59

This is just probably all freelancers, or artists or freelancer, contractor. Yeah, this is probably one of the biggest things out there for anyone who is an entrepreneur, owns their own business, spends time providing a product or service is that, like, time is money. And this is my specialty. And this is how I make a living. And it's not something I can just do for free. It's not something I can do for $20. Because that's what you want to pay me because I'm your friend. And when Yeah, when we started out, or when I started out, I did things for very cheap, because I was starting out. And I only did them for people I knew. And now what it comes down to is like, I only have so many hours in a day. And things cost money. Like you said, if you want them done well, and you want the quality, then it's going to cost you and I've struggled with in the past, knowing how to price things to where it's worth my time. And I've had to turn people away. And people have also told me like, I can't afford that. Yeah. And I would love to be able to work with every single person's budget. But there's not enough time to do that, especially if you don't follow this list. And you come in and I say Sure I'll do that for $100. And then I ended up spending 20 hours working on it. That's five bucks an hour, because I had to go back and forth with you to collect this information, to redo everything that you didn't think about ahead of time to rebrand and redo an entire design that I've already done. Like, with logos, I offer unlimited edits in the price of the logo package. Sometimes that bites me in the butt. Because I do have people that are like, restart, restart, restart. I don't like it. That's not what I wanted. Here's this picture that I just found today that oh, this is exactly what I want it to look like, which I didn't tell you. Yeah, three weeks ago. So yeah, sometimes. It does bite me in the butt. And I waste a lot of time. And that's part of it, I guess. But that's why we can't charge what we charge. Right. And that's why we can't undervalue the time that I spent going to school for this the 10 plus years that I've been doing this? Yeah. People are like, well, I can do that on Canva. I'm like, okay, cool.

Riley Harden: 43:48

Then why'd you reach out to us?

Unknown: 43:51

I am all for you doing it yourself. I don't think it's going to look the same. I can almost 100% guarantee. People who have zero design background trying to design something is going to look different. It's kind of I don't want to say worse, very

Riley Harden: 44:11

cookie cutter. You know, I can't tell you how many contract companies have the same three roof angles and a window and the like,

Unknown: 44:23

are for the longest time all car company logos had that like loop swish thing. They all because that was like the go to design. Yeah. So if you want something that makes you stand out and looks good and looks good and has a purpose, and it's grammatically correct, yeah. And everything is aligned and things are spaced Well, like I would recommend going to a designer versus doing it yourself. And a lot of people at least for print products will come at me with Why are you charging so much Like, once again, because it takes a lot of time. Yeah. I don't know how else to say that. I'm trying to be like as what's the word I'm thinking?

Riley Harden: 45:12

I mean, if nice,

Unknown: 45:15

politically correct or like yeah, as I possibly can, but like, I'm not doing stuff for free. I'm not doing stuff. That's a huge chunk of time, and not making any money off of it, because this is my life.

Riley Harden: 45:33

Yeah. And like, frankly, the packages that we set out, that we put a specific price on a package. In the long run, it probably saves you more money, doing this package that you think is so ridiculously priced. But if we broke it down, hour by hour charged, what we should be charging by our, for your logo, you'd be paying a lot more than you would be getting, or you'd be paying for the package that you're getting. So I mean, especially those those ones that you can't make up your mind. There's a bunch of edits, whatever it may be. Yeah, it's several $100. But if we did the hourly rate, that, you know, just look at the standard rate of a graphic designer with 10 plus years of experience, and then you break that down by 10 hours to do a logo because we exchanged 30 emails and you sent over, we sent over five edits. Yeah, like, if you look at it that way, you're saving money. And we put a reasonable price on these packages based on our experience, and the experience that we've had working with clients and the good experiences and the bad experiences.

Unknown: 46:50

And I do understand that sometimes it's out of people's budget. Because when I first started, there's a lot of stuff I couldn't afford. Yeah. I fully understand that. And in that case, yes, I would rather you take a stab at it yourself, you know, your brand. Especially, I guess this is like mostly with logos. Like you can start that way if you want, if that's what you can afford. Go for it. But I'm not going to I guess make my time. worth less. So I have had to turn people away, and I feel bad about it. I think that's

Riley Harden: 47:31

what's hard for us because we want to make money. But

Unknown: 47:35

and we've had that conversation before because a lot of our clients are people we know. Yeah, or family members or friends of friends of friends. And it's really hard to be like, This is how much it's gonna cost you. But then, even when we think we've pressed something correctly, the hours that we actually end up spending on it goes out of control. And then we're losing money. So

Riley Harden: 48:05

yeah, pricing is something it's all it's probably one of the hardest things to determine and to stick to when you are a small business. You are a local business like we are that. And I'm sure a lot of those personal connections that people Yeah, it's great. We know a bunch of people who are starting businesses or their own businesses, but we, I mean, what would you say? I guess as a roofer, what would you say to somebody who's like, No, I can't afford that. I? I only want this roofer $1,000. Like, obviously, you're

Unknown: 48:44

gonna say no, yeah, it's the same with any industry. Yeah. So I don't know why, for some reason, design specifically, people just don't understand. Because anybody who has a skill wants to be paid for their skills, like

Riley Harden: 49:01

it's the same with social media. I mean, so that's a whole nother rant we could spend an entire episode on but people devalue that industry, in social media managers in general. And you can see these crazy freelancers charging 50 bucks a month for managing everyone at managing three profiles in three to five posts a week for 50 bucks a month, like that's, they're wasting their time. $100 a month, like, but then businesses see those crazy offers out there. And then it's like, well, I don't want to spend $1,500 month because I can do it for $300 A month or $200 a month with this freelancer. It's like yeah, but do some background check in looking into them. See, ask them for examples. There's no way somebody shouldn't be putting in that much amount of work for just a couple $100 a month.

Unknown: 50:00

Unless they're just

Riley Harden: 50:03

crazy, they're not making like, there's no way you can sustain make that much money. There's, that's just red flags all over the place. But people think they just devalue the marketing industry in general,

Unknown: 50:17

that a lot of people do. In general think marketing is a crock. Yeah. I don't need that my business does fine. Which probably it does fine. If you don't want to grow, ever. Yeah. So sure, if you don't want to advertise, and you don't want your name out there, and you don't want people to recognize you and your business. You keep doing you.

Riley Harden: 50:41

But how many typos do you have in your Facebook posts? How bad of grammar? Are you writing with in your Facebook posts? You know, what type of stuff is going in the images that you post? Or are you reposting the same thing on your Facebook page on your business page multiple times, because you thought you're sharing it to your personal page, like all these other things, and it just makes your business at the end of the day that makes your business look terrible. And that's maybe what lead to is. People see that they don't want to work with you. You lose out on money. Like, we do this to help other businesses.

Unknown: 51:19

And I think maybe that's what gets us in trouble is like, we do care. Yeah, we aren't one. Yeah, once we become you become our client, like, we want you to succeed.

Riley Harden: 51:32

Yeah, we're not just posting because you hired us to post and we're checking a box and

Unknown: 51:37

right, I don't want you to pay money to have billions of billboards, if they're not going to do anything for you. Yeah. So either do it right. Or, I guess don't do it at all. But when it comes down to it, I don't know. It's, it's frustrating a lot for people to think that my time isn't worth anything that like I should just be able to knock that out for you. Because you're my friend, which I do sometimes. I do a lot for my sorority, because that's an organization I'm part of. I've done a lot for committees that I'm on for nonprofits, for free, because that's part of my contribution to that committee. So I'm not saying I can't do that. It's just I would like when it's for the business to make the money that I feel like I'm actually worth for the amount of skills I have.

Riley Harden: 52:32

Yeah, and just for fun, I'm sitting here looking at designer rates by the hour. You know, how much should you charge. There's also all these blogs out here too, like the very first search result. If somebody goes and looks. And you have 10 plus years of experience more than 10 years, you should only be charging $30 an hour. That's insane.

Unknown: 53:06

But anybody in any other industry?

Riley Harden: 53:10

Yeah, what's $30 an hour now like that's barely more than what people are trying to get for minimum wage. And you can go work at some random shop with no experience for 17 to $20 an hour. It's like in this in this blog, this search result is in this claims. This is in California years of experience in Cal I don't believe that where the price of living was.

Unknown: 53:35

Yeah. Like, we're different than just downtown Indy. Yeah, the market for designers even if I would go to Indy. I guess maybe people just understand it should cost more. Yeah, if you're in a big city for some reason. We're not so therefore, yeah, it's not worth the same amount. I don't understand how that tracks. But so

Riley Harden: 53:59

it's not even just people it's Well, I mean, people write these blogs. But I mean, this was it by indeed. Which indeed is a crap shot anyways. But here's another one. So how much should I charge per hour as a graphic designer? Typically, more experienced graphic designers will charge between 65 to $150 per hour, were more entry level ranges from 25 to 50. So we're talking entry level graphic designers starting at or around $50 an hour, somebody with 10 plus years of experience. If you get upset with him for charging more than$50 An hour than

Unknown: 54:38

then you don't know the issues. What they're worth, I guess, yeah, but we also have people who've tried to design something themselves, come to us and be like, you're right. Yeah, I need your help. What do I do? Because it's not that easy. Or you can make social media graphics that aren't successful. Yeah, like you can make billboards that are completely overcrowded. No one can read. And yeah, you're not going to get any calls from people driving by that. But then there are some that. I don't know why I'm stuck on billboards today. But there are some that are fantastic. I love billboards. I love when they're good. And they're funny and like, I would stop and take a picture that billboard like, I think those are the best. There's one in Tipton right now. That says something about I think it's T Mobile, which is a huge, huge company. And it talks about how they cover Hamilton County. But it's in Tipton County. I'm like, no one cares. Yeah. Good for you. Congrats. You cover a county that we don't live in. Yeah, I don't know if it's T Mobile. I might have just thrown them under for no reason. They're big enough. Yeah. But I'm like that kind of stuff. That's a mistake in my eyes. Like, why would you put that in the county that is relevant. So even like big companies, sometimes.

Riley Harden: 55:57

There's some good examples to maybe do a four. Oh, Billboard review. Yeah. But like,

Unknown: 56:06

I like the ones. I don't know what car company it is. But all their billboards are upside down. Oh, yeah. I'm like, That works for me, because I noticed it. And I'm like,

Riley Harden: 56:14

There's a really good one in Indy. They advertised kind of within the donut County, so probably an hour outside of Indy or more. And it says it happens called it's Hensley legal. I know. And there's one this it's like x picture of a car crash in such like, sh period, it happens. And I always just think shit happens call. So like, those are just one because it's funny, like that stuff that I guarantee some random person on their staff who has no design experience did not come up with that. Yeah.

Unknown: 56:48

So it's hard to come up with clever. clever marketing. Yeah. Clever advertising is like, it is tough worth paying for. Because if it's not funny, it's not funny, or it's not noticeable. Yeah, I don't know. I guess either way. Point is, from all of this. If you're going to hire someone, because you're at that point with your business, or your personal project, or whatever. Just know that there's a little bit of work you've got to do on your end ahead of time. That it is a partnership, like we'll bounce ideas off of you, will work with you. But we want to make it worth our time and your time. Yep. So when I asked you for content, and you're like, can't you just do that? No, I'm sorry, I can't I don't know anything about? Yeah. And especially the medical stuff, I'd love to learn. I love watching Hannah's videos with the chiropractor. I think it's fascinating. Yeah, like I'm learning from them being one of our clients. Like,

Riley Harden: 57:58

that's why we haven't in the past niched, down to a specific industry because I like learning about space and satellite industry where we, my client in New York works with some of the biggest space and satellite industry is Tesla, not Tesla and SpaceX and NASA and the European Space Agency and like, I'm tagging them in the social media posts, and they're tagging, like, that type of stuff. It's cool. I never picked a specific industry. Yeah. So I like learning and trying all this cool stuff, but and yeah, at the end of the day, it comes down the planning, put thought into it before you just come to us and also have the expectation that our time is valuable, and we're going to charge for that time. And even if you can't afford it, we're not going to hold it against you. But we want you to have that expectation, whether it's us or any design agency, that the work that we do does cost money because it's our livelihood, we have the experience to do it. And if it doesn't work out, because you have that where you don't have that budget fine. Yeah, we're not gonna, like think you're terrible people or anything. But we're gonna set that expectation with you. And don't get mad at us when we don't do something for $20. Bottom line.

Unknown: 59:24

Yeah, even on small projects. It's a lot of time, it's almost more time on small things that people were like, Oh, this won't take that

Riley Harden: 59:32

long. But then they get super specific and picky and I just

Unknown: 59:36

did an invitation for an event. Yeah. And it probably took more time than half the projects I've done this month. Yeah, just so many edits, and so many people they have to answer to I guess that's another thing too. When you gotta run it by 65 Different people for approval. It's a lot of opinions. I will try very hard to not get frustrated. Yeah. If people come in with correct expectations,

Riley Harden: 1:00:07

yeah. So a lot, a lot to think about as we wrap up. I didn't even mean to do it that time. And I said wrap up. But just like, if you're reaching out to a design agency, you're trying to make your business look better. You're, you're at that point, just think about all the things that we've talked about today. Do a little planning, have some realistic expectations, think about what you would charge for your services when people reach out to you. And keep that in mind that we're a real business making money just like you. So a lot, a lot of stuff, a lot of great information, a lot of kind of pain points from our end that we kind of just want to hopefully help the process for anybody in the future who wants to reach out or even like we said, it's for any buddy reaching out to anybody else's design agency, like it's more just a, it's here, when you're to that point. Sure, go to our competitor, just go to whoever but they're gonna think about the same thing. They're gonna have the same expectations for you. So a lot to process there. If you have any questions about any of our processes, any of our services that we offer here at hardened digital design, graphic design, which we talked a bunch about social media management, website development, any of that, feel free to send us an email Riley at hardened digital.com or Kaley at heart and digital.com for all things, graphic design, creativity, all that fun stuff. And thank you for listening in thanks for supporting the show giving us a place to vent our frustration sometimes I think that's the biggest reason Kaylee wanted to talk about all this, but thanks for your support. If you want to provide support even more, please visit BIT dot L y slash digital wrap up, you can make a monetary donation, you know, support the show every month, even $3 a month, just so that we can push out more episodes. And again, time is money in our industry. So thanks for all the support, I think approaching episode 50. So that'll be an exciting one. But if you have any other questions, any topic ideas, whatever, maybe shoot me an email, and I'd be happy to chat. But until next time, take care