The modern businesses are highly dependent on graphic design to define their brand, communicate with clients and produce graphics for website, advertisements and social media. As the solutions of high quality designs are immense, companies are mostly confronted with the two alternatives, either hire up a freelancer or choose a virtual graphic designer.
Historically, freelancers have been the choice of many but with the invention of the virtual dedicated graphic designers, there has been an improvement in how business is conducted. In the following paragraphs, we will discuss the reasons how hiring virtual designers is preferable over the freelancers and why such designers are more cost effective, consistent and beneficial.
1. Consistency and Reliability
One of the most persistent issues of businesses employing freelancers is the question of constancy. Freelancers accept many clients’ jobs and move from one client to another resulting in possible overdues, day-to-day quality of work and lack of attention to a particular client. And sometimes designers are only responsible for separate projects which makes the implementation of a uniform design style on all the materials of the company’s branding a rather daunting task.
Different is the case with virtual graphic designers, who are more dependable. When you outsource a virtual designer, you are actually hiring an employee who is dedicated to completing your projects within designated hours. Therefore, the designer is oriented on the brand’s requirements and specifics which increases the probability of a steady and quality output rather.
With a virtual designer, you’re assured that he will be available at the pre-agreed times. It is impossible to spread them out over other work because they have none; therefore, the task will always be relevant. This makes perfect sense for businesses that look to design continuously since it ensures uniformity in brand delivery across all social networks.
2. Cost-Effectiveness
Budget is one fundamental consideration for companies that engage freelancers and virtual graphic designers. Freelancers on the other hand charge on a per project basis or on hourly basis and their rates vary with experience, skill set and complexity of the work. Although using freelancers for one-off jobs may appear cost effective, the expenses can pile up quickly for organisations that need regular design services.
Virtual graphic designers on the other hand can be considered as a cheaper option in the long term. Many virtual design services offer subscription-based models or a package structure to provide clients with a specific number of design hours per month. This way, organizations are able to manage their budgets much more efficiently while staying clear of unnecessary expenses. Moreover, due to their nature, virtual designers tend to complete greater workloads in a shorter amount of time which also means lower costs.
Virtual graphic designers for companies with usual design requirements remove the line of continuously searching for freelancers, coming up with rates and dealing with many people. They are in replace such difficulty with an affordable preset price and assured quality and time of service.
3. Access to a Team vs. Solo Freelancer
When you bring on a freelancer, you usually have a single person to deal with on a professional level. While this is effective for smaller and more simple projects, it becomes a drawback for more businesses that require a wide range of design services or more complex and bigger projects. Even if a person is a freelancer, most likely he will not possess all competencies required for covering your complex design needs like web design, brand design, social media creativity or animation creation.
On the contrary, with the help of a virtual graphic designer comes a whole team of professionals. Of course, you have to work with a designated designer, but you will also work with others within that service. Let’s say your virtual designer finished all tasks but needs a motion graphic or a thorough illustration, which is not his area of expertise, so he contacts a relevant team member instead.
Because of the political structure that is utilized in this instance, your business has a greater variety of skills and expertise at its disposal without the need to employ various freelancers on separate projects. This results in a better overall workflow, reduced turnaround times, and a great deal more quality for every design project you undertake.
4. Better Project Management and Communication
Freelancers are often a challenge due to difficulty in communication and the absence of deadlines. Most of the time, freelancers don’t have the luxury of time as they would be working for multiple clients. This gives rise to the problem of working or communication delays, or client expectations may not be met.
Virtual graphic design services primarily take a more formal and structured approach. Most of them offer project management applications through which work progress can be monitored, feedback can be provided, and communication can be held with the designer directly and in real-time, to keep everybody in the loop and with deadlines consistently met.
In addition, your business must adhere to specific time zones so that virtual designers know when to be available to address all significant issues like meetings, changes, or emergencies. Such a situation is essential for companies that continually require design activity, especially the ones that are urgent since there is less chance for delays or communication blunders.
5. Scalability and Flexibility
Scalability is one of the greatest advantages of working with a virtual graphic designer. With the increase in the business, there comes an increase in the design requirements. You will most likely have a dedicated designer for your virtual operations, and thus expansion will be easy, whether it is due to a new product launch, an increased social media effort, or an increased marketing push.
The downside to hiring freelancers is that, although they are flexible, they may not be able to accept additional work when you really require it. This can lead to delays when trying to execute the design brief to a set time, or when trying to implement design features at short notice. Also, since there are no written rules in such collaboration, a freelancer may be skilled at a small number of design tasks and not all, prompting you to seek out more freelancers for such projects.
Virtual designers make it easy to adjust how much work your business requires them to do to fit the demand of your business. Virtual designers are able to accommodate changing demands in the frequency of design requests as all this can be modified either for daily, weekly or monthly orders. This is very useful for companies that have periods during the year when demand is consistently high due to seasonal changes or for those that launch several campaigns.
6. Intellectual Property and Confidentiality
Intellectual property (IP) and confidentiality are two of the key areas that businesses must pay attention to while using freelancers. It has been noted that many freelancers work for various clients and as a result, there is a chance of overlap of design, ideas, or other confidential information. Apart from that, not all freelance workers have a written agreement that guarantees intellectual property rights or confidential information.
As for the graphic design services, they need not worry about these matters as there are contracts and legal documents that safeguard the IP and confidentiality of the business. It is ensured that all the designs made by the virtual designer for the lasted designer are made and not reused for other clients. This is the kind of security that businesses who deal with proprietary content or sensitive information will require as it reduces the risk of any data breaches or legal issues arising.
Besides, since the virtual designers are focused on your company only, they are able to grasp important aspects of your business and its identity. More so, this leads to the creation of exclusive designs that have been customized for your company, thus further reducing the risk of any overlapping or duplication.
7. Ongoing Support and Long-Term Collaboration
One of the the biggest advantages of hiring a virtual graphic designer is the ability to create a long-term partnership with a designer who knows your brand inside out. While many freelancers would only know your company from a work perspective, a virtual designer is a part of your team and assists with all design tasks as they arise.
This also strengthens the brand and the designs associated with it because over time, a brand or its audience’s identity is developed in a certain way so with time, designs become synergetic with these ideas. Also, because all the design work is done by the same virtual designer, there’s no hassle of bringing an unknown freelancer to the project — a designer who knows the style just makes the changes that are needed in the first place.
Collaboration over long terms helps nurture creativity and developing new ideas around the business. And because they are your virtual designer, they will gradually build knowledge of your business including devising new designs, alterations of existing ones and, where necessary, grow the visual identity of the brand. Such help makes all your branding activities consistent and well organized enabling you to stand out from your competitors.
8. Integration with Broader Business Strategies
Graphic design somehow identifies the aesthetic designs of an area and caters to the objectives of the business as well. The case usually with freelancers is that they may be adept at what they do, but they do not understand the more profound plans of the company, hence creating appealing images for the sake of them, but ignoring the plan for the future.
But with virtual designers, there is a huge difference, the designers integrate deeply with the company. They integrate with your team to make sure that every piece of work created is consistent with the company’s voice, its marketing, and overall business goals. This is especially true for companies that use design as the central element to their brand, advertising, or even products.
When there is a virtual designer who understands the bigger picture of the business and its goals, it becomes easier to have thoughtful designs that appeal to the clients and are effective.
Conclusion: Why Hiring a Virtual Graphic Designer Makes Sense
A strong visual identity across all platforms will be part of the competitive look businesses will be having in the year 2024. Although there are merits to hiring a freelancer, companies with recurring design works still find it cost-effective and sensible to employ the services of a virtual graphic designers. For example, companies don’t only get better professionals, but their design capacity can also expand as graphics designer outsourcing allows them to tackle and manage projects in a superior fashion.
The economy has changed over the last 15 years, venturing out from the coronavirus has quickly made the graphic design industry more promising than ever. Now more than ever virtual Graphic designers are making an impact worldwide, whether looking for long-term assistance, scalability, or simply more adaptability in difficult circumstances; virtual graphic designers will always be the answer