There comes a moment in all growing organizations where the debate begins to rage internally around hiring a role vs contracting one out to a service provider. A lot of arguments get weighed when making this decision; cost to hire, turnover problems, culture fit, and scale goals. While all valid, there are other considerations that may not be discussed when the crucial point of making a decision looms over you and your team. Here are some rarely considered reasons to question hiring a designer in-house compared to approaching a professional services provider, all with very real world implications to your business.

The unskilled vs skilled manager

It is common human instinct to get defensive at the comment that one may be unskilled in a certain capacity but it is the elevated professional who can clearly draw lines around one's own skill sets within their organizations competencies.

There is strength in vulnerability and one place this is so often miscalculated is in admitting that a skilled person requires other skilled people to become the most productive contributor to any team.

A great analogy would be a quarterback playing for a football team and taking offensive coaching tips from a veteran lineman. There are going to be plenty of parallel strengths to be shared in both roles but ultimately you can not replace the expert guidance of a veteran quarterback. A team looking to win is going to acknowledge their lacking managerial wisdom and move to correct it, a losing team is going to expect their quarterback to carry the team with the tools available.

In all of my years working with skilled professionals, rarely do I see this analogy so commonly represented within the roll-out and management of a designer within an organization. Companies usually get to a place where they need to hire a full-time or a solo freelance designer but ultimately this decision leads to a minefield of hidden problems that may take months to uncover.

A good example of a crucial mistake an unskilled design manager often makes is in regards to setting timelines and limiting creative expression within the process. So often professionals not accustomed to creative problem solving approach all problems with a deadline mentality. “Problem A needs solving by March 3rd so that we can ensure Problem B doesn’t impact Goal C”. Standard common management logic, while not flawed in practice, simply fails to leverage the true gifts of why a creative problem solver has been assigned to the team. The real approach here is to allow the designer to ideate, iterate, and experiment with paths to a goal without the walls of logical restriction impeding creativity.

The gift that a creative designer brings to the table is in driving forward unconventional thinking as the primary component of the solution. If problem B just always seems to exist in your workflows, it sometimes takes unconventional wisdom to break tradition and elevate the organization. If your manager is pushing your creative talent to fit within a box of their own logical assertions, you can be assured that your designer will simply become an extension of their manager's strengths and weaknesses.

Emergent technologies and best practices

Probably not since the advent of the printing press has there been more disruption present within an industry since November of 2022. Generative AI is clearly a tool for the elevation of organizations across the board but where does design fit within that framework? If you are tracking the decisions made by executive leaders across the country, I am sure you would be of the opinion that the disruption is existing within the design space itself. A one step at a time thinker would be confident in making this bet, but in reality the person thinking four steps out should be considering alternative long term impacts from this emergent technology.

Today the immediate impact is management leveraging low grade technology to replace medium to high grade talent in order to save a few dollars this quarter. Ultimately that is a game played by those accepting obsolescence faster than they may be able to stop the momentum of the backlash of such short sighted decisions.

One consistency since the advent of this technology into our marketplaces has been people of poor aesthetic value taking hold of easy solutioned design renderings.

This has caused a flood of low skill, poor value, and oftentimes cringe worthy design systems to carry forward their brand. I can not tell you how often I see the accountant turned designer with the help of generative AI put out a blog article that just sends shivers of yikes up my spine. There seems to be a renaissance of poor aesthetic choices across the internet these days, and very quickly the would haves are turning into the have nots.

The best solution to this overall deluge of poor creative choices across industries in 2024 is to avoid the trap of minimizing cost and maximizing your personal perceived creative ‘capabilities’. The best solution is to remain vulnerable, invest capital in creative professionals who are in sync with the emergent technologies and can perform in an area you must willingly defer control for the sake of professional standards that elevate your brand.

Hiring to test vs hiring into an existing system

This last one is often the most easily missed piece of the hiring process when bringing on any design employee or solo freelancer. Oftentimes management may have a clear focus on the brand and creative direction that an organization must pursue in order to keep consensus towards the brand image. This is a correct approach and should be prioritized.

The problem with this oftentimes sound logic is when making the hiring decision itself. When we interview people professionally, we often are looking at character and merit first. This means that we can slot a solid professional into a role we need filled without the concern for poor performance or problematic behaviors. But when hiring a designer you are not just hiring a professional placeholder for a role, you are hiring a human with trained preconceived notions towards their artistic skills. If you’ve ever been creative, then you know that the nuances of creative expression are so wildly chaotic that not considering such aspects when hiring is sure destruction for your creative consensus.

That is often why service providers that specialize in creative talent are such a valuable asset to your organization. You know that you have a team of creative professionals who can bob and weave to the needs of your organization's brand in a collective unison rarely experienced by organizations with just one design employee or solo freelancer.

Almost every time we approach a new project at a small studio, we start with aligning impressions with inspiration. The creative who raises their hand and says “This style is bringing me joy” is oftentimes the person we tag to take point on the creative process. We have managers who are creatives and skilled in the best practices of design systems. Furthermore, we have internally prioritized the challenge that keeping up with emerging technologies has brought to the table, all while not sacrificing the quality of output our clients have become accustomed to.

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