Why choose a design agency for your project?
With the wide variety of design houses, ad agencies and printers out there, choosing the right supplier for your creative needs can be a daunting prospect. should you employ an in-house designer? Many types of company offer graphic design. Printers no longer just print, even many photographers are offering graphic design as a service, as are stationery suppliers, IT companies and many other businesses.
What is a design agency?
So what is a design agency, as opposed to these other options? A design agency is a specialist in creative design as a core business. At the other end of the scale, there are advertising agencies. Should you use an advertising agency for design work that is not advertising? The reverse situation is equally true, most design agencies will not be appropriate for producing broadcast or press advertising, and especially where media scheduling and buying are a factor. The set-up of a design agency can be very effective for some advertising, but usually for limited campaigns aimed at niche target audiences.
The right design agency?
• Is the agency doing many more web projects than design for print? Are the designers qualified designers for print, or web designers who outsource the print design?
• Is the agency willing to give references of satisfied customers other than pre-printed testimonials?
• Can the agency provide quantitative results for work, what evidence can they provide for return on investment and accountability?
Web site design has now become a standard part of a design agency’s portfolio and it is a natural progression for clients’ to expect their web sites to have the same level of branding as any other marketing communications tool.
The main benefit of using a design agency to design your web site is that a graphic designer can integrate your site’s branding with that of all your other marketing items. It is true that many design agencies have to buy-in technical back-end functionality for their sites, but this is only like using a printer to print a brochure that has been conceived and designed by a design agency.
In-house versus Agency?
Many businesses have taken the decision to employ graphic designers for themselves as in-house creative teams. Using a design agency has certain key benefits over an in-house creative studio. Design agencies work in a competitive environment, their designers must constantly deliver the highest standards of work, as clients have a choice of suppliers who will often compete on a project by project basis.
As in football, to maintain a ‘first team place’ it is in the interests of all design agencies to constantly come up with exceptional creative for clients as there are consequences for not doing.
In house designers very seldom have that competitive pressure to drive up their creative efforts. Unlike in-house studios, where the projects may only involve the products and services of one company, designers within an agency work for many different sectors and business types. This constant variety leads to many fresh ideas and the honing of cutting edge creative talent.
This variety benefits the client as the designer in the agency is far less likely to become stale over the longer term. Experiences with new design challenges and constant use of the imagination for new products and services, means that when the designer comes around to working back on a certain client’s project, he has all the experiences from other client’s work to bring to the table.
Although the trend for in-house design will continue due to pressure on budgets, working with a good design agency may still be the better option, as long as your agency can deliver cost-effective services, and offer you a measurable return on investment.
A. Classic Album Cover Design - 'Dark Side of the Moon' by Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon was initially released on March 24th 1973, and has since gone on to become one of the biggest selling albums of all time, consistently appearing in top ten bestseller lists, regardless of source. Since its release, the cover and its design have become an instantly recognizable icon, with subtle variations upon its theme having being used for re-releases and anniversary additions.
The front cover design itself shows a refracting prism against a black background, onto which a single beam of light is being shone with a spectrum of color emerging from the other side. It is highly minimal and neither the band's name nor the album's title are displayed anywhere.
The design was the idea of Storm Thorgerson, a member of the British art collective and UK graphic design bohemians, Hipgnosis; who'd designed the covers for all the Pink Floyd albums from A Saucerful of Secrets onwards. It came about after band member and keyboard player Richard Wright requested something that was less pictorial and more iconic. As this album saw the completion of Pink Floyd's transition from the Syd Barrett-era psychedelic band into the (perhaps a little too) serious prog-rockers that would go on to fill stadiums worldwide, it is perhaps fitting that the cover should have become ingrained in the record-buying public's consciousness.
The concept of the prism refracting the light was in reference to the light shows that were always a staple part of Pink Floyd concerts. The band was presented with seven conceptual roughs, detailing the Hipgnosis collectives' ideas for the prospective cover.
B. Graphic Design Pricing - Free Pitching and the Public Sector
In my day job I run one of the country's myriad of graphic design companies - I'd like to think that we are 'small but beautifully formed', employing six people including myself and enjoying the patronage of a variety of customers, big and small, across a range of business sectors.
One of the imponderables of running graphic design agencies concerns graphic design pricing - after all, how much is creative talent worth? Of course if you are fortunate enough to be a Saatchi & Saatchi or Ogilvy & Mather of the world you can more or less name your own price, there being an almost inherent snob value of being able to say that "one has Saatchi's as one's agency".
Their challenge is in maintaining their market share, for my company, Brackenhill, we don't begin to register on any market share measurement and so we have a much more mundane challenge; Namely to win enough work to firstly pay the staff, secondly pay the bills, thirdly pay me and finally (and hopefully) make a profit and grow. The benefit that the bigger agencies do have is the availability of resource to prepare pitches on a speculative basis knowing that they're going to be invited to enough pitches that by the law of averages they'll win their fair share and thus give them a return on the investment.
For smaller agencies, free pitching is anathema, in the first place the 'free' bit relates to the prospective client only! Consequently you can have say 60 or more hopefuls completing arduous tender documents and preparing some design ideas as to how they would represent a certain facet of the creative brief.
More significantly though, if you can't evidence previous experience of working with a public sector client then you're 'pushing the boulder up the hill'. As an example of how ludicrous this process can be, before I bought the company, Brackenhill had applied to be a graphic design supplier to a local Metropolitan District Council.
With the wide variety of design houses, ad agencies and printers out there, choosing the right supplier for your creative needs can be a daunting prospect. should you employ an in-house designer? Many types of company offer graphic design. Printers no longer just print, even many photographers are offering graphic design as a service, as are stationery suppliers, IT companies and many other businesses.
What is a design agency?
So what is a design agency, as opposed to these other options? A design agency is a specialist in creative design as a core business. At the other end of the scale, there are advertising agencies. Should you use an advertising agency for design work that is not advertising? The reverse situation is equally true, most design agencies will not be appropriate for producing broadcast or press advertising, and especially where media scheduling and buying are a factor. The set-up of a design agency can be very effective for some advertising, but usually for limited campaigns aimed at niche target audiences.
The right design agency?
• Is the agency doing many more web projects than design for print? Are the designers qualified designers for print, or web designers who outsource the print design?
• Is the agency willing to give references of satisfied customers other than pre-printed testimonials?
• Can the agency provide quantitative results for work, what evidence can they provide for return on investment and accountability?
Web site design has now become a standard part of a design agency’s portfolio and it is a natural progression for clients’ to expect their web sites to have the same level of branding as any other marketing communications tool.
The main benefit of using a design agency to design your web site is that a graphic designer can integrate your site’s branding with that of all your other marketing items. It is true that many design agencies have to buy-in technical back-end functionality for their sites, but this is only like using a printer to print a brochure that has been conceived and designed by a design agency.
In-house versus Agency?
Many businesses have taken the decision to employ graphic designers for themselves as in-house creative teams. Using a design agency has certain key benefits over an in-house creative studio. Design agencies work in a competitive environment, their designers must constantly deliver the highest standards of work, as clients have a choice of suppliers who will often compete on a project by project basis.
As in football, to maintain a ‘first team place’ it is in the interests of all design agencies to constantly come up with exceptional creative for clients as there are consequences for not doing.
In house designers very seldom have that competitive pressure to drive up their creative efforts. Unlike in-house studios, where the projects may only involve the products and services of one company, designers within an agency work for many different sectors and business types. This constant variety leads to many fresh ideas and the honing of cutting edge creative talent.
This variety benefits the client as the designer in the agency is far less likely to become stale over the longer term. Experiences with new design challenges and constant use of the imagination for new products and services, means that when the designer comes around to working back on a certain client’s project, he has all the experiences from other client’s work to bring to the table.
Although the trend for in-house design will continue due to pressure on budgets, working with a good design agency may still be the better option, as long as your agency can deliver cost-effective services, and offer you a measurable return on investment.
A. Classic Album Cover Design - 'Dark Side of the Moon' by Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon was initially released on March 24th 1973, and has since gone on to become one of the biggest selling albums of all time, consistently appearing in top ten bestseller lists, regardless of source. Since its release, the cover and its design have become an instantly recognizable icon, with subtle variations upon its theme having being used for re-releases and anniversary additions.
The front cover design itself shows a refracting prism against a black background, onto which a single beam of light is being shone with a spectrum of color emerging from the other side. It is highly minimal and neither the band's name nor the album's title are displayed anywhere.
The design was the idea of Storm Thorgerson, a member of the British art collective and UK graphic design bohemians, Hipgnosis; who'd designed the covers for all the Pink Floyd albums from A Saucerful of Secrets onwards. It came about after band member and keyboard player Richard Wright requested something that was less pictorial and more iconic. As this album saw the completion of Pink Floyd's transition from the Syd Barrett-era psychedelic band into the (perhaps a little too) serious prog-rockers that would go on to fill stadiums worldwide, it is perhaps fitting that the cover should have become ingrained in the record-buying public's consciousness.
The concept of the prism refracting the light was in reference to the light shows that were always a staple part of Pink Floyd concerts. The band was presented with seven conceptual roughs, detailing the Hipgnosis collectives' ideas for the prospective cover.
B. Graphic Design Pricing - Free Pitching and the Public Sector
In my day job I run one of the country's myriad of graphic design companies - I'd like to think that we are 'small but beautifully formed', employing six people including myself and enjoying the patronage of a variety of customers, big and small, across a range of business sectors.
One of the imponderables of running graphic design agencies concerns graphic design pricing - after all, how much is creative talent worth? Of course if you are fortunate enough to be a Saatchi & Saatchi or Ogilvy & Mather of the world you can more or less name your own price, there being an almost inherent snob value of being able to say that "one has Saatchi's as one's agency".
Their challenge is in maintaining their market share, for my company, Brackenhill, we don't begin to register on any market share measurement and so we have a much more mundane challenge; Namely to win enough work to firstly pay the staff, secondly pay the bills, thirdly pay me and finally (and hopefully) make a profit and grow. The benefit that the bigger agencies do have is the availability of resource to prepare pitches on a speculative basis knowing that they're going to be invited to enough pitches that by the law of averages they'll win their fair share and thus give them a return on the investment.
For smaller agencies, free pitching is anathema, in the first place the 'free' bit relates to the prospective client only! Consequently you can have say 60 or more hopefuls completing arduous tender documents and preparing some design ideas as to how they would represent a certain facet of the creative brief.
More significantly though, if you can't evidence previous experience of working with a public sector client then you're 'pushing the boulder up the hill'. As an example of how ludicrous this process can be, before I bought the company, Brackenhill had applied to be a graphic design supplier to a local Metropolitan District Council.
Hello friends,
Graphic design agencies are up to will help broaden your education as a designer. This large design agency also has offices around the world, and It helps web identities of businesses to get easily identified by the targeted customers. Thanks a lot...
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