Design Agency

Design agencies are organizations that provide visual and user experience design solutions. They have teams of in-house web designers, graphic designers and user experience designers. Product design, website design and visual branding are some of the main services design agencies offer. Marketing, consulting and design agencies often work together to fill clients’ needs. Usually, when you need design work, you have the option of working with a design agency or directly with a freelance designer.

Web design involves the planning, implementation and maintenance of websites. It’s a large field that includes many specializations.

• Creating the aesthetic and layout of the website is web graphic design.
• User interface (UI) design handles how visitors will interact with the website and works hand in hand with user experience (UX) design.
• UX design works to help make using a website streamlined, effortless and enjoyable.
• Web design also deals with search engine optimization (SEO), which helps ensure users can find the site and that the site appears higher in web searches.

All the facets of web design affect and blend into each other and can be handled by a comprehensive design agency.

Graphic design is a discipline as old as civilization and encompasses creating anything that communicates visually. Videography, newspaper layout and web design are just a few examples. Graphic design always focuses on sending a specific message to the audience and strives to avoid confusion or ambiguity. Branding is also very reliant on graphic design. Creating a unity in the visual aspects of websites, products and even stationery makes your brand recognizable. Ensuring the visual brand matches the needs and expectations of the target audience and company values is an increasingly important part of graphic design.

Graphic design is a huge field, and graphic designers do a lot of things. They create road signs that are legible at night, set up visually appealing camera angles for the evening news and lay out the diagrams in science textbooks. But what a graphic designer does for a business — and what makes them worth the investment — is communicate.

Graphic designers translate messages into a visual format. They help tell customers what a business does, what its values are or how products might be useful. Whether it’s through a website, a product's packaging or a menu, designers help create the face for a business.

The key to hiring a web designer is finding the right one — this is one of those "measure twice, hire once" things. Factors like budget, what services you need and time frame must be considered when searching for a designer.

You can find candidates on job sites or through Google searches. The first step for cutting down your list of potential designers is to look at their skills. If they don’t have fundamental design knowledge (such as knowledge of SEO, HTML and CSS programming, content management systems as well as responsive and mobile design), they get cut.

Next, dive into the designer's portfolio; check the aesthetic and practical use of their previous projects. Once you’ve narrowed it down, interview your prospects and choose the best one for what you need.

If you want to hire a company and not an individual, the process is much the same.

Web design is important, and becoming more so, because websites are the new storefront. They are the way customers interact with businesses to make purchases, find information and set appointments. And if a website isn't easy to use and visually appealing, it’s the equivalent of a store being dirty and managed by less-than-competent staff. The user becomes frustrated and has a poor experience or just decides not to do business with that company at all. Good web design minimizes the effort a would-be client has to put in, which creates more sales, loyal clients and positive brand associations.

Design costs vary greatly based on what you need and what level of designer you hire. Individual designers may charge by the hour, so the more work they need to do, the pricier the design will be. The same is true for design companies. The prices go up with higher levels of customization, services and updates.

After the initial creation, you’ll need maintenance and updates throughout the life of your website. This involves checking the performance and security of your site and making updates to correct any issues. You can usually get maintenance services from the designer or agency that created your site.