How to Choose a Website Designer?

How to Find a Web Designer?

Website designer skills play a critical role in the outcome of any web design project. However, the approach followed by professional website designers and web design companies as well as their proficiency levels are also important. If you’re wondering how to choose a website designer or what does a person need to be a good web designer, paying attention to these aspects is in your best interest.

Timely and Effective Communication

Waiting for responses indefinitely or not getting complete or accurate answers to your queries can be irritating, to say the least. If you look at the top professional website designers, you will notice that timely and helpful communication is among their top priorities. Make a note of how long it takes for a designer or team to get back to you, and look at how informative and transparent they are with their replies.

You Work Well Together

Several web designers have the right skills and experience, but would you be able to work with all of them? While professionalism is paramount in every industry, not all people can deal with collaboration challenges in the right way. It could be that you have different views or feel the designer or team doesn’t have the right attitude. In any case, it’s best to follow your instinct early on and try to find the best match.

Web Design Proficiency

Professional website designers must possess a wide range of skills. Some of the most important technical skills revolve around user interface (UI), user experience (UX), and responsive web design, and designers also need to have a firm grip on relevant design programs. As a result, you need to make sure that the web designer you hire is up-to-speed on the latest web design technologies and software.

Design and Creative Flair

Creativity plays a vital role in a web designer’s skill set alongside any technical web designing skills. The more imaginative, innovative, and creative your web designer, the more unique and memorable a website design you may expect. Talent combined with in-depth knowledge of composition, color schemes, and color theory is precisely what to look for in a web designer.

Additional Skills for Web Design

Adaptability is a must within the current digital workforce. Many professional web designers possess a much broader skill set to stay competitive. The top additional skills for web design include photo curation, content creation, content marketing, and photo editing. When part of a web designer’s skill set, these proficiencies may improve results, lower website costs, and make projects run more smoothly.

Excellent and On-Time Execution

Professional website designers who strive for better and bolder designs each time tend to achieve desired results. When dedicated and detail-oriented, there is an increased likelihood that your web designer will execute the project well and in a timely manner. An ability to cooperate, listen, and adapt to feedback may also set a professional website designer’s execution and results apart.

Fair and In-Budget Pricing

Some professional web designers may charge more based on their experience, portfolios, and location. If you feel a designer or company is expensive, bear in mind that a website redesign may cost you even more if you choose to hire a designer based solely on low pricing.

Remember that a professional website comes with a good return on investment (ROI), which is why you should aim to hire the best website designer or company you can afford.

Software Programs That Web Designers Use

A can-do attitude is excellent, but achieving desired results is impossible if your website designer’s skills are not up to the mark. Usually learned at college or university, these proficiencies give designers the ability to visualize and craft impressive website designs.

In college, most web designers learn much of what they need to know, including the use of relevant design software. With knowledge of different design software, designers create code-ready digitized designs, making them a key part of their skill set.

Here are the top programs a modern-day web designer needs to know.

• Website design and coding software. These include names like Adobe Dreamweaver and Microsoft Visual Studio Code. Many of these programs allow designers and developers to collaborate on the visual website design and its coding simultaneously.
• Low or no-code website design platforms. While not a vital part of what to look for in a website designer, knowledge of these can come in handy at times. In some cases, web designers may use these programs to design as well as code, publish, and host a website. Top examples include Webflow, Wix, and WordPress.
• Graphic design suites. Website designers may use graphic design and photo editing software to create and edit website content and elements. Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and CorelDraw fit this bracket.
• UI website design software. In today’s web design arena, what to look for in a web designer includes an understanding of user interface (UI) design. Additionally, the ability to use relevant UI website design software also helps. Sketch, Craft, and Adobe XD are a few good examples of UI web design software.

Difference Between a Web Designer and a Web Design Company

The skills that a standalone professional website designer brings to the table, will, in all likelihood, fall short of the skill set that you may expect from a website design company. In the case of the latter, its team may comprise individuals who have diverse proficiencies. For example, a web design company may have UI designers, UX designers, web developers, mobile app developers, content creators, and even digital marketers.

Some aspects a web designer needs help with include web development, content writing, graphic design, branding, internet marketing, and website maintenance. It is common for professional website design companies to offer a wide spectrum of digital services. This allows you to roll all of them into one package to make your project run smoothly, and to reduce your costs and involvement.

In contrast, individual website designers work alone, fulfilling only the roles for which they are responsible. Their job mainly encompasses front-end design or the visual design of your website, and not its back-end development.

Should You Hire a Web Design Company?

If you want to outsource the entirety of your website creation, partnering with a website design company might be in your best interest. This is because a web design company can not only finalize the design, but develop your website, launch it, and manage it after it’s live. This is the case if it provides all the services in question.

Individual website designers may only be able to create a website’s design for you unless they have the required web development skills as well. Alternatively, a designer may use a no- or low-code platform to create and publish a website for you. Bear in mind that while this method of creating a website might be more affordable, it has its limitations.

For starters, web designers might have limited control in customizing your website design because they are not responsible for the coding. Secondly, securing a website from hackers and maintaining it in the future is not what a web designer typically does. In addition, though initially cheaper, high monthly hosting and domain name-linking fees often accompany the use of these platforms. In most cases, exporting or storing a coded website file copy for internal use is not possible.

What Are the Responsibilities of a Web Designer?

Web designers might be unable to take on every aspect of building your website. Looking at the primary responsibilities of a web designer can help you plan ahead and avoid misunderstandings and unseen costs.

Contrary to what the title implies, a web designer’s skill set doesn’t necessarily cover the entirety of the website creation process. Web design companies fill in these additional roles by hiring specialists from other realms. However, a professional website designer is generally only responsible for a specific part of a website’s creation.

The front end of web design is the responsibility of a web designer. Front-end design encompasses the aesthetics and visuals of a website, web app, or mobile app. Web designers essentially sketch out a digital mock-up of what your website will look like by using website design programs. Once complete, back-end professionals, including website developers, will code and program your custom retail, healthcare, beauty, or construction website.

The Responsibilities They Cover

Designing a website requires paying attention to different aspects, and this is what you may expect from a professional web designer.

• Design your website’s look. Web designers sketch out digital mock-ups of website designs for web developers to reference when they begin the coding process.
• Create an aesthetically pleasing design. Web designer skill sets include utilizing design knowledge to create a bold, on-brand, eye-catching, and unique website design.
• Incorporate UI design into a website’s design. While not always the case, some website designers are also proficient in UI design, which can improve site user usability. UI design is what a competitive web designer should know.
• Select fonts and color schemes. Fonts and color schemes form a vital part of a website’s aesthetics, which web designers are responsible for finalizing.
• Source, choose, and curate visual content. What a web designer should know is how to select and edit stock content and any content provided by clients to use with a website. Content can come in the form of photos, videos, and adverts.
• Design the layout of the website content. Web designers need to decide the layout of website pages and their content, which includes all visual and textual elements.
• Finalize website designs. An important part of what web designers do is finalizing their designs for PCs and mobile devices, including tablets and smartphones. Known as responsive design, web designers use this technology to adapt your standard computer browser website for mobile devices.

The Responsibilities They Don’t Cover

Web design is an integral part of the website design and development process. However, back-end development is a completely different role. It covers the unseen elements of website design like coding and programming.

Other skills a web designer doesn’t need to know include hosting, website maintenance, cybersecurity, publishing, and content creation. You may need photographers, content writers, marketers, graphic designers, and other professionals to create digital content like advertisements and blogs.

When it comes to what professional web designers don’t do, here are elements that typically fall outside of their expertise.

• Creating unique business content. It’s not common for web designers to create content such as videos, photos, and advertisements for your website. You, your business team, a graphic designer, and/or a content creator will need to do the needful.
• Writing and publishing written content. A content writer, marketer, or publisher will need to handle the production and publishing of content on your website.
• Branding. Skills for web design don’t tend to include online branding, which means you’ll need to arrange this separately. That said, a designer should be adept at capturing your brand’s essence in your website design.
• Managing social media accounts. You’ll need to hire a social media manager to create and implement a suitable marketing strategy, and manage your social media accounts.
• Maintaining your website after it goes live. Web designing skills don’t usually extend to managing or maintaining websites after they go live. However, a web design company may offer this service at an additional cost.
• Programming or coding your website. Web development, coding, and programming are not part of what a web designer should know. However, web development may form part of a web design company’s services.
• Hosting your website on a server. Although not a norm, a web designer may help set up a hosting plan for you. An external hosting company provides this service and is responsible for your website’s server maintenance. You’ll need to pay for this service monthly or annually.
• Customer support. Web designers don’t usually offer customer service for tickets or inquiries lodged on your website, including via its web forms. You will need to re-route these to trained internal or external customer support executives.

Conclusion

The process of creating a website is complex, comprising many steps, and requiring input in different forms. Professional website designers play a crucial role in conceptualizing and finalizing your website’s visual design. Their artistic talent, design skills, and technical knowledge can give your website a visual edge over its competitors.

However, you need more than web designing to publish a website and keep it up-to-date, fast, secure, and modern. UI/UX design, coding, hosting, maintenance, cybersecurity, content creation, and customer service are also part of the process. That said, you still need to know how to select a website designer or design company.

When it comes to what to look for in a web design company, make sure you select one with a team that is proficient in technicalities and design software as well as creative and talented. Finally, determine if the company’s pricing, vision, attitude, communication, and style align with your business.