4 CHARACTERISTICS THAT MAKE YOU
IDENTIFY A GOOD BRAND DESIGN AGENCY

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When you need a corporate designer or a design agency, you might ask yourself:

 

"How do I find the perfect design agency for me?"

 

There are plenty of corporate designers and design agencies out there, there is not just only "one perfect design agency". But there are a few characteristics that make you identify a really good brand design agency with ease.

 

# 1 PORTFOLIO

 

The most important thing is of course the portfolio and this also has to do with your personal taste. Good corporate designers or design agencies, who have been in the industry for a while, have various projects in their portfolio which they did for different clients from different business backgrounds. Maybe there are also free projects that were created out of the blue or to show their talent without a paying client behind it. The variety of designs in a portfolio is important. Judging a portfolio might be a bit tricky when you’re not a designer yourself, but I’m sure you have a certain feeling about the portfolio, as in "that looks professional or not".

 

# 2 UNIQUENESS

 

A good design agency create designs that are unique. They don’t put them together from design freebies that they downloaded from the internet. This uniqueness has to come across in the portfolio. For a non-designer it’s difficult to judge that from the outside. But when you look at the portfolio and you see many similar designs, chances are high that these designers use design freebies from the internet. Also the pricing tells you a lot about that. If somebody works for dumping prices and offers a logo for 100 euros for instance, it usually means it is not an individual design such as taken from the internet or of terrible quality. Be assured that these or similar logo design elements are also used 1 to 1 for other clients. The essence of a logo representing a unique brand is completely out of the window here.

 

# 3 BRIEFING

 

You can recognize from the briefing if you’re dealing with a good or not so good design agency. Good design agencies (almost) pester you with questions about your company, your products, your philosophy etc. – because all of these components slip into the design later on. Good designers also ask you about your target group and your competitors. If you have the feeling that the designer doesn’t want to know too much about you or your products, it might be better to look for somebody else.

 

# 4 TRANSPARENCY

 

Transparency is very important. Ask the design agency specific questions like how they work, how their workflow looks like when they design etc. Also ask them how many logo drafts are included in the price, if it’s about logos, and how many feedback or correction rounds are included. These are valid questions because you are the client and you pay. If a design agency hesitates in giving you good answers, off to somebody else. You have every right to know what exactly you get for your money.