Choosing the Right Agency Starts With In-House Design
When most businesses hire any creative or design agency, they assume the work is being handled by a dedicated, experienced team. What many don’t realize is that not all agencies actually do their design work in-house. Oftentimes companies will outsource their work to hired-gun freelancers to handle their projects for them.
At a glance, making this distinction between an in-house design team and freelancers seems trivial. Contracting is a common business practice, and after all, design is design…right? In reality, who is doing the work and how closely they are connected to the process can have a major impact on the quality of work and the customer experience.
As an owner who is shopping around for an agency to handle their home service branding and design, asking this important question will help you vet an agency and avoid many of the common issues that can arise when dealing with companies that outsource their work.
Consistent Quality
The most apparent pitfall that comes with agencies relying on freelancers for their work is an inconsistent bar of quality. If you’re looking through portfolios of an agency and you notice a variable quality of work, that can sometimes be a sign that a portion of that work is being handled by freelancers.
Choosing an agency that can handle different styles of art direction is important, but you shouldn’t have to second-guess what quality of deliverable you will get or who your job will be handed off to. Even in the case of our own portfolio, there is a consistent standard of work that exists regardless of what the art direction for the project is.
I believe that the collaboration of our team is a key factor in achieving the high standard of quality in our work. As our lead brand designer here at Wraps Ink, I am usually responsible for around 80% of what a branding client sees. But that remaining 20% sometimes is the key that takes work from being good to great. Spontaneously bouncing ideas off people sitting in the same office as you is invaluable. That element of instant collaboration and input helps you see things that one person never would if they were siloed off on their own as a freelancer.
Clearer Communication
Typically, in-house design teams also come with a much more effective communication style. With freelance work, commonly a project manager will take on your job and act as a third-party point of contact between you and the actual designer.
The issue here is that the designer(s) often need to be directly involved in the process. This is especially true during the discovery phase of a project, in order to be able to collaborate creatively with the client on strategy and direction. Outsourced designers often will act as “order takers,” waiting on a brief to execute on rather than to collaborate on.
You can probably tell that this approach also runs the risk of feeling like a game of telephone, where an internal staff member is responsible for relaying info between both parties rather than these groups of people talking directly.
By contrast, at Wraps Ink, our design team is heavily involved in these discussions with clients because our team does more than just design. They help come up with brand strategy, branded language, tagline creation, and more. Even for non-branding projects, such as vehicle wraps and print collateral, they often act as a direct point of contact for clients so that communication remains smooth and effective.
Higher Accountability
One of the issues with contractors, even more broadly, is that their name ultimately isn’t the one tied to the project. When mistakes happen, deadlines are missed, or quality slips in some other way, they don’t have the same accountability to the project that internal team members would have.
An agency that uses freelancers isn't always destined to deliver a bad experience for you, but these designers objectively just have less skin in the game. An in-house design team is not only more accountable for their work, but quality control is easier when a team is already intimately familiar with the standards and expectations their design company sets.
Long-Term Brand Stewardship
Dealing with agencies that rely on freelance work presents the same challenge that comes with dealing with multiple vendors. When your branding is created by one person or team and then handed off to another and another, it is very easy for brand consistency to be eroded over time.
Once a freelancer has done their work and moved on, now a different designer has to pick up where they left off when your company needs other materials created. Even when provided with a detailed brand style guide to follow, you run the risk of different designers of different standards taking liberties with the way your materials look.
This presents a problem as your company grows. Your business needs a design team that it can count on to not only create your branding, but also knows how to consistently integrate it across the various marketing materials you will need over the course of the company’s lifespan.
The Takeaway
Your brand is one of your most valuable business assets, and it deserves more than a fragmented creative process. Agencies with in-house design teams offer a level of cohesion and care that outsourced models rarely will be able to replicate.
When strategy, design, and production all live under one roof, it leads to smoother communication, better consistency, and work that supports your business long-term, not just project by project. That’s the difference between hiring a vendor and building a long-term creative partnership.
If you are in the process of shopping around for a home service branding agency to use, make sure you’re not just asking what they do, but how they do it.
Drive Your Brand Forward
If you want to take your company’s branding to the next level, you found the right team for the job. You can give either of our offices a call, or send us an email to start a conversation about your project.
Murrells Inlet Office: 843.651.6003
Charleston Office: 843.823.9274
Email: sales@wrapsink.com
