The Perks And Pitfalls of DIY Brand Or Hiring a Brand Designer
Branding is an essential part of any business, whether you’re a startup or have been in business for years. A well-defined brand identity can help you attract the right kind of customers and grow your business as a result.
If you’re launching your brand or redesigning an existing one, you might be asking yourself whether you should DIY or hire a professional. To help you make the right choice, in this article, we’ve laid out the pros and cons of each route.
What You Need to Create a Stunning Brand Identity
There’s a lot to consider when you’re thinking about building your brand from scratch. From knowing what sort of logo you want to pick out colors and fonts, everything plays a vital role in the process.
Here are the most important elements you should consider when creating your visual brand identity.
1. Logo
Your logo is a visual representation of your brand. It should be simple but also unique enough to stand out from the crowd. Ideally, it will be timeless and easily recognizable. It should also reflect your brand’s personality and values.
You can hire a designer to make a logo for you or use an online tool like Desygner to create it yourself. If you prefer going at it alone, you can use Desygner’s Logo Maker to design a sleek logo in 5 minutes for free.
2. Typography
Typography is an integral part of any brand identity because it affects readability, legibility, and usability — all things that are essential for good design!
You don’t have to be a professional designer to pick out fonts for your brand, but if you’re going to use them in marketing materials or on your website, you should at least have an idea of what makes them look good together. You can read about it in our Guide for Beginners in Typography.
3. Imagery
Images are essential to creating a visual brand identity. You need high-quality images that represent your business and its products or services. Of course, you can take your own photos, but hiring a professional photographer can help you make sure that every image is perfect.
Alternatively, you can use free stock photo sites. These sites store extensive collections of beautiful and professional photos that you can use for personal or commercial purposes.
4. Color Palette
Color is one of the most important visual branding elements because it psychologically impacts your customers. A color palette can make or break a brand identity, so it’s worth investing time and effort into getting it right.
To choose the right colors for your brand, you need to consider which colors accurately evoke your brand’s personality and whether they will look good together.
To DIY or Not To DIY: 5 Factors to Consider
DIYing is a great way to get a head start on your branding, but creating a memorable brand identity doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Sometimes, hiring a professional graphic designer might be a better choice.
But, how do you know what’s the best decision to make? Here are five things to consider.
Pick the right Desygner plan that works for every stage of your business
1. Budget
If you have a small budget, you may want to go the DIY route. However, if your budget allows, hiring someone else to do the design work for you may be worth it. The cost of hiring a pro is generally much greater than doing it yourself, but it comes with many benefits.
The quality of work is usually better than what you can do yourself, especially if you don’t have an eye for graphic design. A professional designer can help you create logos, websites, and social media graphics that reflect the look and feel of your company in an eye-catching way.
2. Time
If you’re busy running your business and don’t have time for the learning curve that comes with designing your brand from scratch, it might be worth hiring a pro. A professional will be able to get your logo and other elements are done in a timely manner so that you can focus on other aspects of your business.
However, if you already have some graphic design experience or don’t mind spending time learning, then DIYing might be the right choice.
3. Complexity
The simpler your visual brand identity, the more likely it is that you can do it yourself. However, the more complex your project is, the more likely you’ll benefit from hiring a pro. If you’re trying to design a complex brand identity or rebrand an entire company, bringing in an experienced graphic designer can save you time and money.
4. Stage of Business
If you’re just starting out with no clear vision for what your brand should be, it might be best to go the DIY route before you spend money on professional services. DIYing will give you time and space to experiment with your brand identity and figure out what you want it to be.
As your business grows and gains more exposure, though, you might feel the need to invest in a professional graphic designer to help you execute your vision with a more advanced skillset.
This will also be the best option for you if you’re in the rebranding stage. Having to redesign everything yourself can be extremely time-consuming. Plus, rebranding is all about creating a new and enhanced visual identity for your brand. So unless you’re a branding pro yourself, if you’re looking to improve your existing brand identity, hiring a graphic designer is the logical thing to do.
5. Design Skills
If you’re good at designing things and have experience creating graphics, logos, or websites, then DIYing your brand might make more sense for you.
But if you’re not comfortable with this kind of work or lack the necessary skills, it will be difficult for you to create a unique and compelling brand identity. In that case, it might be best to hire someone who is experienced in design and can produce the desired results. It will save you a lot of headaches and frustration!
DIYing vs. Hiring a Pro: Pros & Cons
Whether you’re thinking about creating a brand identity from scratch or redesigning an existing one, it’s important to know when to do it yourself and when to hire an expert. Here are some pros and cons of each route.
Whether you choose to create your very own designs or choose to engage with a professional graphic designer to create stunning creative on your behalf, Desygner is your one-stop design solution
Pros & Cons of DIYing Your Brand
Pros:
- DIYing will make you save money on professional design services, which are often quite costly.
- When you DIY, you have complete control over the process. You can design your brand however you like, and you don’t have to wait for someone else to approve ideas or make changes. If there’s something wrong, you can fix it yourself!
- DIYing allows you to experiment with different ideas until you find something that accurately reflects your vision.
- During the process, you’ll learn a lot about branding, which will help you find a way to stand out in the market with your brand identity.
Cons:
- DIYing can be extremely time-consuming, especially if there’s a learning curve involved in the process.
- If you don’t have any graphic design experience or don’t have an eye for design, it can be challenging to create a compelling brand identity that reflects your vision.
- Without graphic design experience, you don’t really know what works and what doesn’t. Unless you have someone experienced in this field who can guide you, you’ll likely make tons of mistakes that can lead to an unprofessional brand.
Pros & Cons of Hiring a Pro
Pros:
- While DIYing your brand can save you money immediately, hiring a pro will save you money in the long run. Having a well-designed brand from the start can help you grow your business faster by attracting the right kind of customers and avoiding having to rebrand later on.
- Hiring a pro will save you an enormous amount of time that you’d spend on learning how to create a compelling brand identity and trying to do it yourself. A pro can do that promptly because they’ve already got tons of experience.
- Graphic design is more than just a pretty logo, and professional designers obviously know this. They know what colors and fonts to use to reflect your brand’s personality or how to place different visual elements on an ad poster to guide the eye and convey the right message. This is extremely important!
Cons:
- Hiring a graphic designer is an investment and often a big one. If you don’t have the budget to make that kind of investment, spending money on a pro may be very difficult.
- Choosing the right graphic designer is crucial to getting your brand vision reflected in the design they create. But if you don’t have any experience with outsourcing, there’s a risk that you’ll hire the wrong person.
Still Can’t Decide? Choose Both!
Both DIYing your brand and hiring a pro have their pros and cons that you need to consider before deciding whether or not it’s right for your business.
The biggest benefit of DIY is that you can control every aspect of the design process, from conception to execution. However, if you’re not an expert designer, it may take longer than expected and cost more than anticipated because you don’t have access to the right tools or talent. On the other hand, hiring a pro will solve the lack of talent or expertise problem, but it will cost you more.
But what if there was a way to combine the two? Enter Desygner!
Desygner is a scalable design platform that offers everything from templates and pre-built designs to custom options that allow users to create their own unique brand easily at any stage of business.
In fact, Desygner has been built for the non-designers looking for a way to create a professional brand and marketing materials without breaking the bank. For larger companies, Desygner offers an Enterprise Solution that allows them to manage their brand across multiple platforms.
And if you need even more support, you can get in touch with us, and we’ll create a customized plan tailored to your specific needs and budget.
