How To Hire The Right Web Designer?

That is a tough question, there are so many out there, and many more that are not really designers at all.

Cutting edge design will cost you, but I have found that micro projects are better than larger projects, much depends on how active you want to be in the production process.

you can save money by participating and probably a lot of headache too.

I look hard at the websites they create, how they rank, how popular they are, if a guy has no real portfolio and wants a huge fee, I am not inclined to work with them, there are several good designers right here on the forum, but you can outsource a lot of graphic work on many different platforms too.

I think you should prefer how much experience the designer has and also look his past work.

yea, experience is certainly an aspect you want to look into...
also, checking on his/her past works can give you a good insight of how good he/she really is...

maybe you would like to consider outsourced web designers if you really are budget concious.

Hey, thank you very much everyone! You've all been of great help!

I guess i can give my 20 cents, since im one of those guys..

There is no "average fee" - Everything depends on quality and knowledge.
Low budget usually means low quality, but not always.

I have been working as freelance designer for a number of years now and one of the things I hear from a lot of new clients is "We got burned in the past, how do I know that the work in your portfolio is really your work ?" - You can never really know, unless the person has a lot of good personal references and can provide clients you can contact.

But the number one thing you should look for is interest in your business.

Does the potential designer ask a lot of questions about your business, your expectations, and your businessplan for the project, and also the end user group.
If he/she doesnt, you can be sure, its not your business he/she is interested in.. its their own.

So always look for someone with a strong portfolio willing to give you contact information on other past/existing clients, so you can get personal references if needed, and see if they take interest in your business and the larger picture of the project.

In Designing field many scams are present.Hire designer from a reputable designing company.

You get what you pay for. If you pay low, don't expect a Bentley with all the extras thrown in.

When you ask to see their portfolio bear in mind that the websites you are shown will have been designed to each clients specification rather than what the designer themselves would necessarily think was a good idea.

Also be clear about how much work you expect the webdesigner to do. For example do you expect them to write your content, how many 'pages' do want the site to have, do you want the design to be custom.

A custom design will cost you more that an off the peg Wordpress site.

Not only does it depend on quality and knowledge. It greatly depends on the project itself.

How many pages will need to be made?
Will there be any scripting involved? (ie shopping carts, forms, message boards)
Will there be Flash content?
Will you be providing any text, graphics, logos?
Will you need assistance uploading the site, setting it up on a server, getting a domain?

These are common questions I usually ask to get a better idea of the project at hand. Without knowing exactly what work needs to be done, a web designer cannot properly quote you on a project.

So the first thing you should do is view their portfolio and check out their recent work. If they don't have any then that's not a good sign as you have nothing to base their skills off of. Once you've viewed their work and you like what you see, the next thing you need to do is contact them and be as descriptive about the project as you can. This will give you the most accurate quote for the project that needs to be completed. This also gives you a chance to see what their customer support is like and see how quickly they respond and that they are knowledgeable.

Hope that helps and good luck finding a designer.

P.S. I'm available for hire.

1. Look at the designer's porfolio and see if his style and work matches what you like.

2. Ask plenty of questions and see if you like the answers.

3. If response time and quality isn't great, don't kid yourself even if the price is good.

Fee depends on work and you can ask the designer for his/her previous work

depends on a project, and what You want to achieve with design.

Also, look in portfolio, google him to see if there's some opinion about him/her , if possible, check out the CV of the person.

If You're already talking with designer, try to observe how long is he online, is he punctual ( for example when both of You agreed that some mockups would be sent till friday ), and ask him when he's working or how is he planning his time on that particular project.

And if You like the guy, and thinks he's solid, then take it, there's always risk that it would be a failure, but after getting this information, mostly it will be just a bad luck