Using Instagram to Find a Great Designer
In the long list of items needed to either create or grow your company, graphic design can fall behind tasks that more directly product income, like inventing new products, drafting business strategies and providing customer service. But regardless of your industry - or the size of your organization - quality graphics are vital to the success of your business.
From social media images and infographics to e-books and your website, consistent and well-designed assets bring a host of advantages to your organization, from making a good first impression and building brand recognition to increasing customer trust. It can also have a direct influence on your business's revenue - a 2005 study revealed that design-focused organizations outperformed the Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 index by 200 percent.
The obvious way to enjoy these benefits is to hire the right graphic designer, which can be challenging. Not only is it critical to find a designer with the skills to create attractive design assets for your business, but who can capture your brand's unique personality in visual form. While there are many places to locate designers and design agencies, one of the more unique places to find your new designer is the visual social media platform Instagram.
Instagram: A Wealth of Design Talent
Despite its reputation for overly filtered photos of food and scenic locations, Instagram has a lot more to offer. This visual social network has evolved significantly from its inception to a powerful creative outlet. With its undeniable visual nature, it's no surprise that many graphic designers use Instagram to share their work. On its own, the hashtag #graphicdesign features nearly 9 million posts. The uniquely social portfolios on Instagram provide you with the opportunity to see the work of graphic designers you otherwise may never see - making it more likely that you will find the perfect fit for your business.
Searching Designers on Instagram
Looking for a graphic designer on Instagram can be just as overwhelming as performing the same search on Google due to the wealth of content on the platform. There are several ways you can limit this search to more quickly identify someone you want to hire for your business without missing out on the amazing talent on Instagram.
Using Hashtags
Just as on Twitter, hashtags are used to identify specific themes or topics - though in the case of Instagram, hashtags form collections of images. You can use specific hashtags to locate graphic designers on Instagram simply by entering them in the search on the home page. Besides the more generic "graphicdesigner" and "graphicdesigners," some other hashtags to use in your search include "graphicdesignerforhire" and "graphicdesignservices," which identify designers looking for work. You can also use Instagram to advertise your search by posting with the hashtag "graphicdesignerneeded."
Designer Lists
Another way to identify qualified graphic designers for your business design need is through lists of talented Instagram designers curated by others. Sites like Canva and Creative Bloq create lists of graphic design talent found on Instagram. While these lists are generally for design inspiration, they may also lead to your ideal designer.
Selecting the Right Designer
Now that you know how to locate graphic designers on Instagram, the next step is to find the right designer. There are two key considerations when it comes to hiring the right fit: designer specialties and stylistic match. The specialty of your newly chosen designer - whether its logos and branding or ebook design - ensures they can expertly create the types of designs that you need; stylistic match determines how your newly designed assets fit in with the larger scope of your brand.
Freelance Versus Full Time
There are some limitations when it comes to finding your graphic designer online through a site like Instagram. For example, it may be a challenge to find a local designer on Instagram that fits your needs and style preferences. The social image site does allow you to search by location tags, but these are more often used by photographers than by graphic designers. If you require a graphic designer you can meet with face-to-face, and are looking for someone to join your in-house team full time, Instagram might not be the best solution.
However, there are great advantages to hiring a designer on a freelance basis, and Instagram is perfect for locating these designers. One important benefit to going freelance is that you can select the best designer regardless of location, communicating with them through email or chat applications like Skype. In comparison to hiring a full time employee, you can hire a freelance designer for a single project, regardless of size - which can help design projects better fit the budgets of small and medium-sized businesses.
Reaching Out
Most graphic designers will provide contact information on their Instagram profile, particularly if they are open to new projects. This can be found by going to their Instagram profile page; contact information like an email address or website can generally be found as part of this profile information. If they list a website, you can then email them with basic information about your project to see if they are interested. For graphic designers who list a website, their website will likely have further details to reach out to them, or information on whether or not they are available for work - along with additional design samples.
Hiring a graphic designer, either for a single project or a larger rebranding project, can be a daunting task. Instagram gives you the opportunity to view the work of host of graphic designers and provides tools like hashtags to locate the ideal designer for your organization.