I am not someone who normally comes to this board and asks serious business questions, but I am curious as to what some of you think about the fork that I am at in the road.....I will try to keep this short.....
I have always had an "in-house" designer/graphic artist/creative director/webmaster type person. He would do web sites, magazine ads, banners, signs, t-shirts, logo creation, high end proposals...whatever graphic type stuff we need for any of my companies. The problem is I end up turning him over about every 2 years. One of them left me to take a Executive Position with UPS in their Web Development Team and the last one is leaving at the end of this week to go head up a new Web Initiative for Infinity Broadcasting...so its not like I am an asshole to work for or anything....well, maybe I am but that aint why they are leaving
So....my question....do I keep replacing this person with a new in-house designer, or do I just find a company and contract with them to do all of my design work as an outside vendor?
I have always run my companies as a vertical integration unit. I rarely sub-contract out anything that we can do well ourselves...but at the same time, I think I would be a big account to a design firm and they may can bring some talents to the table that I am not capitalizing on now.
I would be interested in hearing anyones thoughts....
--T