Serious Business Question....
 

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 :winkwink:

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

bump, before this rarity of a thread goes too far down the list

using an outside source for your work will give you better variety of designs,

I am a fan of contract work where I pay for performance. There are some good design companies which post here, although I'd probably recommend someone in your position skip the lone contractor folks because they tend to be just like employees who are not worried about you firing them, as opposed to a company like webinc who will get stuff done the way you want without telling you any bizarre excuses.

I would personally subcontract...just for the fresh approaches to projects.

T, go in house. every 2 years is no big deal.
you get a good guy in house, its not just the work he gets done, its the ideas he brings to the office every day. Contract people don't give you that.

Oh, and say hi in Vegas big guy.

SweetT (My Dothan acquaintance lol)
I would give a design firm a shot...since you are turning over new inhouse designers every couple years. Maybe to give it a good, fair test, try out the design firm for a year. You are sure to have some great NEW ideas by having an entire team look at your future projects. I say give them a try for a year.
Good luck my friend!

Double edged sword there really Tony.

On the one hand, you have a guy in-house who you can, for want of a better word, 'control' and on the other hand, you have someone who you really dont know is doing what, when and where.

In-house certainly gives you much better access to the designer and i would think, quicker turnaround times on any potential changes etc etc.

Personally, if you are holding on to a designer in-house for aproximately 2 years before you need to find a replacement, i would say you are doing very well.

It also means that every 2 years you can get a fresh approach to the way your designs look and imho, 2 years is a good time frame to find out whether your current designers style is what you and your clients are looking / reacting to :)

Looking forward to seeing you and the rest of the Nat Net crew in Vegas bro :)

Regards,

Lee

I personally like in house,or a remote type person that does good work

For such a short reply, this one is funny as hell :1orglaugh

Thanks!!

--T

Thanks for all of the different ideas....all of them have merit and the problem for me is that I agree with all of you.

12clicks....I arrive on Friday and will be there until the next Saturday so gimme a jingle and I will buy you a cocktail. We should catch up.

Sama....are you from UCLA? (Ugly Corner of Lower Alabama) :1orglaugh

Lee...Thanks. Me and the whole crew will be there but I am sure I will see ya....we always seem to bump into each other at these shows :)


--T

To true, i usually have Gary on tow and your usually seen carrying a cocktail of some description ;)

Regards,

Lee

Keep it in house Sweet-T. Sometimes the flexibility of having your own guy can't be beat.

Plus, do you really want your competition to know about those high end proposals? No, I don't think you do.


BTW, what new web initiative is Infinity gearing up for?

Ditto and oh so very true.

Hey Tony :)

We have tried the subcontracting out, and while we are happy with the outcome so far, it cannot beat having an inhouse guy. We have one starting the monday after this show in Vegas.

I'm in Saturday, where will everyone be hanging out?!

I agree. Every two years in this fast moving business is fine.

I think having a in-house designer is a nice option...But, with one designer, the same style seems to show thru. Mixing it up between your own guy and a couple of outside designers (seems to work best for me).

outsource that shit. ricks got the hook up man lol. get 10 xs the work for 1/5th the price and its atleast half as good lol.

No disrespect to the designers but I'd stay in house so you develop your own unique style so you don't end up looking like everyone else. Not saying that would happen but it could.

Tony,

Well I could say use webinc.com :), but in your case with your special needs, some big clients, etc mabey it would be best to keep a designer in house. Especially for the big projects, that might need some hands on checking, etc.

If you need any banners, ads, etc you know we will always take care of you.

Happy Holidays

Todd

Definetely hire in house, soooo many designers I have used have flaked out. I have had 2 AWESOME designers in the past year and both of them one day just dissapeared.

This is not a shot at design people but they are a special breed. ;)

DH

T - It's almost 2005 Grandpa.

Outsource.

Tony,

As long as you find some one local you should be fine. Creative work becomes a pain when you have to describe over phone or email.

Jay
objectcube.com

hahahah

Lens let me know when our team can help you with some site designs :)

My opinion on design work is that it can be outsourced rather easily. I've always preferred to focus on my core business which is where I excel best. This way you can focus on exactly what you do well and more easily react to market conditions. When you have divisions such as designers, programmers and various functions, adapting to change becomes more complicated.

That's my opinion at least for what it's worth... See you next week Tony!
WG

hire a new designer, his/her style will belong to your sites and give them a certain identity, 90% of the stuff out there is cookie cutter, i cant stand it.

always go for a unique style, and you designer will learn your pages and know the direction of each project overtime saving you time and money,

My opinion comes from 2 directions... 6 years as a magazine publisher and now 6 years in the net biz. We have never met but I keep tabs and know who does what and for you I would recommend keeping it in house so you can control access to what is going on and who has access to it since it sounds like you have regular work for them. Since you already seem to have a 1-2 year turnover rate I feel a great source of getting cutting edge brilliant people is going after top level college students in your area since most of them need real world work experience via internships as part of their graduation requirements. If you do outsource it, I would only do it with a firm local to your area unless it is someone you have come to know and trust elsewhere.

Good Luck.

Depends how quickly you want it..cant beat having in house people..even outsourced in house people..

Id evaluate how much work they actually have to do or heck even ask the guy thats leaving..if you need in house or could outsource..since he is leaving he will probably be honest..haha

Side Note: Sextoyking and his crew definitely have done nice work for us in the past on a couple of sites when we have outsourced. :thumbsup

Thanks for the Kudos :) A pleasure working with you guys.

i'm going to do some guess work here - so bear with me.

I'm assuming it's not only you that does the ideas for design, but several people from your companies that need to talk to a designer on an ongoing basis - and if that's the case - for that reason alone - for your situation if that is your situation I'd go in house.

In-house, T - def. in-house!

They both have their pros and cons but the ability to call someone into your office and break things down to them is priceless!

BTW - I'm already in Vegas for the duration ... call me when the eagle lands, home skillet - and let's get this party started early!!!

:winkwink:

In House, you have more of a hands on approach that way. They have your project and yours alone to handle, you are not in line with 20 others. :2 cents:

We used to do everything in house, and for the most part it worked ok. But along with that came the headaches of having to employ a lot more people. Then out of the blue we had to fire our main designer, he was good to start with but then work started slipping, and one thing and other and he was gone. This past year we have been outsourcing most of our projects. It is a move I should have done years ago! You pay for what you get, nothing more nothing less. Find a design company your happy with, build a rapour with them, ensure that they understand what you buisness needs. You wont regret it. Our programming is also outsourced. Takes a bit of getting used to, having to specify everything by email or phone, but after that its a breeze.
For your info one of the design companies we use is Webinc. Their a great team, we push em almost all our work, and I have never had a project back that I was not 100 percent happy with.

Designers tend to operate for a couple years then burn out.

WHat you are experiencing is normal.

In-house gives you an immediate quality control that you won't get with outsourced, that's a given. And given the nature of most of your companies, you're not looking for someone to build tours and gallery pages, you're looking for professional presentations that carry the central theme and project the image(s) that should be consistent, imo.

I use one of the most creative guys around. He is in house but also does work for others on his own.

Gavinish.com

Check out his work. May be worth it for you.

Consistency.

Better to have 2 years worth then 2 weeks worth by outsourcing. :2 cents:

in house

in house looks better IMO

In house if you can find a quality guy and he is worth it you will do better in the long run.

Just to clarify this comment both our designers were contractors and worked good for a time, then just disappeared, with mid-projects too!
I agree next time we are going to try and hire in-house....

Very interesting......I just woke up and read the replies. My brain usually wakes up about a half hour after my body so let me digest this and take a shower and I will be back.

Thanks for all the different points of view....I have to admit that I was not expecting it to be this diverse of a group....in fact, I figured that with all of the deisgners that are on this board everyone would be telling me to outsource......very interesting indeed.


--T

I would say that from my experience, the benefits of an in-house designer outweigh an outsourced one.

Outsourced programming is great, because there isn't much room for them to go outside what you want.....unless they do the job wrong or the specifications were too vague.

Design, on the other hand, is a lot of back-and-forth work. You want things to look just right, change this, fix that, try this, etc.....

Outsourced, you will lose a lot of time on just this one aspect. Unless you don't really care what your sites look like and let the outsourcing company just build you something with the sections you ask for.

As for 2 years, I think that's a great turnover time. The hiring process is a pain, but you will get someone with fresh ideas, fresh designs and hopefully updated skills (your current designer might not keep on the edge of technology if he has a comfy job where it's not required)

Those are my thoughts for you :winkwink:

Have someone in House that work on Major stuff and be in charge of outsourcing galleries, banners, etc...:)

Sweet T -

I'm going to break from the other recommendations here and suggest outsourcing to a design company. Now note I said design company, not designer.

While an in-house guy brings advantages, I feel they are outweighed by the values and relationship with an outsourced team. With an in-house guy you will certainly save a few bucks, however you only have access to one designers talent, creativity and ideas. When outsourcing you have access to a TEAM of designers and programmers who can pool their talents, creativity and ideas for the betterment of your project. Not only that, but you may be assigned a project manager who will actually care about you and your company. His job is to learn EXACTLY what you want and to manage the different designers on the project, saving you time and headaches!

Moreover, there isn't as much of a learning curve. When hiring a new employee there is always an adjustment period. The designer has to set up his station, get compfortable within the company and really doesn't have top output for at least a few weeks. With outsourcing, you only pay for the final product, not the learning curve.

With that said, You have my number T! If I can be of any assistance, please let me know. I'd love to grab your ear for a second and give a few real world experiences to help make your decision a little easier :thumbsup

Happy Holidays!

We give ours half a day then it's time t get to work slave !!! :1orglaugh

In-house

While I'm sure they get some work done, it's certainly not their full quality work! :-)

Tony,

There are indeed two sides to everything, (three if you count the right side), but I'm a control freak, so it would be my choice to hire in-house just so I know the work is getting done to my specifications without excuses.

However, I can also see the intelligence of outsourcing. It would be cheaper, you wouldn't have to change people every couple of years, and with a reputable company, I highly doubt that you'd have to worry too much about getting stiffed. Besides, I've seen incredible work done by folks whose ideas I'd never have had. Keep the ideas fresh and that alone is worth a fortune, imho.

Whatever you choose, I wish you the best.