Ben Bleikamp wrote a short, thought-provoking post titled, Hire Good Designers that inspired this post.

Poor design is everywhere, and this is a good thing. It makes the job of finding a good designer that much easier, if you’re willing to do a little homework.

When a new client calls us, I often get asked seemingly odd questions like, “Have you designed a pet store website before?” when approached to design a pet store website. No matter how I answer, I am suspect, which makes me wonder if the client has any idea what answer they were hoping for.

If I answer, “Yes,” the client wants to know which site to make sure that it’s not a competitor site. (I’m a professional — I don’t compare notes between clients in the same industry or market.)

If I answer “No, I haven’t designed a pet store website, but I have the relevant experience needed to do just that for you,” the reply is occasionally an equally befuddling decline since I ‘lack relevant experience.’ Which is, well, patently incorrect. I have 26 years of relevant experience in graphic design, website design and advertising, and I’ve done retail design with great success. It’s not the industry experience that is relevant — it’s the design experience.

Design is design is design
It’s not the industry or technology that you should be seeking. As Bleikamp points out, “Don’t search for a WordPress Designer.” You need to hire a good designer, plain and simple. Some of the base skills a good graphic designer possesses are objectivity, experience, passion for problem-solving, originality and solid strategy skills.

In his bestseller, “On Writing,” Stephen King points out that “It is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer.” The same thing goes for graphic designers. You either got it, or you don’t. If you hire a designer who knows how to design blogs, but doesn’t know the first thing about designing identity or the components of a strong brand, they’re not magically going to acquire that critical knowledge along the way.

A good designer has a myriad of experience in design disciplines, and knows more than a thing or two about marketing and strategy. Without that knowledge, they’re essentially just creating art. You don’t need art. You need good design.

Two good rules of thumb when hiring a designer are:
1. Price is not the first consideration. It really is a case of you get what you pay for.
2. Hire a designer you can communicate well — and laugh — with.

Know what to ask
I don’t expect a prospective client to know the difference between good and poor design. Coming into a hiring conversation, however, it would be helpful to us both if the client knew which questions to ask to find the designer who is right for them. So here’s a list of helpful, relevant questions to ask when you need to hire a good designer.

1. What are your core talents and skills?
2. What are your weaknesses?
3. Do you do your own design work? Or farm it out?
4. Can you take a project through all stages, start to finish? What parts can you not handle?
5. What makes you a good communicator?
6. How do you approach problem-solving?
7. Where does strategy fit into your process?
8. What is your minimum project fee?

Start with the goal in mind, ask good questions, and you’ll stand a much greater chance of finding a good graphic designer or web designer you like.

Businesses can no longer afford to view consumers as commodity because products and services have become commodity. No one can afford to treat their customers with disrespect because customers now have the wherewithal to simply contract with someone else who will treat them better, choose a different brand, or drop the service altogether. That’s a fact that will only increase in validity with time, on both the high end and the low end.

On the low end, people will realize that things like over-billing and abusive phone calls are not worth the price of the service, and they will simply cancel.

On the high end, people will not tolerate customer service abuse because they can move to another company who will be happy to have them.

Your brand has never been more important
Providing great service will help people have a good experience. Great service makes you valuable. Your brand provides welcome reinforcement to the experience.

A T-Mobile agent recently told me that T-Mobile doesn’t even try to keep customers anymore. (I’m not entirely sure I believe this, but he certainly did.) He said they expect they will lose a certain number of customers every month. They also expect their competitors will lose a similar number of customers each month who will then sign up with T-Mobile. That means T-Mobile is viewing itself as a disposable company, providing a disposable service. Wow. If they view themselves as disposable, it comes across in their dialog and marketing, and customers will come to believe it too. That’s a powerfully bad attitude that will poison their brand.

It is infinitely cheaper to keep existing customers happy than it is to acquire new customers. The cost of marketing and advertising, the lower priced offers, the initial service contacts during set-up — all of these increase the cost of new customers acquisition. They also quickly add up to show the value of keeping existing customers happy.

The same thing applies if you sell a product. Just apply the parameters a bit differently. The cost of better components or ingredients will very likely outweigh the cost of marketing for new customers.

Keeping current customers happy by keeping product quality high will pay off by keeping your brand top of mind, valuable, an indispensable part of peoples’ lives.

Type is one of the primary ways you express your brand. When used in your corporate identity, it exudes a personality and imparts character. It has the power to stand out, and people really take notice. Like all things ‘brand’, it’s preferable for your text to have a unique character that actually describes your brand.

Type can express virtually any characteristic, such as wisdom, nostalgia, historical, modern, cutting edge, rebellious, conservative. You name it, it can be done with type.

What is Custom Type?
One element of graphic design that most people take for granted is type. The letters you read on every website, and in books, newspapers, magazines, advertisements, and packages have all been carefully drawn, refined, and programmed into a font by skilled graphic designers. Custom type is a typeface which has been drawn and programmed specifically for you. That means that no other business has the same type in use.

A custom typeface can be drawn from scratch, or it can be an edit to the shapes of an existing typeface. It can be just the characters used in your name, or it can be an entire alphabet, with numbers and punctuation.

Custom typefaces are common in the world of publishing. Publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Dwell and Esquire utilize custom type to add to their unique voices. From corporations to non-profits to the arts, organizations use custom type to bring a more memorable look to their identity, advertising, and other marketing communications.

How do custom typefaces work?
Since people remember information first by shape, then by color, and third by type, custom type works in double capacity — with shape and type — to make your logo and communications more memorable.

Why not use the system fonts on your computer for your logo?
Virtually everyone is familiar with system fonts, so they don’t stand out. Also, system fonts are designed for optimum on-screen readability. They are generally not optimized for print, which means they can be harder to read off screen. Are there exceptions? Sure, but they are few and far between.

When should custom type be considered?
Custom type most commonly comes into the picture with logo design, but it can also be considered for all brand and marketing communications, including advertising and collateral.

When you want your identity to speak with a voice that is unique to your business, to communicate with purpose, and embody a character all its own, you should consider custom type design.

1. Find a brand development firm or designer who truly speaks and understands the language of branding.
2. Listen to your brand consultant. If they are good, they will listen to you.
3. Take time to consider the brand strategy questions.
4. Be truthful. Don’t hold back.
5. Expect your brand to revolutionize your marketing. Know that it may take time.
6. Don’t take your brand for granted. It can be the most powerful marketing tool you will ever have.
7. Inspire your people to believe in your brand, because it is true– it’s you.
8. Stay true to your brand, and your brand will stay true to you.