 Now what does a designer do? They bring your unique concept and your vision into the world, so basically you tell them how you want things done and they put it into designs, they put it into different collateral so then that way it brings your vision and concept into the world. So these items would span from your social media content to your Facebook profile to your packaging to even designs like these ones, like a PowerPoint design. So basically they're the ones that create everything for you that invokes a certain feeling that you want to bring to the world. Now why is it important for you to find a great designer? Because a bad designer can invoke the wrong feeling and when the feeling is wrong then it's going to cost you a lot of money to fix everything back up because it just doesn't live up to your standard and nothing aligns within your food concept. So that's the reason why you need to find a great designer and on top of that it's going to be very costly if they don't have the right characteristics whereas a great designer creates the perfect vibe, the perfect feeling you want to bring out within your timeline and within your budget and that's the reason why you need to pay a lot of attention into finding a great designer. Now the eight characteristics of a great designer pay attention guys first up good communication this is by far the most important characteristic out there for finding a designer because if they don't communicate well or if they mess up and they don't tell you or if they're late or if they cannot make timelines it really hurts your whole production schedule because printing takes time, delivering takes time and creating your whole project takes time. Designer plays a crucial role and if they don't communicate well with you and if they're scared of communication then that's a sign of a very bad designer. Next up a diverse and high-quality portfolio so you want to be able to work with designers who have a diverse portfolio because a lot of designers end up having only one style and they only stick to that style and if they stick to that style and if you're looking for something for example much more poppy much more fun and yet they're very minimal they cannot create that type of design for you and it's not going to be a good match and which is the reason why finding a designer that has a diverse portfolio would allow you to actually be more flexible with your specific design. Next up has relevant industry experience that's a really key one because people that haven't designed for restaurants or the food market they don't know the nuances within this industry the focus might be completely different and that's the reason why finding someone who has done design within the industry would be a big big bonus. Next up understands your brand and their target audience they need to understand the importance of client avatar they need to understand the vision of your brand and if they don't then that's a really really big thing and it really comes back down to the communication aspect that if and when you describe your vision to them and your concept to them they need to be able to understand it and to understand who your target audience would be. Has multiple professional referrals good designers usually have worked with a ton of different people and they usually have a lot of referrals as well so having the referrals doesn't mean you have to call their referrals but if they don't even have friends who is willing to give them a good referral and a good recommendation then that's a really big red flag as well. Next up they don't take criticisms personally because a lot of times creatives designers have quite a high of an ego right so if they take it very personally with your criticism then that's a bad sign because they think that their design is under attack and that's not a collaborative effort sometimes what you have in mind and what they create might just be a gap and just needs that alignment so definitely work with people that don't take your criticisms personally and seventh characteristics are the ones that focus on not only the aesthetics but also the practicality equally and what I mean by that is for example a design like this for this page right it's aesthetically nice yet it is also very practical because it allows us to focus on these characteristics whereas some designers they might be really focusing on just the aesthetics they're just very very creative people and they don't really care about how practical it comes across how these words can fit into this whole image no they don't care they only focus on hey you know how these lines are merging how the image is and that's a really really big problem as well lastly just work with someone who has a good attitude if their attitude is kind of shitty why bother pay them and also take their attitude we don't want that which is the reason why this is the eight characteristics of a great designer that you should really really pay attention to now we understand deaf characteristics that makes for a great designer now we're talking about the five places where you're going to be able to hire these great designers first off online platforms have a ton of different designers so we're talking about fiverr.com this is basically a website that has five dollars with five dollars you can actually get people to actually help you design stuff they do have a lot of different services and providers and obviously the prices would go up depending on the different assets and the different graphics you want them to work on but fiverr is a really great choice upwork is a little bit different come more customized projects that you can throw in there 99 designs is even more expensive so online platforms I wouldn't say that it's a bad idea it's a great idea because some of them you can actually get really good rates allows you to set a budget timeline and project scope referral friends and family guaranteed quality performance because for example if there are people that are not good then your friends and family won't refer them and on top of that if it's referred by friends and family then most likely the values have are much closer and they're much more better people in my opinion that is right and which is the reason why I much prefer to hire from friends and family over online sites like this because I like to see my designer face to face I feel like that I can just sit next to them and actually give them pointers as they design different assets for me next up job sites and agencies indeed in linkedin is a really great place for you to find great talent once again however it can be expensive if you're working with agencies so definitely keep note of that student talent I love working with student talent because I love the empowerment I love giving them opportunity and I love mentorship so that's that's the reason why I'm signed up with a lot of different career boards across our local university so definitely if you have the opportunity go and talk to your university counselors and they will be able to hook you up with the career boards these guys are very affordable options as well and lastly craigslist and newspaper once again this is probably the least reliable sources for finding graphic designers and I would really not use this as my I guess resource right like I don't like hiring from craigslist nor newspaper I feel like that candidates are usually not that great and they're very very bottom of the barrel kind of deal so before you hire your designers what are you going to do you're going to have to interview them be very clear about your goals what you want to achieve how what is your timeline and the expectations what do you expect them to do when do you expect them to have the first draft when do you expect to have your next revision set up all the clear boundaries of working with them and then next up provide a test run for them don't give them your whole project don't give them everything that you have to design give them one item and one thing for them to design whether it's paid or whether or it's not paid it doesn't really matter because paying for a design hey you know what if it's great you can use it if not it's completely fine okay because the cost of you of hiring a bad designer outweighs the cost of you just having a test run way way way way better for you to do a test run to see whether they have those fulfillment for the a characteristics we're going to assign a quick task for them for example design a promotional poster for your food concept usually that's a really really clear indication of whether they're qualified to become your designer or not whether you have a logo or not it doesn't really matter so for example if it's wilson's fried chicken i'm not going to tell her to create my logo i'll just be like yo hey can you create something called wilson's fried chicken is promotional poster uh buy five pieces for ten bucks you know give them all the details you want and tell them the feeling you want to invoke tell them the vibe you want to go for and then they're going to create something and you are going to see whether they have great communication or not whether the quality is there or not and whether they're good and easy to work with or not pro tip here is to don't put all your eggs in one basket what does that mean that means if possible and if budget allows i would highly highly recommend you hiring two designers to work with for the tests for this test design task i would hire two different designers minimum to work on that so then that way you can like cut short your time and to really find people that are good so when you have two candidates that are going head to head you can have a comparison of two different designs and you're going to see which ones have better communications with you and you end up choosing the right one now it is your turn research on the platforms and find two different designers for your food concept if you don't want to hire from food from from these websites go and post on your instagram book go and post on your facebook go and reach out to people you know and ask them if they have a designer referral find two designers to work with assign one test project for them to get started before you assign all the different assets to them and all the different designs because you don't want to waste your time and money on a bad designer next up add this startup cost to your list and recalculate your break even point so there you guys go i'll see you guys in the next lesson