How to Hire a Designer: A No-BS Guide from Someone Who's Done It

Why Most People Screw This Up

I've hired dozens of designers over the years for everything from SaaS interfaces to YouTube thumbnails to landing pages. Here's what I learned the hard way: most people either hire too fast based on a pretty portfolio, or they overthink it and never pull the trigger.

The result? Either you get stuck with someone who can't execute, or your project sits in limbo while you endlessly evaluate candidates.

This guide walks through how I hire designers now, after making every mistake possible. You'll learn where to actually find good designers, how to vet them properly, and how to structure the relationship so you both win.

I've seen this exact pattern when hiring designers for cold email campaigns. One client spent $15,000 on a designer who made "beautiful" emails that got a 2% response rate. The problem? They optimized for aesthetics instead of results. When we brought in a designer who understood direct response, we hit 30%+ reply rates with emails that looked plain as hell. The lesson: you need to know exactly what success looks like before you hire anyone.

Step 1: Know Exactly What You Need

Before you post a single job listing, get crystal clear on what you're actually hiring for. "Designer" is too vague. Are you hiring for:

• UI/UX design - Someone who designs software interfaces and user flows
• Brand/identity design - Logos, color schemes, brand guidelines
• Marketing/web design - Landing pages, sales pages, email templates
• Graphic design - Social media graphics, ads, thumbnails
• Motion design - Video graphics, animations, transitions
• Product design - End-to-end product thinking, combining UX strategy with visual execution

These are different skill sets. A great UI designer might suck at making Instagram carousels. A killer brand designer might have no idea how to design a SaaS dashboard.

Write down the specific deliverables you need. Not "help with design" but "design 5 landing pages per month" or "create a complete brand identity including logo, colors, fonts, and 20-page brand guide."

This clarity will save you hours of wasted calls with the wrong people.

Understanding Design Specializations

The design world has gotten more specialized. When you say "I need a designer," you might actually need someone focused on interaction design (how users move through flows), visual design (colors, typography, aesthetics), or information architecture (organizing content so users can find what they need).

Some designers are generalists who can handle multiple areas. Others go deep on one specialty. Neither is better - it depends on your project. A startup building its first product often needs a generalist. An established company refining a complex dashboard might need a specialist who lives and breathes UI patterns.

Ask yourself: do you need someone who can do a little bit of everything, or someone who's the absolute best at one thing?

Where to Actually Find Designers

Here's where I source designers, ranked by how often I use each:

Dribbble and Behance

These are portfolio sites where designers showcase their work. I use them more for sourcing than the job boards. Search for the specific style or type of work you need, find 10-20 designers whose portfolios match, then reach out directly.

Most designers list their email or have a contact form. A simple cold email works: "Saw your work on Dribbble. I'm looking for someone to design landing pages for a B2B SaaS. Are you taking new clients? Here's what I need..."

Response rates are decent because you're complimenting their work and being specific about the project.

Upwork and Contra

Upwork gets a bad rap, but I've found solid designers there. The key is knowing how to filter. Sort by "Top Rated," only look at people with 90%+ job success scores and real portfolio pieces (not just templated work).

Read their reviews carefully. Look for complaints about communication, missed deadlines, or revisions. A few bad reviews in hundreds is normal. A pattern is a red flag.

Contra is newer and has a higher average quality. Less noise to filter through, though the pool is smaller.

Referrals from Other Founders

This is hit or miss. Someone else's perfect designer might not work for you because design is subjective. But referrals do reduce the risk of complete disasters.

If you go this route, still look at their portfolio and do a paid test project. Don't skip vetting just because they come recommended.

Twitter/X and LinkedIn

Surprisingly good for finding designers. Search "freelance designer" or "design freelancer" and look through profiles. Many designers tweet their work and availability.

The advantage here is you can see how they communicate and present themselves publicly before reaching out. LinkedIn works similarly - you can see their work history and how they position themselves professionally.

Design Communities and Slack Groups

Communities like Designer Hangout, UX Design Community, and niche Slack groups often have job boards or channels where designers look for work. The quality tends to be higher because these designers are actively involved in their craft.

You'll find people who keep up with trends, care about their professional development, and network with other designers. These are good signs.

How to Vet Portfolios (Most People Do This Wrong)

Looking at pretty pictures isn't enough. Here's what I actually evaluate:

Look for Results, Not Just Aesthetics

A gorgeous landing page means nothing if it didn't convert. When reviewing portfolios, I ask: "What was the goal of this project? What were the results?"

Good designers can tell you the conversion rate before and after, the click-through rate on the new email design, or the engagement metrics on the rebrand. If they can't talk about business outcomes, they're just making things look nice.

Check if They Solved Actual Problems

Read the case studies, if they have them. Do they explain the problem they were solving, or just show the final design?

Example: A case study that says "Created a modern, clean interface" tells me nothing. A case study that says "Users were abandoning signup at step 3, so we simplified the form and added trust signals, reducing drop-off by 40%" tells me they think like a business owner.

Evaluate the Process, Not Just the Output

The best portfolios show how a designer thinks. Look for evidence of research, iteration, and testing. Did they show wireframes before final designs? Did they test multiple approaches?

Designers who document their process demonstrate they're not just executing on gut feelings. They're making informed decisions based on user needs and business goals.

Look for Consistency

Do they have 5-10 solid pieces in the style you need, or just one that happens to match? One-offs might be flukes or spec work copied from somewhere else.

Verify It's Actually Their Work

Sad but necessary: some people steal portfolio pieces. If something looks suspiciously good compared to the rest of their work, reverse image search it. I've caught this twice.

Check for Design Fundamentals

Even if you're not a designer, you can spot good fundamentals. Is the typography readable? Do the colors work together? Is there clear visual hierarchy so you know where to look first? Does the spacing feel balanced?

Bad fundamentals usually mean someone learned to copy trends without understanding why they work.

The Interview: Questions That Actually Matter

Most people waste interviews on surface-level questions. Here's what I actually want to know:

Walk Me Through Your Process

This tells me if they have a repeatable system or if they just wing it. Good designers can articulate how they move from brief to research to concepts to final delivery.

Red flag: "I just start designing and see what happens." That's not a process, that's gambling.

Tell Me About a Project That Failed

If they say they've never had a project fail, they're lying or they haven't done enough work. I want to hear what went wrong and what they learned.

This shows self-awareness and the ability to learn from mistakes.

How Do You Handle Feedback You Disagree With?

Design involves a lot of feedback. Some of it will be wrong or based on personal preference rather than user needs. I want to know if they can push back professionally or if they just say yes to everything.

Good answer: "I try to understand the concern behind the feedback, then explain my design rationale. If it's a valid point, I revise. If not, I'll explain why the current approach works better and maybe show data or examples."

What Questions Do You Have for Me?

Designers who ask good questions about the target audience, business goals, and success metrics are thinking like partners. Designers who only ask about deadlines and payment are thinking like vendors.

I'd rather work with partners.

The Test Project (Do This Every Time)

Never hire a designer for a big project without a paid test first. Not free - paid. Free tests attract people who aren't serious. But keep it small.

I typically pay $200-500 for a single deliverable that will take them a few hours. For a landing page designer, I might ask for one section. For a brand designer, maybe a logo concept. For a UI designer, a single screen.

This tells me:

• Can they follow a brief?
• Do they ask good questions?
• How many revisions does it take?
• Do they hit deadlines?
• Can they take feedback without getting defensive?
• Do they communicate proactively or do I have to chase them?

The actual design quality matters less than how they work. I can coach someone on design direction. I can't fix someone who ghosts for three days or argues about every revision.

Structure Your Test Project Brief

Your test project brief should include everything the designer needs: the goal, the audience, brand guidelines (if any), technical specs, inspiration examples, and the deadline. If they deliver something that misses the mark, I want to know if it's because they can't design or because I wrote a bad brief.

A good test project mimics real work you'll actually do together. Don't ask for something you'll never use.

I dig into this step by step here:

What to Actually Pay

Rates vary wildly based on experience, location, and specialization. Here's what I've seen:

Junior designers (0-2 years): $25-50/hour or $300-800 per project

Mid-level designers (3-5 years): $50-100/hour or $800-2,500 per project

Senior designers (5+ years): $100-200+/hour or $2,500-10,000+ per project

Specialized experts (motion, brand strategy, UX research): Often command premium rates, sometimes $150-300/hour

Project-based pricing usually works better than hourly for both sides. The designer isn't penalized for being fast, and you know the total cost upfront.

I typically ask for project-based quotes after explaining exactly what I need. If they can only do hourly, I ask for an estimate with a cap: "Bill hourly but don't exceed $X without checking with me first."

When to Pay More

Pay more when the designer brings strategic thinking, not just execution. Someone who can look at your business model and suggest design solutions you hadn't thought of is worth 2-3x someone who just takes orders.

Pay more for designers who've worked in your industry. A designer who's built 10 SaaS dashboards will be faster and make fewer mistakes than someone doing their first one.

Pay more for reliability. A designer who consistently hits deadlines and communicates well is worth a premium.

Here's what I actually paid when scaling my agency: I hired a designer in a developing economy for $500/month to create email templates. That designer helped us close $600,000 in annual recurring revenue in 60 days. Meanwhile, I've seen startups blow $5,000 on a single landing page from a US-based designer that converted at 0.5%. Your budget should match your testing velocity-if you're iterating daily, hire cheaper and faster. If you're locked into a design for 6 months, spend more upfront.

Red Flags During the Hiring Process

Walk away if you see these:

• Can't articulate their process - They should be able to explain how they work, from brief to final delivery
• Defensive about feedback - If they get touchy during the test project, it'll only get worse
• No questions about the business - Good designers ask about your goals, audience, and competition
• Promises unrealistic timelines - "I can design your entire app in two days" = disaster incoming
• Won't provide references - If they've done good work, past clients will vouch for them
• Vague about their role in portfolio projects - Did they actually design this, or were they one of five people on the team?
• Only talks about aesthetics - Never mentions users, business goals, or outcomes
• Terrible portfolio presentation - If a designer can't design their own portfolio well, that's telling

How to Write the Job Post

Your job post should filter out 90% of applicants. That's good. You want fewer, better responses.

Here's the structure I use:

Project overview: Two sentences on what you're building and why.

Specific deliverables: Exactly what you need, with quantities and formats.

Timeline: When you need it done.

Budget: Either a range or "Please include your rate in your proposal."

Portfolio requirement: "Include 3 examples of [specific type of work]."

Application filter: "Start your proposal with the word DESIGN so I know you read this."

That last part cuts out the spray-and-pray applicants who blast the same generic proposal to 100 posts.

Be Specific About What You Don't Want

I often add a line like "Please don't apply if you primarily use templates" or "This role requires figma experience - sketch won't work for our workflow." This saves everyone time.

Managing the Relationship

Once you hire someone, set them up for success:

Give Clear Briefs

The more specific you are upfront, the fewer revisions you'll need. I include:

• Goal of the design (what should it make people do?)
• Target audience (who's looking at this?)
• Inspiration examples (not to copy, but to communicate style)
• Brand guidelines or assets
• Technical requirements (dimensions, file formats, etc.)
• Deadline
• Success criteria (what does "done" look like?)

Structured Feedback

Don't just say "I don't like it." Explain what isn't working and why. Reference the original brief if something is off-target.

I use this format: "What's working well: [specific things]. What needs adjustment: [specific issues and why]. Here's what I'm hoping to achieve: [restate the goal]."

This keeps feedback constructive instead of personal. Designers can't fix "I don't like it" but they can fix "The headline doesn't clearly communicate the value proposition for enterprise buyers."

Pay on Time

This should be obvious, but fast payment gets you priority treatment. When a designer has five clients and one pays within 24 hours, guess who gets faster turnarounds?

Collaborate on Tools and Handoff

Get on the same page about tools early. Most designers work in Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD. Make sure whatever they use works for your team.

If you have developers, ask about design handoff. Can they provide specs and assets in the format your devs need? Tools like Figma's Dev Mode, Zeplin, or Avocode make handoff easier.

This matters more than you think. A designer who delivers perfect mockups in a format your team can't use creates more problems than they solve.

I manage designers the same way I manage my lead generation team: with benchmark stats. My email designers need to produce 5-10 template variations per week that maintain our target reply rates. If response rates drop below benchmark after a design change, we revert immediately. I've had clients who let designers go weeks without checking performance metrics-that's how you end up with pretty emails that don't book meetings. Set the KPIs upfront: open rates, reply rates, and meeting bookings per hundred sends.

Building Your Design Pipeline

If you need ongoing design work, don't hire someone once and disappear. Build relationships.

I keep a roster of 3-4 designers I've worked with and trust. When I need something, I know exactly who to call based on the type of project. This beats starting from scratch every time.

To build this roster, I dedicate time to testing new designers even when I don't have urgent projects. A small test project here and there helps me discover talent I can rely on later.

For my agencies and companies, having pre-vetted designers means we can move fast when opportunities come up. No waiting two weeks to hire someone when a client needs a landing page tomorrow.

Maintain the Relationship

Stay in touch with good designers even during slow periods. Send them interesting work you've seen, refer them to others, or just check in. When you need them again, you'll be top of mind.

Good designers stay busy. If you want them available when you need them, maintain the relationship.

Finding Designers for Specific Niches

Sometimes you need designers with specific experience. Here's how to find them:

Local businesses: If you're targeting local businesses (restaurants, contractors, service providers), you might need their contact information to reach out directly. A Google Maps scraper can help you build lists of potential clients who might need design work.

E-commerce: Designers who specialize in e-commerce understand product photography, conversion optimization, and how to design for mobile shoppers. Look for portfolios with Shopify or WooCommerce projects.

SaaS: SaaS designers need to understand onboarding flows, dashboard design, and designing for complex workflows. They should talk about user activation and feature adoption, not just pretty interfaces.

B2B vs B2C: B2B design often requires more explanation and trust-building. B2C design focuses more on emotion and quick decisions. Make sure your designer understands which audience you're targeting.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Hiring based on price alone: The cheapest designer will cost you more in revisions, missed deadlines, and redoing the work with someone else.

Skipping the contract: Even for small projects, outline deliverables, timeline, revisions included, and payment terms in writing. Prevents 90% of disputes.

Micromanaging: You hired them for their expertise. Give feedback, but don't art-direct every pixel unless you want to pay hourly for endless revisions.

No clear success criteria: Define what "done" looks like before they start. Otherwise, you'll keep asking for "just one more tweak" forever.

Expecting mind reading: Designers can't read your mind. If you have specific requirements or preferences, say them upfront. Don't wait until the third revision to mention "Oh, I hate the color blue."

Comparing designers to each other: "The last designer did it this way" isn't helpful feedback. Each designer has their own process and approach. Judge the work on its merits, not on whether it matches what someone else did.

Ignoring communication red flags: If communication is difficult during hiring, it'll be worse during the project. Trust your gut.

The biggest mistake? Hiring before you know what works. I literally sat at Starbucks playing N64 games while emails I'd personally written booked 8 meetings from 20 sends. Only after I'd proven the system did I hire someone to scale it. One client hired a designer on day one to "build their brand" and burned through $40,000 before sending a single campaign. Start scrappy, prove the concept yourself, then hire designers to scale what's already working.

When to Hire Full-Time vs. Freelance

Freelance when:

• You have project-based needs
• You need specialized skills you won't use daily
• You're testing what design work you actually need
• Your budget is tight
• You want to work with the best specialists (who often freelance)

Full-time when:

• You have consistent daily design needs
• You need someone embedded in your team and processes
• You're building a product that requires constant iteration
• The cost of onboarding freelancers repeatedly exceeds a salary
• You need someone who deeply understands your business over time

I ran agencies for years on 100% freelance design. Only hired full-time designers when we had enough client work to keep them busy 40 hours per week. Before that point, it didn't make financial sense.

The Hybrid Approach

Some companies hire one senior designer full-time and supplement with freelancers for overflow or specialized work. This gives you consistency plus flexibility.

The full-time designer becomes the quality gatekeeper and manages relationships with freelancers. This works well if you have variable design needs.

Working with Design Agencies

Sometimes you need more than one designer or you need a full team. That's when agencies make sense.

Agencies work well when:

• You need multiple designers with different specializations
• You have a large project with tight deadlines
• You want one point of contact managing everything
• You need proven processes and project management

Agencies cost more - usually 2-3x what you'd pay a freelancer. But you get reliability, backup if someone gets sick, and usually faster turnaround because they can throw multiple people at your project.

Vet agencies the same way you'd vet individuals. Look at case studies, ask about their process, do a small test project before committing to something big.

Design Systems and Scaling Design Work

If you're going to do a lot of design work, invest in a design system early. This is a library of reusable components - buttons, colors, typography, form fields - that keep everything consistent.

Without a design system, every designer you work with reinvents the wheel. With one, they can move faster and your brand stays consistent.

Good designers will appreciate having a design system. It gives them constraints to work within, which actually makes creative work easier.

Tools like Figma make creating and sharing design systems easy. Even a basic one with your colors, fonts, and common UI elements saves massive time.

Tools to Make This Easier

For managing design projects, I use Monday.com to track deliverables, deadlines, and revisions. Keeps everything organized when you're working with multiple designers.

For feedback, Loom videos work better than long written notes. I can show exactly what I mean in 2 minutes instead of writing paragraphs. Designers tell me video feedback is 10x clearer than written feedback.

For contracts, I use simple templates from Bonsai or HelloSign. Nothing fancy, just covers the basics: deliverables, timeline, payment terms, revision policy, ownership of files.

For collaboration, most designers live in Figma these days. Get a free viewer account so you can leave comments directly on designs. This is way better than trying to describe changes over email.

For file sharing and organization, I create a shared folder (Google Drive or Dropbox) for each project with clear folders: Brief, Brand Assets, Inspiration, Drafts, Finals. Keeps everything in one place.

Here's my actual tech stack for working with designers: I use personalized cold email at volume, not design tools. When I cold called Coca-Cola's director of marketing (there's a YouTube video of this), I got one conversation. When I emailed 100 similar companies, I booked 4-8 meetings in a few hours. The tool that matters most isn't Figma or Canva-it's whatever lets your designer produce testable variations fast. I've built multiple seven-figure agencies using Google Docs and basic HTML templates.

What About AI Design Tools?

AI design tools are getting better, but they're not replacing human designers anytime soon. Here's the reality:

AI tools like Midjourney or DALL-E can create imagery, but they can't solve business problems. They don't understand your users, your goals, or why one design approach works better than another.

Smart designers use AI tools to work faster - generating concepts, creating imagery, or handling repetitive tasks. But the strategic thinking still comes from humans.

If you're hiring, ask how designers use AI in their workflow. The best ones will have incorporated it to be more efficient. The ones who haven't even tried it might be falling behind.

But don't hire AI tools instead of designers. You'll end up with generic work that looks like everyone else's. Hire designers who use AI as one tool among many.

What I Wish I Knew Earlier

Design is one of those things where the market is flooded with mediocre options and the great ones are always busy. The key is finding good people, treating them well, and keeping them in your orbit.

The best hiring decision I made was switching from "find the cheapest designer" to "find someone good and pay them fairly." My cost per project went up 2-3x, but my time spent on revisions and redo's dropped by 10x.

Time is worth more than money. A designer who gets it right the first time and hits deadlines is worth paying extra for.

If you're building an agency or growing a business that needs consistent design output, document your design processes and brand guidelines. I cover how to systematize this kind of thing inside Galadon Gold, but the short version is: make it easy for new designers to deliver what you want without 20 rounds of feedback.

The framework I use for evaluating and onboarding any new hire - including designers - is in the 7-Figure Agency Blueprint. It's helped thousands of agency owners build teams that actually function.

Another thing I learned: design isn't just about making things pretty. It's about solving problems. The designers who get this are the ones worth keeping around. The ones who just want to make things look nice without understanding the business context are the ones who create more work than they solve.

Building Internal Design Capability

Even if you're not a designer, learn the basics. Understanding design principles makes you a better client and helps you evaluate work more objectively.

You don't need to learn Figma or Photoshop. But learn about hierarchy, contrast, whitespace, and how design directs attention. Learn the difference between good and bad typography. Learn why certain color combinations work.

This knowledge helps you give better feedback and spot problems earlier. It also helps you tell the difference between subjective preference ("I don't like blue") and actual design problems ("The call-to-action doesn't stand out enough").

Resources I recommend: Refactoring UI (book), Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug (for UX), The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman (for understanding how people interact with things).

Design for Different Channels

A common mistake is hiring one designer and expecting them to design everything. But designing for different channels requires different skills:

Web design requires understanding responsive layouts, how people scan websites, and designing for different screen sizes.

Social media graphics need to grab attention in a crowded feed, often with minimal text and bold visuals.

Email design has technical constraints (not all email clients support modern design) and needs to work with images turned off.

Print design requires knowledge of CMYK color, bleed, resolution, and how ink behaves on different papers.

Mobile app design needs to account for thumb zones, platform conventions (iOS vs Android), and designing for one-handed use.

Make sure your designer has experience with the specific channels you need. Or hire specialists for different channels.

The Long-Term View

Hiring designers isn't a one-time thing. It's an ongoing process of finding talent, testing them, and building relationships with the ones who work well.

Treat it like building a network. Stay in touch with good designers. Refer work to them. Build a reputation as someone who's good to work with. This compounds over time.

The designers I work with now are people I've known for years. I trust them, they trust me, and we can move fast because we've built that relationship.

That's the real goal: not finding A designer, but building a stable of people you can rely on for different types of projects.

Bottom line: hiring designers isn't complicated, but it does require being specific about what you need, thorough in vetting, and clear in communication. Do those three things and you'll avoid 95% of the problems people complain about.

Start with small projects, build relationships with people who deliver, and over time you'll have a roster of designers you can call on for anything. That's when design becomes an asset instead of a headache.