In our article “How To Create Jaw-Dropping Photo Booth Designs”, we said that you could hire a freelance designer to help you with your photo booth templates. But there are so many good designers out there, with a myriad of different styles and specializations. So now the question is: how to find THE designer that can help you with your business?

Why should you hire a freelance designer?

If you don’t have the time nor the talent needed to create good designs for your photo booth, then you will need to outsource them. You usually end up with two main options: choosing to work with either a design agency or a freelance designer.

Reaching to agencies might be a good option to have access to an entire team with different skill sets and styles. You will be sure to get a good quality design. But they are pricier.

A freelance designer might be more affordable since they mainly work on a project-to-project basis. And since they are not limited by office hours, they can also deliver a good quality result in a short time. But they are also a real asset that will help you develop your business in the long term. Therefore, you need to have a thorough hiring process.

Working with a freelance designer is a real collaboration process. You need to be ready to communicate a lot with your designer. Share a clear vision of your project and brief them really good so they can create designs that meet your expectations.

Know what you want

Before you go on a big search to find the best designer for your photo booth business, you need to sit down and define your objectives and goals. Here are a few questions that you can ask yourself:

• What type of design do I want? For a photo booth campaign, you need to know if you want overlays, start screens, stickers or print layouts… Each design has its own specs that will need to be shared with the designer.
• Is there a specific design language that needs to be respected? You most likely are creating a campaign for a specific event and your client will have his own expectation. Make sure to understand what his vision is and what style he wants. It will help you to choose the right designer for your project.
• Do you need one designer or more? Each designer has its own style and skills. And every client has its own expectations. It means that if you only work with one designer, it might be hard to meet your client’s expectations if their vision doesn’t fit with the style of the designer. Building a network of designers might help you in this case.

Tip

Asking your client to share a mood board with you will help a lot with the creation of the design. You will be able to see what he likes in terms of style, colors, and fonts. Moodboard is a free online tool, very easy to use and easy to share once you’re done.

Finding Designers

Now, it’s time to find the designer that will help you to develop your business. There are many different options to find the perfect designer. The first is to make a simple research on Google with the keywords “freelance graphic designers”. You will most certainly find some interesting profiles. But you will get thousands of results and it will be hard to know where to start. Here are a few other options:

1- LinkedIn

Of course, when you are searching for someone to work with, LinkedIn is the reference. Thanks to the search function, you can easily find profiles and see in a blink of an eye if your project could interest them. You can browse through their experiences and see people’s recommendations. You would, however, need to subscribe to LinkedIn premium in order to get professional research features.

2- Freelancing websites

If you want to find a freelancer, then you definitely need to check out platforms dedicated to freelance talents.

99designs

This website dedicated to freelance graphic designers will let you browse through the portfolio of many creators. It will be easier for you to find the best talent when you have an idea of what their creations look like. If you don’t want to review portfolios, you can also create a contest. You will then receive lots of concepts from multiple designers and choose the one that you like the most.

Upwork or Fiverr

Upwork and Fiverr are platforms on which you can find freelancers, including freelance designers. You can either look through profiles or post a job offer and get an answer from designers that are interested in your project. You can find all kind of designers with different levels of expertise.

Good to Know:

If you are looking for a designer to help you with just one project, we would recommend posting a job offer on those 2 websites. The hiring process will be quicker and you will get the designs in record time.

3- Career websites

You might also want to check out career websites dedicated to creative professionals like Creative Hotlist. There are lots of designers on there, that can create all kinds of designs, including everything you need for your photo booth campaign. There you can browse through resume, portfolios and post your job offer.

4- Portfolio websites

By looking through portfolios on Behance, you might find someone having the style that you are searching for. You can look at thousands of profiles and creatives. However, not everyone on Behance is searching for a job, so don’t rely solely on this website.

Evaluate and hire

Now, you need to know how to evaluate and hire your designer.

The creative brief

The first thing that you need to do is to write a creative briefing. This is a short document that compiles all information relevant to your project. This is composed of different parts:

• Company description: give a short overview of your business and include a link to your website.
• Project description: summarize your project, explain what you need (overlay, print layout, attract screen) and why you -or your client- need it.
• Target Audience: This is a question that you need to ask your client. Who will be present at the event? Young people? Adults? Is it a business conference? Or a Wedding? The designer needs to know that so they can adapt their designs to the target group.
• What do you need? Here, you need to define the elements you need, define their design specs and give every complementary information.
• Details: Is there any specific elements that need to appear on the design? Do you need something sleek and professional? Or do you want something pop and fun? Help the designer by defining the tone and the style that you need.
• Timing: Share the timeline so that the designer will be aware of the deadline.
• Budget: If you have a set budget for this project you will need to include it in the brief.

Evaluate the portfolio

Then, you need to look through the portfolios of the designers to evaluate it. A designer’s portfolio will give you a good insight into who they are and what their aesthetic is. Look at the portfolio as a whole but also look at each individual piece. Pay attention to a few things:

• Are the colors used warm or cool? Are they complementary? Is there a lot of contrast between the elements?
• How is the spaced used on the design? Is everything compact or is it minimalist?
• Is it a 2D or a 3D design?
• Is the design modern? Or is it more vintage?

Look for what you like and what inspires you. But don’t forget to also search for relevance with your project: did they already create designs for photo booth campaigns in the past? Do you think that their style would fit with your project and business?

Get in touch with the designers

Once you are done looking through portfolios, your next step is to reach out to the designers. Get in touch with those you found during your research, send them your creative briefing, ask for availability, pricing and schedule a phone call. If you posted a job offer, contact the designers that have a good profile, send them the creative briefing and schedule an interview with them.

The interview is a good way for you to get a feeling for the person and to see if they would be a good fit for your project. Don’t hesitate to ask about their creation process, so that you get an idea of how they work. If you want to work with them on a long term basis, it’s essential for you to know if their method is alright with you and to have a good relationship with the designer. Talk about the organizational stuff like the deadline or the communication frequency between both of you. You can also ask them if they already have ideas on how they would realize your project. The goal is to establish a good relationship with the designer so you can both work together and achieve the best results.