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Skills required for web designer?

What skills or knowledge are required for a junior graphic designer to work in an early stage startup?

  • We want to hire an intern for the next six months and we would like to know which skills or abilities are required in order to recruit our first designer. Which programs, software, techniques. He/She would have to take charge of the execution of the image of our brand. Designing templates, flyers, merchandising, etc.

  • Answer:

    Critiquing icons at Pinterest I was asked to answer this so I'll try to share what I know from my short time working. I wouldn't consider Pinterest an early stage startup but we are still small. The company is less than 100 people and the creative team less than 10 (including designers, design researchers, and writers). Some designers train to become very talented in a certain field of design. I guess you would call these designers specialists. These would include people who are brilliant typographers/font designers, iconographers, data-visualizers, poster-makers, letter-pressers, etc. At an early stage start-up, the work is simply too diverse to accommodate a specialist. You probably want to find someone who is more of a generalist but still has strong design foundations (typography, grids, color). The best way for me to explain this is to describe some of my day-to-day work as a communication designer at Pinterest. I don't do much work on the product itself but focus more on the brand assets. Interaction design Wire-framing sites and pages with consideration to the larger product ecosystem, scaling, brand aesthetic and consistency. Skills: sketching, Adobe Illustrator and Indesign, Web design At a small startup, you probably won't have separate interaction and graphic designers. The same person will turn that wireframe into pixels ready to cut and ship. Skills: Photoshop, basic HTML/CSS Graphic design This will include anything from book design, posters, business card/letterheads, internal documents, t-shirts, presentation decks, birthday cards, signage, event invites, promotional and recruiting material. Skills: Adobe Creative Suite, drawing, knowledge of printing presses/offset printing (paper stocks, inks, binding, etc) Photography This is sometimes overlooked as a skill but when your team is small, having someone who can create high quality images is very helpful. This could be company and team photos, official press photos for product launches, assets for your product, product shots, and stock images you have rights to. Skills: digital photography, batch image processing (Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture), retouching (Photoshop) Video/Motion Videos and motion graphics can be very useful tools for product launches, user education, press b-roll. Being able to produce this in house is much more efficient. Software/skills: videography, storyboarding (drawing), video editing (iMovie, Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro), sound editing (Garage Band), motion graphics (Adobe AfterEffects) Illustration It helps to be able to do make original illustrations for anything from user education, branding, icon sets, web pages, books, presentations, diagrams, etc. Skills: Drawing, Adobe Creative Suite Writing Until you grow your team to include a writer, most of the time, the designer will be doing a lot of copy writing. They don't have to be brilliant writers but should be able to put a story together Obviously I didn't come in with knowledge of all of these things but as you can see, if a designer doesn't know how to do something, they have to quickly learn. I am lucky to work with a very talented team. If I don't know how to do something, I can usually find someone who does. Look for someone who is eager to learn and can quickly adapt to different situations. One day you might be working on mobile site and the next day you might be designing a book. Most importantly, I think, is to find someone passionate about your brand. It makes a designer's job much easier and exciting when he or she believes in what they're working on.

Victor Ng at Quora Visit the source

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Outsource. Give your work out to a freelance designer, with a little more experience. As a start up, you probably can't afford a top drawer designer full time, and a junior designer fresh out of college won't be adept, or have the wisdom that experience gives you (this is not a thumb rule) but the exceptions are few and far between. As a startup, I'm assuming design is critical to how your company is perceived. It needs to be original, eye catching, yet functional Yada Yada....putting your precious funds in a fresher, might be a bit of a risk. I've seen a couple of great freshers, but their excellence has been lopsided. So they're great with ideas, but bad with seeing those ideas through. Or they're great with  design, but not so much with production or execution.  Great, and I mean GREAT losses can be made at the production stage. Sometimes, actually most of the time, only experience knows better.  

Pari Purohit

The portfolio is going to be the most telling artifact about a Graphic Design candidate. You can pretty much gauge the person's technical ability, traditional ability, etc. all through the portfolio. Honestly I wouldn't even ask about their technical skills if they're not going to be programming anything and just designing. If their portfolio shows great work then they're obviously in tune with their tools. Before hiring them on be sure to complete a project first, obviously under contract and paid. This allows you to see their skills in action and gauge their workflow. It's great because if you don't like the work they put out then there's no ties, you both can part ways after the project and that's the end of it. That being said a designer should have a thorough understanding of the following: - Adobe Creative Suite CS5 + (Photoshop, Illustrator, & InDesign) - Gestalt Principles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology) - KNOW HOW TO DRAW (can't stress this enough, that's why I'm yelling) - Printing setup (http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/printing-photoshop.html) - Typography inside and out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typography) - Color theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory) - Concept development - Knowledge of current design trends and publications

Ryan Rich

Simple designs which look appealing and elegant is what seems to be the trend in design and hence the designer you hire should have enough clarity of two most important things to accomplish this. One is the color theory or the color selection and the second one is the Aesthetic sense of design. Both these packaged with some expertise in using popular design tools should be the best combination. I think to test his/her skills, the best way is to ask him/her to design a creative which sends out a message that you want to convey to people through it. The quality of the output when evaluated according to the above mentioned parameters will help you hire the best...

Abhiraj Malhotra

So your looking at a junior or intern, which means almost zero commercial experience and you expect them to "take charge of the execution of the image of our brand. Designing templates, flyers, merchandising, etc". By definition a  junior will not have the knowledge or experience required to be really effective at this and the chances are your going to be disappointed with the results. Junior designers require a whole heap of mentoring and training before they can create professional work unsupervised and self-initied, that's why they are juniors. You should look at an alternative, unless someone in your organisation can offer this level of support and day to day management to the junior your going to be surprised at the amount of time your going to need to spend with them to get what you want.Victor Ng is right in that you don't want a  specialist but a skilled gerneralist, for a start up this would be your creative/design director or if you don't have one your best bet is a freelancer. In the UK/Europe & US there is a very strong community of freelancers you could tap into and get someone with the experience and skills you need to work project by project. If you have significant amounts of work then a retainer would be usual or a preferential rate, your a start up you've also got other methods or renumeration that might appeal to a freelancer.The major advantages of a freelancer is the network they bring with them. They can recommend specialists where needed to compliment their skills and you can increase or decrease their hours to match your needs. So you can get highly experienced designers when you need them. Good Freelancers also tend to be quick and efficient which is exactly what you need  as a start up, they are going to cost more per hour than a junior but the results and speed of their work should more than make up for this increase in hourly costs.Skills and program wise Victor NG has it pretty much covered and its their portfolio of work you need to look at to make your primary judgement.If you really have such a substantial need for a designer permanently on your team then I'd look to recruit either some one senior or atleast some one with 4-5 years of commercial experience. One good, experienced designer can make a significant difference to your business.

Martin McCully

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