Ask HN: How do you go about hiring a designer

by mcrittenden on 11/4/2010, 10:43 PM with 5 comments

My startup is a web app, and as such needs some serious UX/UI love. I can do my best, but I will never get it to the level that a competent designer could.

But how do you hire one? Where do you find one? Do you usually hire him/her to just do the one time thing or is it more customary to make it a regular deal where they do the incremental updates as well? Who writes up the contract in a scenario like this?

  • by kls on 11/5/2010, 6:05 AM

    Read my rant here:

    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1859460

    You need to find someone with some training in HCI, it does not have to be formal training, but they should be studied in the state of the art. If they are not, they are a hack and you are wasting your money on trial and error. As for the designer (the I make it pretty guy). Find one who you like his style of art, it is as simple as that. Sometimes you can get lucky and find it all embodied in one person. Many times you will get a designer naively representing themselves as a HCI / UX professional, there is a lot of misinformation and blatant misrepresentation in this space.

  • by kingsidharth on 11/4/2010, 11:18 PM

    First thing first you should know (you probably know this already): Web-Designer != UI Designer or UX Designer

    Once you know that, you can be looking for correct person. Finding one, not sure. Referrers? An app you love? Ask them to refer a designer? Or Hire Me!

    How do you make sure the person is right? Ask them about their design process. If you feel that it will bring clarity to project then jump in.

  • by lachyg on 11/5/2010, 4:15 AM

    Here's my process. I define in my mind what I want, in terms of style and needs, find similar sites, or sites with styles I'm after. I then find the designer of the site, and contact them.

    Here are my other strategies for finding designers:

    1. Find agencies that I love the work of, then look at the Team page, then contact their designers on Twitter or email

    2. Browse Dribbble, or design communities, find styles that I like, and contact them.

    Process:

    Discuss the project with them, find someone that likes it and has ideas. Have a call over Skype to get to know them, and see if their ideas match yours. Send them an email with the terms, get them to reply agreeing, and pay 50% upfront. Always works.

  • by edge17 on 11/5/2010, 7:54 AM

    Our designer is awesome. I'm fortunate to have grown up around artists, so me communicating with him works well. The big thing though is he goes out of his way to understand the technical issues, and fortunately I'm reasonably good at explaining technical things in terms of laundry machines and dryers. Additionally, the dude's a straight up hustler. We don't call him a designer, we call him a creative director. You want a creative director.

  • by prateekdayal on 11/5/2010, 10:30 AM

    I have no affiliation with Themeforest but start with a prebuilt theme and then outsource bits and pieces as you need them.

    Also reading a little bit on UX helps. Hiring a fulltime designer is the last thing you wanna do early on. No matter how much you think you need them right now