Graphic Design Packages - Why Unlimited Requests and Revisions Make a Difference

Are you asking yourself what’s important when hiring a graphic designer or choosing a graphic design package? This article explains the graphic design process and answers the following two questions: “What’s the benefit of unlimited revisions and requests when it comes to graphic design?” and “Should my graphic designer offer me unlimited revisions and requests?”

The Graphic Design Process

The graphic design process is the process from ideation to finished product. And the process where you often start out thinking you want a cat only to realize you need a lion. You must understand this process when choosing a graphic designer or graphic design service. Knowing how someone works in general and how they will work with you, in particular, is crucial for getting the timeline and the quality right. Otherwise, you might very well end up with the cat, even though you need the lion.

Loosely speaking, there are five main phases to the graphic design process:

• Brief
• Research
• Brainstorming ideas
• First draft
• Reviews and revisions
• Final product

If you want to learn more about graphic design, you can read this blog about 16 basic design principles and elements. Having some basic knowledge about design can help you when creating your brief and when you choose a monthly graphic design package or a one-off graphic design branding package.

Now, let’s look at the design process in more detail and what you can expect if you use a monthly graphic design package or another form of design service.

The Brief

When creating a brief, you will want to consider the following points:

• The purpose of the design–what do you wish to achieve with it? Can you find examples of designs that have achieved this?
• Who is your audience, and what do they enjoy (design-wise)?
• What specifically do you wish to communicate?

Also, note that the brief you give your creative design service provider should include brand guidelines. Otherwise, a designer may do a fantastic job with the three points above, but the design style might be completely off.

Think of brands the way you do celebrities or even presidents. Trump and Obama had the same target market—the people of the US—but their brands were vastly different. The way Trump said “vote for me” was different from the way Obama said “vote for me.”

Before you jump the gun, vying for one president or the other, just consider that brands, like presidents, have different ways of expressing themselves. The graphic designer needs to be very aware of what your brand stands for, its image, and how it communicates to its audience.

If you work with ManyPixels using one of our graphic design packages, you can create brand guidelines for your different brands in your profile. By doing so, a large part of the design brief has already been completed before you start.

Another important point to remember when creating briefs, is the details.

For example, let’s say a client wants an Instagram post depicting an elephant in the city in honor of National Elephant Day (and if that day doesn’t exist yet, it certainly should). The design style must be aligned with the overall brand and the target market.

The designer designs a post with the above elements. They have a bit of fun with it (which is totally in line with the brand) and have the elephant standing in the city, reading a newspaper about recent break-ins performed by circus animals. That’s when the client realizes they forgot to mention that the elephant shouldn’t just be in any city, but in NYC, as that’s where the brand is based.

The client also remembers that they forgot to mention that the image should be uplifting, not funny. And it needs a border/frame of some sort.

Now the poor designer has to go back to the drawing board (quite literally) and design an elephant handing out hugs to passers-by instead of reading a newspaper. As much fun as the designer may have with this (hugging elephants aren’t that much of a chore, after all), it still takes up time and, if you’re paying for revisions, money.

The truth is, we all forget to mention some details at times. Other times, we don’t know what we want when we start—we need to experiment a bit. That’s why unlimited revisions are so crucial.

Many creative graphic design services, such as ManyPixels, offer monthly graphic design packages that have a brief you can complete online. As mentioned, we also let you upload brand profiles for all your different brands, so they are readily accessible to your designer at any time. That makes this process smooth and easy.

Research

Depending on your skills, you might do the research and brainstorming before handing the brief over to the graphic designer. This can help you establish what you’re looking for in more detail. However, a good graphic designer should be able to help guide you and handle the research and brainstorming by themselves if required.

If you’re doing the research yourself, start by looking at what the competition is doing. Furthermore, look at the kind of content your target audience is drawn to. Grab screenshots to share with your designer when you come across some great examples.

Brainstorming

Once you know what the competition is doing and what your audience enjoys, you can align it with your brand guidelines and the purpose of the content. This should give you an idea of what you’re looking to create design-wise.

Then the fun starts–you jolt down any idea that springs to mind. From the ridiculous and outrageous to the plain and boring. From there, you narrow it down to the best ones. If you get stuck or run out of time, pass the baton to your graphic designer.

Reviews and Revisions

Not to burst the detailed-oriented crowd’s bubble, but no matter how good your brief is, there will usually be revisions needed. It’s part of the creative process when creating something from scratch. That’s why choosing a graphic design package with unlimited revisions is so important.

When you provide feedback on revisions, be as clear and precise as possible. “I don’t like this design” doesn’t give the designer much to work with. “I don’t think you properly convey the message in this design, but the colors and overall style are good” is much more precise.

At ManyPixels, we offer a platform where you can make comments straight onto the design. That makes it easier to pinpoint what you like and don’t like to the designer.

So right now, you’re probably asking yourself, “Should my graphic designer offer me unlimited revisions and requests?”

The obvious answer is, yes, they should. Until you’re happy with the product, the product isn’t complete.

However, this is almost impossible for most freelancers, as they measure time against budget. They quite literally cannot afford to offer unlimited revisions. Agencies have the bandwidth to handle it, but they often take their time with revisions as they work on many different projects. So while it might not end up costing you in money, it will in time. Agencies are also notoriously pricey to begin with.

Many monthly graphic design service providers offer unlimited revisions. However, not everyone provides quick turnarounds. When choosing a graphic design package deal or a graphic design branding package, you need to consider both. And, of course, you also have to consider if whomever you hire offers good designs.

The Final Product

This is when it’s time to celebrate–you love the design and have the final product in hand! Now you have to put the design to use and check the feedback. Whatever the feedback, you can bear it in mind when putting forward your next request.

Why Unlimited Requests Matter

We’ve now looked at the graphic design process and why unlimited revisions matter. Now let’s look at why unlimited requests matter when choosing a graphic designer, agency, or graphic design package.

Suppose you’re doing a one-off project, such as a graphic design branding package. In that case, unlimited requests may not be that important to you. Unless you realize that in addition to the logo, business cards, and social media banner, you also need a website layout, a brochure, a presentation, and a t-shirt with the logo on it.

The truth is, as you start a project, you’re rarely aware of how many assets you’ll need. And suppose you need a constant flow of social media posts in addition to other content. In that case, unlimited requests are crucial to keep the price tag in check.

What’s the benefit of unlimited revisions and requests when it comes to graphic design? The designer can work on an unlimited number of projects simultaneously, and you can ensure you get precisely what you want.

At ManyPixels, we offer both unlimited requests and revisions. Daily output for new designs is one to two per day. When it comes to revisions, they can often be delivered the same day–depending on how complicated the revisions are and what time you hand in the request.