In the current highly competitive business environment, more businesses are turning to graphic designs to inform, persuade, and attract customers to their products and services and make a profit. Studies reveal that customers retain 65 percent of information if it is represented in relevant visuals. The study further reveals that people only remember a paltry 10 percent of information when it is presented verbally.
If you are a company leader, you need to consider bringing on board a qualified graphic design assistant to strengthen brand identity, engage the target audience and develop innovative design solutions in line with company marketing strategy.
Business identity items such as logos, cards, stationery, and envelopes help keep your company name and brand image in the customer’s minds for longer. Besides, your company’s social media platforms and websites need to have up-to-date visuals, and if you are launching new products and services, your online store should reflect these changes.
What do graphic design assistants do?
Graphic design assistants help the lead graphic designer create ideal all print, online, and electronic media projects. They also prepare marketing materials, develop logos and images, provide creative input, and create print layouts for the marketing campaigns. Other specific duties of design graphic assistants include:
- Assist graphic designers plan, design and develop graphics based on company requirements
- Maintain and manage digital files and artwork
- Provide accurate PDF artwork to dealers, external printers, and distributors while observing deadlines
- Perform reviews of designs to guarantee the accuracy of the layouts
- Leverage on ideal software applications to produce high-quality designs that meet marketing standards.
- Update company website with latest graphics and multimedia
Tips for hiring an excellent graphic design assistant
You need to focus on hiring a disciplined, artistic, inventive, and tech-savvy assistant with the ability to channel ideas into deliverables. You also need to find a graphic design assistant who can work well with colleagues and clients, especially when working on several projects that require close collaborations. When hiring the right candidate, focus on the following areas:
Education, skills, and experience
The right talent should be artistic, innovative, and skilled to achieve optimal results. The following are some of the attributes to look out for when hiring a graphic design assistant:
- A Bachelor’s Degree In Fine Art Design, Communication Design, Marketing Design or any other related field
- Requisite experience working with design tools such as Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, or Acrobat
- Working knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
- Excellent communication skills
- Ability to work under pressure
- Sharp eye for color, composition, layout, typography, and design
Interviewing graphic design assistant candidates
During your interviewing process, set a goal at finding an ideal candidate who can work independently and collaboratively to develop myriads of media that incorporates various design techniques. The best candidates for this position are always confident when answering different questions related to the design responsibilities. Important areas to focus your interview are:
- Current design trends and techniques
- The individual’s creative thought process
- How the candidates prioritize projects and tasks in high-pressure environments
- How candidates make adjustments to projects based on client feedback
- The essential metrics they will use to track design success.
What do graphic design assistants charge?
Rates charged by graphic design assistants vary with some charging as little as $20 per hour to as much as $150 per hour. However, the average rate is $45 per hour. Some designers also set a fixed price for work based on the type of requirements of the project they are doing. Other factors that determine their rates are expertise and experience needed for a job, work scope, and the duration the project takes to complete.
Where to find the best graphic design assistants
There are several places to find the right talent. Reputed sources that boast of talented and professional prospects that appeal to your needs include:
Freelance market places
Freelance marketplaces allow you to post a VA job for the registered freelancers to respond to. You can then sieve through all the replies to arrive at an ideal graphic design assistant. Some of the most reliable freelance sites to corners are:
- Zirtual– Zirtual is a top-notch recruiting platform that matches up busy professionals with graphic design professionals. The software provides employers with convenient and affordable options to hire exceptional talent for a range of design projects.
- Upwork– Upwork features a smaller pool of more qualified prospects to choose from. Upwork has a rigorous process that weed out bogus candidates to leave only the most committed and qualified prospects.
- Smashing Magazine– this is one of the best market places currently, that guarantees you only the best candidates.
- Time Etc– Time Etc boast of some of the most experienced VAs in the industry. The company makes it mandatory for their VAs to have five years of experience before signing up with their program.
Recruitment companies
You can also hire the best graphic design assistant with the help of recruitment companies. These companies can be brick and mortar or online agencies that carry out the entire recruitment process on your behalf. Ideally, you contact these companies with your needs, and they will gladly send you the best candidate that is a good fit for your company’s needs. Some of the virtual assistant agencies to try out include:
Other tasks to outsource to virtual assistants
There are so many reasons to outsource your graphic design projects to a virtual designer. A virtual assistant graphic designer uses art and technology to produce images that inspire, inform, or captivate the consumer. They also create visuals that introduce your brand, keep the audience’s attention, and enable you to have an advantage over your competitors. The following are a few design projects to outsource to your VA graphic designer:
Crafting of logos
A lot of creative thought goes into a logo’s every line, color, and design so that the right message is passed across to the targeted audience. The ideal virtual graphic designer will help create logos that capture the brand’s personality.
Building websites
A virtual graphic design assistant uses a purposeful visual strategy to build websites that effectively communicate your message and effortlessly reach your audience. They work together with a web designer to create a visual strategy that attracts visits and leads to conversions.
Creating social media approved visuals
A virtual graphic designer helps create an effective social media strategy featuring fresh and exciting visual content that engages your users and aligns them with your brand’s online personality. The right VA assistant knows which social media platform will best represent your content and brand.
Building infographics
They also help build a collection of imagery, charts, and texts to enable an easy understanding overview of a given topic. VAs helps to visually display data that marketers use to promote products. Graphic designers remodel statistical data into infographics that best present information to the target audience.
Key Takeaway
Ideally, a picture is worth a thousand words, and the use of visuals in marketing campaigns is now a top choice for marketers. Consequently, a graphic design assistant’s skills are essential for all businesses; the assistant helps translate your company’s message, product, or service by leveraging exceptional technology, art, text, images, and eye-catching visuals that attract consumer attention. Should you need help with your hiring process, contact Zirtual. We feature new hiring technologies like Zirtual that help companies and businesses hire the best talent out there.