FAQ
Graphic Design Solutions for Startups and Small Businesses
We know making investments in your business can be daunting and require doing the research to ensure you’re making the right call. Here are some of our Small Business FAQs to help you along the way.
How do graphic designers help small businesses?
Graphic designers play a crucial role in helping small businesses establish and enhance their brand identity, effectively communicate their message, and attract and retain customers. We help you to persuade your investors to invest, your consumers to buy, and we bring more confidence to you and your team. A strong brand is like a really shiny piece of armour for your already amazing business or idea.
What services does a graphic designer offer to a startup?
Our core offerings are branding, packaging and creative direction, but we also design websites, create experiences and apply our work to spaces, amongst many others. Studio EVKA is made up of a diverse and adaptable group of freelancers. We tailor each team to suit your unique project needs, timeline and budget, using our bank of trusted creatives – including animators, copywriters, web developers and strategic designers.
Does my startup or small business need a graphic designer?
Does your existing brand fall a bit flat? Did you make it quickly on Canva 5 years ago (if so well done!) and now you feel you’ve outgrown it? Are you missing a brand identity, packaging or art direction altogether? Then the answer is probably yes.
Hiring a professional to create a brand, design packaging, or set the art direction can not only make your business look and feel more legit, it can help set the path for all your brand decisions moving forward, creating less confusion and miscommunication in the long run. All whilst giving you more pride and confidence in your business baby!
Should I hire a graphic designer for my small business?
Thoughtful graphic design, with a strong strategic foundation, creates a consistent and impactful brand presence that helps you communicate your business’ value and make memorable experiences with your products and/or services. So of course, we will always answer with a big ol’ “Yes!” to this question.
But more importantly we’ll be asking “why?” – This is because we know starting a business can be costly, so we make sure the services we’re providing are tailored to you and your audience’s needs. For example, if you mostly interact with your audience online, do you need bespoke business cards and letterheads? Probably not. But should you have a really slick website and social media presence? Most certainly. And we can help with that.
How do I choose the right graphic designer for my small business or startup?
Start off by looking at their work. Does it sing to you? Does it resonate with the look and feel you’d like your brand put out? Then have a chat with them, do they seem like they’d be fun to work with? Do they respond well to feedback, listening to your expertise whilst challenging your preconceptions? At Studio Evka, paired with our broad range of clients and industries, we take an empathetic, collaborative approach to design, making sure all parties get the most out of our time together.
What if you haven’t done any work in my industry before?
We understand that it can feel safer to hire a designer who specialises in designing for your specific kind of business. But design principles don’t change depending on the industry they’re applying to. If anything, you can create a lot more impact in your field by drawing on visual cues from other industries.
A great example is Propercorn, a snack company, who regularly use fashion and pop-culture references in their packaging and art direction. This is because they don’t hire designers from other snack companies, they hire designers with backgrounds in fashion, art direction and advertising. A strong design eye isn’t bound by industry, and a fresh eye can bring new perspectives.
We will always start by looking at your competitors, to learn what the conventions are in your field. Then we’ll see how much you want to break from or blend in with these conventions, and design accordingly.
What’s your process?
We start by booking in an initial consultation call and sending you a questionnaire to fill out beforehand. On the call we will iron out any other details that will help us pull together a quote. Once the quote, timeframe and terms are signed off we’ll send over a contract and begin!
The step-by-step
01 Listen & Discover
Through collaborative moodboards, user research and analysis, we will combine your goals with your audience’s needs to make sure we steer our work in the right direction.
02 Explore & Distil
Together, we’ll bring everything we’ve learnt in stage 1 and distil it into a project strategy document that we can apply to all creative decisions moving forward.
03 Create & Design
We explore 2-3 visual territories based on the strategy, which are refined and tweaked until everything aligns with your goals.
04 Build
We add the final touches to your selected route, and create all your new assets so that you’re ready for launch.
05 Launch
We will work with you to make sure you have everything you need to press that big green button on time and with confidence.
How will we communicate?
After our initial video call, we will largely communicate with you via emails and short videos where we talk through our ideas (we like to use a platform called Loom – but don’t worry, there’s no need to sign up for it). If we feel like we need to have more of a chat, we can book in another video call.
For those that want a website or brand strategy, we like to conduct initial workshops for these in person, but they can also be done online.
How long does it take to complete a branding project?
Small business branding projects usually take around 2-4 weeks to complete, depending on how far the project’s been booked ahead, how many add-on services you’ve booked, and how quickly the client provides feedback. Please note that this is for the design work only, and printing times depend on the items and the printing partners we/you choose to work with.
How much information do you need to make a quote?
The clearer you are about what you need, the quicker and easier it is for us to make an accurate quote. However, we know that sometimes our clients need some guidance with figuring it all out – and that’s where we step in. Prior to our initial meeting we will send over a questionnaire which will help you focus your thoughts ahead of our call. And anything you’re not sure of, we will work it out together.
The main things to think about are:
Who is your audience and what problems do they need solving?
What is the feeling you would like your brand to create?
What collateral do you need? Printed and digital.
The nitty-gritty
How much does it cost for a logo?
A brand is so much more than a logo, which is why we’ll never take on projects that ask for just a logo on its own. A brand identity at its very minimum, requires colour and typeface selection, a suite of logos (so the logos are optimised to different formats), iconography and some general art direction. We create ‘startup bundles’ for small businesses starting at £1,800, which includes the branding process plus a few pieces of initial brand collateral, such as flyers, business cards, social media templates etc. depending on your needs.
From there, you can add on services such as brand illustrations, web design, packaging design, wayfinding, bespoke art direction and product photography, amongst others.
How do payments work?
Most projects are divided into two payments: a 50% deposit and 50% final payment, due net 15. On larger projects, we can invoice at the beginning of each stage before the work begins. We invoice using Quickbooks, where UK payments can be made via bank transfer or credit card, and international payments are made with Wise.
Do you provide editable source files?
For an extra £100 per file, we can provide the file in the format it was created in, packaged so you have all the relevant fonts and links.
On occasion, if you do not have access to Adobe, we can agree with you beforehand that we’ll design social media templates for you in Canva. This is so you can generate your own content without our help. However, we do advise that if you are paying for professional design services, you should avoid the use of Canva as the software often cannot treat typefaces correctly. This therefore reduces the quality of the work you have paid for.
Can you manage the printing of my project?
Yes, if this is required we will add this to our fee. If you already have trusted printing vendors we will provide you with clearly labelled print-ready files for you to manage yourself, included in our initial fee.
I already have a brand identity but I’m looking to get packaging designed. Can you help?
Yes – we love working with existing brands to create exciting packaging solutions for them. However, if we feel your existing brand is not quite up to scratch, we may advise that you use our brand design services first before we create any packaging for you, or we may point you in the direction of an artworking agency.
Do you have a minimum spend?
Yes, our minimum spend is £1,500.
Ready to press go?
Book in a free 30 minute consultation call