To be clear, we’re not saying you shouldn’t attempt to do these tasks if you are inclined or if you have the experience. However, you should know they are tasks that take a significant amount of time to learn and perform at a professional level. This means if you want them done right, you will want to turn to an experienced digital design company or someone who already has this expertise.
Here are some creative tasks you’re going to want to leave to the experts.
1.) Animation
The art of animation is well over a century old. Yet it remains, by and large, an inaccessible craft due to the amount of effort needed to produce professional-looking results. If you have no background in art or animation, it’s practically impossible to turn out a professional animated piece by yourself in time for an urgent campaign. You should definitely leave this to someone who knows what they’re doing.
2.) Product photography
We all have smartphones with cameras and DSLRs that would have blown our collective minds just a decade ago. Yet, the quality of product photography among startups has remained relatively amateur. It’s because photography is as much about the people behind the lens as it is the equipment, if not more so. Your own shots may be good enough for social media shares, but for an order page, you may want to consider hiring someone who can take photos that show your products in their best light.
3.) Music and voiceover production
Sound production is one of those fields that is much more challenging than it appears. If you need to have an ad jingle made for a radio campaign or a voiceover done for a YouTube campaign, there’s a bit more to it than breaking out GarageBand and getting started. Granted, you probably already have all the tools you need. However, using those tools effectively is a huge challenge in and of itself. For professional results, you want to use an agency or a freelancer with a decent portfolio.
4.) Website design
We’re fortunate to be living in a time when there are so many free website building tools available. However, these tools might be inadequate for building ecommerce sites for certain types of business models. Even with free website builders, you’re still not guaranteed to have something that looks professional if the project is not managed by someone who understands both your branding and good design and marketing practices. Hiring a good digital design agency will often give you the best results, usually with better QA and faster turnaround times than would be possible by doing it yourself.
5.) Logo design
Even in cases when they could be done relatively quickly, graphic design and branding tasks are far more complex than they appear. Logo guidelines for Fortune 500 companies often include hundreds of pages of documentation on specifics, including their usage on letterhead, proportions, exact color codes, monochrome versions, as well as best practices for display and lighting, all for what is essentially just one design.
While you don’t necessarily need to be that in-depth, you want to make sure that your logos are following well-understood best practices in terms of recognizability, legibility, and aesthetics, among many other factors. While it may not be immediately obvious, it takes an immense amount of work to create a good logo, and you may want to defer to an agency that understands the implications.
6.) App development and testing
Chances are you can improve your customer experience through some kind of dedicated app. Depending on the purpose, apps can be either deviously simple or mind-numbingly complex. Either way, buggy, error-ridden apps can quickly destroy your startup’s credibility.
If you don’t know the first thing about app development, fortunately, there are several digital agencies ready to help you create and develop apps for whatever purpose you need. But even if you do know what’s involved, you may still want to use a digital design agency simply because of faster development, QA, and project turnaround times.
Conclusion
Startups need to stay focused on the things that make them unique. Given the limited resources of most startups, many can easily lose their way by sinking too much time in things they’re not good at. By having a vetted digital design agency handle tasks a startup does not excel at, they can continue to focus on what they do best while still being able to enjoy the benefits of having professionally executed creative assets.
What are your experiences with outsourcing creative tasks to agencies? Comment or drop us a line. We’d love to hear from you!
