How to choose a design agency

Choosing a design agency is a hiring decision made with less information than any hire you would make for your own team. You cannot interview the people who will do the work, because most agencies will not tell you who they are until the contract is signed. So the questions below are designed to get that information anyway. Seven questions, a way to score them, and the three answers that should end the conversation.

The short answer

Choose the agency that has done your kind of project for your kind of company, can name the people who will do it, prices it as a fixed scope with a date, and publishes a number for a previous client's result. Ignore the size of the logo wall and the number of awards; both are easy to accumulate and neither tells you who will be on your project on a Tuesday.

The seven questions

1. Who, by name, will do the work?

The honest answer is a name and a role, and an offer to meet them before you sign. "A dedicated team" is not an answer. The person who pitches is often not the person who designs, and the gap between the two is where most agency disappointments live.

2. Show me a project like mine, with its result.

Like yours means the same kind of company, the same kind of buyer, the same kind of problem. If you sell hosting to developers, a beautiful fashion site is not evidence. Then ask what happened after launch: a number, a date, a client who will take a call. An agency that measures its work has a number for at least some of it.

3. How do you price?

Three honest shapes exist: a fixed scope with a price and a date; a retainer for a set number of days a month; a day rate. Fixed scope means the agency has done this before and knows how long it takes. A day rate means it has not decided. Ask for the number at proposal stage, before you commit to anything, and treat "we will scope that together once we start" as a price you have not been told.

4. What will you say no to?

A good studio has a page or a sentence about the work it does not take. The ones that will do anything for anyone are the ones with nobody senior enough to refuse.

5. What do we get at the end?

The site or the product, obviously. But also: documented components, a system your own team can build with, the source files, and a CMS somebody in marketing can run. If the answer is "the designs", you will be paying the same agency again for the next page.

6. Who writes the words?

A website is mostly words; a product is mostly labels, errors and empty states. If the agency does not write, it is designing around copy that does not exist yet, and "client to supply copy" is the line that adds three months to every timeline.

7. What happens the week after launch?

Fixes, measurement, a handover call, and a clear answer on whether they stay on and at what cost. "Launch" as the last line of a proposal is a proposal that stops before the part you will remember.

How to score it

Score each agency from 0 to 3 on each question and add them up. A studio that scores under 12 out of 21 is a studio you are hiring for its portfolio rather than its answers. What a 3 looks like, question by question:

• Named people: names, roles, and a meeting before signing. A 0 is "a dedicated team".
• Relevant project: your sector, a number, and a referee who will take a call. A 0 is a pretty site in another industry.
• Pricing: fixed scope, price and date in the proposal. A 0 is a day rate, scoped later.
• What they refuse: a clear list, said without apology. A 0 is nothing.
• What you get: components, the system, the source, and a CMS your team runs. A 0 is "the designs".
• Who writes: they draft, you correct. A 0 is you do.
• After launch: fixes, measurement, and a stated option to stay on. A 0 is nothing in writing.

Three answers that end the conversation

"We can start Monday." A senior studio with room to start on Monday is either between projects, which happens, or has no projects, which is a different thing. Ask what else is on.

"Our process is proprietary." Every good process is the same process: understand, structure, write, design, build, measure. A studio that will not describe it is hiding either that it has none or that it is the one everybody uses.

"The price depends on the budget." That is a sentence about your money, not their work.

Agency, freelancer or in-house?

A freelancer is right when the problem is one discipline and one person can hold it: a logo, a landing page, an illustration. An agency is right when the problem crosses disciplines (brand, website, product, build) and has to land on a date. In-house is right when the work never stops and the company can hire and keep a senior designer, which outside London is harder than it sounds. Most companies that call us have tried the first and are not yet the third.

How we answer the seven

Since this is written by an agency, here are our answers, so you can score us before you call. Names: Sy, who founded the studio, runs every project, and you meet him first. Relevant project: twelve hosting and infrastructure companies, two compliance platforms, numbers on the Clients page. Pricing: fixed scope with a date, the number in the proposal. What we refuse: eight honest reasons not to hire us. What you get: documented components, the system, a CMS your team runs. Who writes: we draft, you correct. After launch: fixes in the first weeks are part of the job, and a retainer if you want us to stay. The rest is on how we work.