Key Takeaways
1. Every company can benefit from hiring a remote graphic designer, whether on a solely consultative basis to discuss a company’s current logo and branding strategy, or maybe to help support a company with a full brand revamp.
2. A remote graphic designer can help tweak or re-envision your brand to create a coherent and consistent visual identity that stands out in your industry of operation, and effectively targets your specific market of interest.
3. These days you don’t have to hire a fulltime graphic designer as part of your in-house team. You can easily outsource one-off or multiple projects that you think require the expertise that a remote graphic designer can bring.
4. Despite higher initial contracting costs, companies can actually save money in the long run, by not having to pay full salary packages and avoiding payment of subscriptive services to key graphic design software programs that may not get used full time.
5. Hiring a remote graphic designer from abroad is an easy way to diversify your teams skills, and introduce new ideas and perspectives to your company. It also comes with compliance and tax benefits. A Global Employer of Record (EOR) can help with all recruitment and compliance matters when looking to expand your team globally.
As the world grows accustomed to the digital era where information travels fast and images speak 1,000 words in a split of a second, it is almost imperative to have in your web of influence a graphic designer to support and elevate your company’s brand to the next level. Though AI has revolutionized the graphic design industry, enabling the editing, enhancement, and extending of images, the need for skilled designers remains essential for their creative skills.
As with a lot of creative oriented professions, graphic design has benefitted from the move from in-person to remote working conditions. Employment prospects are said to grow in the US alone upwards of 2.9% until 2030. Now companies that once may not have considered hiring a graphic designer, or thought it was out of reach, can look into outsourcing any design project, even from abroad.
This article will discuss what a remote graphic designer does, how this field of expertise can benefit your company and how you can hire a remote graphic designer from abroad.
Hire remote workers fast with Horizons EOR.
What does the job description of a remote graphic designer look like?
The standard job description of a graphic designer can vary widely but always at their core, require an individual to have an innate creative flair and passion for the industry. Let’s go through some common key duties and responsibilities that you may see under a job description for a graphic designer. Graphic designers should:
- Listen and transform a client’s needs and wants into design and branding strategies
- Cooperate with clients or company directors to adequately determine the true scope of a project, while being able to gage how their designs can fit within their current communications strategy
- Whether internal or externally hired, collaborate with front end developers, existing branding, copywriting, sales and marketing teams
- Create visual concepts using graphic design software and tools
- Maintain and update their skills and technical knowledge through workshops and professional association memberships
- Creatively build and streamline a design theme and tone with illustrations, symbols, specialised fonts, layouts and digital graphics
- Depending on the project scope, collaborate the process through numerous review meetings to refine overall project to meet clients’ needs.
You may find that some graphic designers also embody other proficiencies such as web design, video editing, photography, product design or even marketing and social media capabilities. These are generally not considered to be required skills by graphic designers, and should not be tasked to them as part of their role.
What are the crucial skills of a remote graphic designer?
Every graphic designer comes with their own special skillset and artistic method underlying how they create things. Beyond this, they might have different expertise in specific or a range of graphic design software’s and industry niches. Some might have an extensive academic background, years of working experience or a mix of both. Even an entry level graphic designer can provide unique value because of their willingness to grow and find where their talents fit best. As with many job roles in the creative space, there’s no one size fits best. However, there are some crucial skills that are commonly shared among graphic designers, whether remote or in-house.
All graphic designers should at least have technical proficiencies in some of the more common graphic design software programs. These include:
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe InDesign
- Affinity Designer.
Along with these technical proficiencies, there are several soft skills that are crucial for remote graphic designers to embody. These include:
- Active listening
- Time management. It is well-established that graphic designers and other creatives have relatively high incidences of ADHD. Therefore, it’s crucial that graphic designers know how to use neurodivergence to their benefit, as well as learn tips to overcome ADHD for designers.
- Problem-solving
- Communication skills
- Ability to work in a team.
Of course there are many more software programs and skills that can be added to these lists, but if a graphic designer displays most of the above, then you should feel confident that they can support your goals.
Should I hire a remote graphic designer as a contractor or an employee?
In a candidate driven market, the best way in finding the right fit of graphic designer for your company is being extremely precise in what you want and are looking for. This means you will have to understand your company’s needs, budget and how much control you want to have over the working process.
With the shift to remote working, you need to weigh up if hiring an in-house remote graphic designer matches with what your company requires over the long term. This includes the costs of keeping them on with annual salary packages, software subscriptions and whether you have enough projects that require this sort of expertise.
If you have determined that you don’t necessarily need an ongoing commitment or only have a few projects to take on, then contracting may be the best way to mitigate the cons of hiring in-house. You can easily integrate a remote graphic designer into your team even on a contracting basis. Note, though, that foreign hires of this nature can also come with some compliance challenges, which may best be managed by engaging a contractor management outsourcing firm.
What is the average salary that I should expect to pay if I hire a remote graphic designer?
Experienced graphic designers do not come cheap, especially if hiring in western nations. For example, the average salary for a junior to senior graphic designer can range from $40,000 to $65,000 per year, with much of the time salaries exceeding this. In comparison, graphic design salaries in China are significantly lower averaging at about $29,000 per year. In terms of contracting salaries, this comes down to the individual and what they think their services and time is valued at. This will also take into consideration how big a certain project is. Generally, rates can range on an hourly basis from $15 to $150 per hour.
How can an Employer of Record help to hire a remote graphic designer?
When you are looking hire a remote graphic designer, especially from a different country, it can be difficult to navigate exactly what is required of you to compliantly meet all legal and tax obligations during the entire employment process. An Employer of Record (EOR) can help you with this and take over the full responsibility of recruitment, compliance and payroll procedures when looking to hire foreign workers for your company.
Hire a remote graphic designer with Horizons
If you’ve always wanted to diversify your local team and incorporate global team members into the mix, then hiring a Global PEO/EOR such as Horizons can help make this a reality.
Horizons can help you hire remote graphic designers from anywhere in the world and take over all compliance and payroll obligations, acting as the legal employer in the country your remote worker resides.
This means remote graphic designers can be integrated into your existing team quickly, and get started on all design projects you have ready for them.
To onboard a remote graphic designer, contact one of our international hiring specialists to work through the available options.
Frequently asked questions
The first step is to prepare and have a strong job description ready, outlining precise goals and tasks that you are looking to accomplish. Once you know what you are looking for, a Global EOR can help you hire top notch foreign candidates and take over the recruitment process so all compliance and payroll requirements can be met through the onboarding and entire employment contract.
A remote graphic designer can help turn your companies brand into a well-defined visually appealing mesh of graphics, fonts and layouts, and help support you to strategize how best to use their creations to maximise your companies impact in any specific industry. They will use their specialised skills, which combine a mix of technical and soft skills to listen to your business needs and wants and create unique logos, illustrations, layouts and fonts. By doing this, it can elevate your companies visual identity to the next level and instantly attract new clients or customers to your business products or services.
