What to use it for
This useful worksheet helps you find the recommended design solution for your business needs. Use it to scope out the correct vendor for individual projects, or to evaluate what your business as a whole needs.
Here’s a preview of what you’ll get:
Navigating the design landscape:
Determining scope and finding the best solutions
You know design’s important. What people see leads to an instant value judgment, and if your brand’s not tapping into that the right way you’re losing business. But though you might know how important design is, you might not know how much design work your company really needs.
From solopreneurs to Fortune 100 enterprises—and especially for both their in-house and outside marketing teams—this has presented a serious challenge. They’ve tried everything to get budget-friendly, quality-driven design into every nook and cranny, but it’s tough. In-house design always comes with a tradeoff: either the expense of a full-time design staff, or the often rushed, lower quality, inconsistent output of non-designers who are bent to the task as an afterthought to their other responsibilities.
Working with freelance designers is more flexible and more affordable, but those relationships are prone to communication pitfalls and accountability issues.
Why you need this worksheet?
• You have more design needs than you think
• Design needs should be categorized by budget/value and frequency
• There is no “one size fits all” solution
• The design matrix guides you to the best solution for each design need
Many of the marketers we’ve worked with have endured a similar struggle, and we’ve found that part of the problem is in the design need estimates these businesses start with. As unmistakable as the value of design is, many specific design projects and outputs are overlooked, which leads to either cost overruns or quality shortfalls—and sometimes both. This is the problem we refer to as “Shadow Design”: all of the unthought-of design work that occupies time and resources or drags down brand quality and general performance, and sometimes both.
Shadow design
Most companies have more design needs than they’re prepared for. And most companies would benefit from having multiple ways to fill their design needs. This guide will help you figure out the true extent of your design demand, and suggest the most effective and efficient ways to get it done.
Product and packaging is just the tip of the iceberg
SketchDeck has been in the design business for a little over four years, and we’ve grown rapidly in that time due in part to our ability to accurately assess businesses’ design needs and provide affordable design work accordingly. Based on our work with businesses and enterprises of all sizes, we’ve found that even a modest team of 15 marketers generates the need for approximately 350-400 hours of design work per month.
That’s just the marketing team at a medium-sized enterprise aiming for modest growth. Add in the design needs from other teams and departments—your marketing team isn’t the only source of design demand in your company—and you can have enough design work to keep roughly a dozen designers employed full-time.
Here’s the model we use to break this down into manageable pieces:
