Design and Stuff

September 28, 2019 8:09 AM

Following my question looking for a mechanical engineer (which has worked out well), I am now looking for someone to do website design, package design, marketing, etc. for the thing.

So 2 questions:
1. Can you recommend someone?

2. Making an effort to work locally, I sent an email to 4 local business. 2 of them responded. I then had a conversation with each of them which went well. I asked each to get a quote to me by 9/27 (yesterday), which gave them about a week and a half. I did not hear back from either of them. Is this typical of this industry, i.e. if they are not interested, they just drop it with no communication?

posted by falsedmitri to Work & Money (3 answers total)

I'm a designer, but don't work at an agency of any kind, so I may not know what I'm talking about:

As to whether this is typical, I guess it depends on how much guidance you offered, and how much you asked for. Website design, package design, and marketing are three very different (but related) things, and to turn around quote on those things in 10 days might be too quick for some businesses (I'm guessing that you've been talking to small design firms who probably don't have resources dedicated to quoting jobs). I would re-connect with them to let them know you're still interested. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there with ideas for products they think will change the world who waste a lot of time trying to get designers to jump on board, so the more prepared and educated you are, the more likely you are to get a response.

You might also be better off starting small, with just the packaging. Unless this product is going to be sold in physical stores, the packaging doesn't matter as much. So getting that done first may help indicate that you're serious about the product I'd also suggest not looking at one business to do all that work. Coming up with a marketing plan is often well outside of the realm of what designers do.
posted by jonathanhughes at 8:34 AM on September 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: @jonathanhughes: Yes, small, no more than 3 people in either. I did start out thinking this would take more than one person/agency, but they claimed to be able to handle it. Also, by marketing here I mostly mean SEO. I am starting off small by selling online first and made this clear to them.
posted by falsedmitri at 8:44 AM on September 28, 2019

You might want to skip doing anything much on the packaging until you need something more catchy, and focus on finding someone with web and SEO skills. Then you might have better luck getting responses.
posted by jonathanhughes at 10:03 AM on September 28, 2019