Outsourcing Design: Freelancers vs Agencies?

So you need to hire a designer, but where do you start?

Unless you have the budget and workload to justify hiring a full-time designer for your team, you’ve probably faced this outsourcing dilemma. 

Freelancers are nimble, highly-specialized service providers who are self-employed. Finding a designer who shares your values and works well with your team can take time. What happens when you need multiple skill sets on a project? Do you need to find multiple contractors yourself? 

Agencies are a collective of talented, multi-skilled creatives, so they can offer you a wider variety of services than an individual designer. With a larger team, agencies also have a greater capacity to take on new projects and more consistent timeframes to complete deliverables. 

Whereas freelancers have to wear many hats (designer, project manager, business owner), splitting their attention, agencies often have a dedicated project manager whom you communicate with, so the design team can remain laser focused on the design challenge. 

As a purpose-driven business, we know you like to select your collaborators consciously, selecting values-aligned service providers for support. We make this easy for you so… start here with our team at iilo!

Is there a way to get the best of both worlds?

Short answer: Yes! 

Long answer: iilo Creative Alliance is both a full-service communication design agency and a collective of diverse freelance designers. The collective talent of our alliance allows us to offer a range of services, such as values-aligned branding, impactful reports, communications management, and more. Our cohesive project management style makes leading our clients through the creative process a breeze.

Our clients enjoy the benefits of working with a values-aligned creative agency that gets them, while our collaborators enjoy the freedom of freelancing. Our multi-skilled team has years of experience collaborating on projects, giving us the flexibility and capacity to ramp up when needed, regardless of each individual team member’s capacity.

Did you know you can hire us annually?

Imagine having a multi-skilled design team on hand whenever and for whatever you need. Sounds good doesn’t it? If your organization has ongoing design needs, big or small, our annual package may be the perfect solution to your outsourcing dilemma. 

With our annual package, you’ll have access to our talented communication designers, ready to work on your project. iilo acts as an extension of your team and helps you with your ongoing creative needs (a.k.a. your out-of-house, in-house creative team).

Benefits of our annual package:

• Predictable monthly invoicing for easy budgeting and efficient workflows
• Dedicated project management supporting the entire process
• Access to trusted, reliable creatives all managed by us
• Includes all layout/source files for in-house use
• Unlimited revisions per deliverable
• Unlimited deliverable requests

By hiring iilo annually, you can get all this, plus you’ll receive a 10% loyalty discount, saving you thousands of dollars. When you work with us, you’re not only getting all the perks of hiring freelancers and agencies, without any of the downsides, but also the benefits of an in-house design team, without the budgetary burden. It’s the best of multiple worlds!