8 Best practices for choosing, communicating and working with your Artist, Illustrator, or Graphic Designer

        If you are looking to hire someone in platforms like Freelancer, Upwork, PeopleperHour or independently, or you yourself are a freelancer, the following information and tips can help you both understand each other, smooth the journey, make things fair for everyone, and overall increase the chances that you will be both satisfied with the project.

       These tips have been inspired by nearly 10 years of freelance work online in several of these platforms, as well as occasionally having hired freelancers myself.

       Since due to my experience the article leans heavily towards the POV of the freelancer, I certainly hope I can receive feedback from both clients and other freelancers to expand it.

       Let's get started:

 

 

 

Tip 1. Provide reference images in your job listing.

       Specially when working with illustrators and artists, creative styles are not the same, we all have different strengths and weaknesses, someone who works with cartoons may not be great at creating environments, someone that can paint amazing flowers may not know how to make balanced seamless patterns.

       Anything you show us can be helpful, seeing samples, even if vague, can help creatives save their time and money not writing a proposal if their style is not compatible with your job, and it can help the client save time not having to look through dozens of irrelevant portfolios.

       Additionally, if the work requires the re-make, or changing an existent image(s), showing the image allows the freelancer to accurately calculate how long and how much the job will take, if you do not wish to show them publicly, consider paying per hour, or reassuring that the budget can be confirmed during the interview after having shown the images.

 

 

 

Tip 2. Check their portfolio, and remember that stolen portfolios and AI are a thing now.

       For real portfolios, this one is very self-explanatory, styles are everything, but at the same time, remember that just because a very specific object you need is not existent in the artist’s portfolio, it doesn’t mean they can’t do it, if you like their style, ask them if.

       Now some unsavory people (ehem Fiverr….) like to steal images from other places and show them as theirs, two ways of double checking a freelancer are:

1. Doing a reverse image search in Google and seeing that the image is consistent with the name of the artist/designer showing up elsewhere.
2. Searching for the name of the artist/designer themselves, again searching for consistency.

       Watch out for portfolios made with AI… a whole new thing, but more and more online AI image detectors are coming into the playground, making it easier to see if certain work was generated or not.

 

 

 

Tip 3. Communicate, and have a concrete idea of what deliverables you want before even posting your listing.

       Sounds obvious, but way too many clients give us a project with a clear deliverable (a full color logo), and then mid-project they spring a “oh btw can you include a black & white version too?”, and then get unpleasantly surprised when we inform them this may require an extra fee. It isn’t great.

       While pivoting, changing the project when things are not working out, or even finding a good idea in the first place is part of the job, doing so ‘on a whim’, repeatedly, and without a clear sense of direction can become a true headache and reason for resentment on a freelancer, especially when you are not being mindful of respecting their time or when working on a fixed budget.

       Before a contract is written or started, both parties should set clear guidelines and expectations regarding what the project entails.

       For example, a client typically should cover the following points, depending on the project:

• What do they need, and exactly how many versions, deliverables, files, or formats.
• When does he need the project to be finished by.
• What is it for, as well as the audience, it is helpful to know that a graphic will be used on T-shirt or decal.
• If a NDA will need to be signed or if the artist won’t be allowed to display their work in their portfolio.

       And a freelancer may want to clarify:

• How many sketches/versions will they be providing for the budget being negotiated.
• How much would they have to charge for extra work or revisions.
• How much time they calculate they will need to complete the project.
• Potential challenges, or limitations with the client’s request (for example, a customer may ask for a vector format image with a certain texture, but it’s not possible to create this texture in vectors effectively, it must be a raster file, which one will it be).
• Early warnings about anything: the project needing more time, iterations, challenges.

 

 

Tip 4. Fixed price or hourly rate?

       Let’s start with the pros and cons of each one from each point of view:

A. Fixed price:

• Pros. The client knows exactly how much they will pay for the entire project, no surprises. Likewise the freelancer knows how much income they are getting, and can schedule the project and other projects accordingly.
• Cons. Given the “time is money” nature of freelancing and the limited hours existent in each day and week, in order to survive we have to put time limitations on each project. Sometimes, if there were many revisions, changes of mind, or the budget was simply insufficient or not well calculated, freelancers can end up feeling very constricted by time, and the project can end up being rushed and perhaps not end up with the best quality. Upwork reviews are full of this type of complain, from both sides.

B. Hourly fee:

• Pros. The project takes as long as it needs (within reason!!!) to be completed with the best quality.
• Cons. No one likes the surprises. There is the possibility that the client may end up spending more than hoped for, and the freelancer may have difficulty scheduling parallel or immediately-after projects. But, fluent communication through the project is key: the freelancer always should be able to provide at least an estimate in advance and update it throughout the project as well as add some buffer-time and worst-case scenarios, and the client should always be allowed to request and enforce a limit.

       Generally speaking, these are some tips to help you decide what contract is best for your project:

• If you have a good and fixed idea of what you want, fixed price.
  If the project is relatively small sized and straightforward, like a single or a couple illustrations, fixed price.
• If you want to give most or all creative decisions to the freelancer (therefore minimizing feedback rounds and revisions), fixed fee.
• If you want to retain a lot of control over the art direction of the project (or even go as far as micromanaging), hourly fee.
• If the main ideas for the project are not clear and require brainstorming (i.e. you want a logo, but what elements include on it?), hourly fee.
• If the project involves a large amount of deliverables and/or many adjustments and revisions are expected along the way (like board games and digital games work), hourly fee.

       Note that when the project is very large, for example: a tarot card deck or board game, it may not be initially easy for a freelancer to calculate the entire budget accurately, this is because at that stage many things that impact the the time needed for the project have not been defined (for example, exact style).

       In these cases it is advisable to divide the project and work out the exact plan, sketches and style first for one fee or contract, then, once these things have been decided, the freelancer will be able to more accurately calculate the budget for the rendering of the entire project and a new contract can be created.

 

 

Tip 5. Giving and requesting feedback.

For clients: 
       When you are ‘art directing’ a project, please try to avoid saying words like “maybe”, “perhaps” or ending a direct request with a “?”, it’s confusing, if it’s on a fixed budget this will drive your freelancer up the walls, if it’s an hourly contract you can end up wasting a lot of money.

       Please be clear and direct: what do you like about the thing exactly? More importantly what you don’t like exactly? Sometimes is not easy to say because overall the design is simply not working aesthetically, or not balanced, sometimes it’s necessary to say this.

       The most important point is that it’s best to avoid being too vague.

For freelancers:
       Every time you send the process for review, it is advisable that you clarify what you are focusing on for this iteration (for example, composition), what will you address later (for example, finding a suitable font), and in general what kind of feedback are you requesting exactly.

       Likewise, if the client is not being clear enough, it is better that you request clarification before proceeding.

 

 

 

Tip 6. Respecting Time. And keeping realistic expectations regarding time vs quality of the work vs budget.

       Wise people have said, that from: Fast, good and cheap, you can only pick two. If you want any two, you can’t have the one left out.

       It is a good rule of thumb, at least when you are working with entry-level or early intermediate freelancers.

       But even that doesn’t cover the most important point I’d like to make, and that way too many first-time clients seem to overlook, that: good work takes time, making images (let alone videos and animations!) takes time, depending on the project or image it can take days, weeks, or for the truly complex images even months. A good illustration doesn’t not happen overnight, nor should you expect to pay $10 for it.

       There is a pesky mentality some people have that is: “jobs should not be fun, if a job is fun, then I shouldn’t expect to pay too much for it”, not only this is so wrong, but it is not even true that it’s that much fun that anyone would want to do this 10 hours a day, and starve.

       This is our full time job, not a hobby, not (only) for fun, and even if it was ‘for fun’, we need to pay bills. Even if it was ‘for fun’, we paid money to learn and train, and many of us non-AI people spent our whole lives dedicating our lives to this career, just as doctors, mechanics and businesspeople dedicate their lives to theirs. Please remember that.

 

 

Bonus Note #1. "Simple" doesn’t automatically mean easier, faster, or cheaper.

       While it is true that some illustrations or images are more complex than others due to amount and density of elements, length of planning and creative work, complexity of color or style, therefore they require more time, this does not automatically mean that “visually simpler” images require less work to get there.

       Actually, and especially in graphic design, determining what to include and what to leave out, sketching, research, brainstorming, polishing, testing shapes, testing styles, searching for the perfect look, balancing elements, are all tasks that in the end may end up taking as much time or more as a complex illustration, “less is more” quite literally!

       Some of the most famous and “simple” logos in history happened to be also some of the most expensive, precisely due to the immense amount of work put towards their creation, Pepsi and BBC, for example.

       All this said, it is indeed not always easy for both clients and freelancers themselves to determine what is the right budget for a project, and many projects such as logos and illustrations can be considered “open ended”, meaning that after a certain minimum, you can stay at that minimum, or invest more to take them higher levels.

 

 

 

Bonus Note #2. Are your applicants not expert or talented enought? In freelancing platforms, consider what your reviews and history say about you to potential clients or freelancers.

       As you all know, reviews are everything for freelancers, get a bad review that speaks of unprofessional behavior, and without a good explanation or response from the freelancer, their career in that platform will be finished.

       We all know that, so I won’t use any time writing about the obvious, or about the cases when the chemistry just wasn’t compatible, it happens.

       For this segment I want to talk about the clients, and how I see so many clients make the mistake of thinking that this only affects freelancers and not themselves… simply put, it does, we are reading your reviews, and when we see you have treated a freelancer not so well, or with arrogance and condescension even on a good review, or when the post itself uses arrogant language such as "if you impress us", the experienced among us will think twice about applying for your jobs.

       We also see how much you have paid other freelancers, for example when I read that someone has paid only $17 to someone else (likely someone in a disadvantaged position or desperate to have their first good reviews) to do a major task, there is no way in hell I’ll apply for that person’s job, I already know that that person does not value other people’s times, and won’t want to pay what the project requires.

       This is a way you may be scaring talent and options away. Any of us may have been just the perfect person you needed to make your project happen in the best possible way, but due to previous behavior you won’t even know about our existence!

 

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       This article was created and updated in February 2025, and as my experience grows or I hear from other people’s stories I look forward expanding it.

       I hope these notes helped you consider how to better communicate with our client or freelancer, and how to improve how you approach each other overall. If you’d like to share any comments or experiences of your own I would love to hear from you.

       And if you are looking for a an artist to bring your next object to life, check my portfolio! And let me know if you think I’m ‘your one’ ;).