I’ve heard it many times: my clients formerly hired a freelancer or a studio in Toronto, spend money and time and got endless delays with poor results or just a bad job, then got frustrated and came to Roman Design (via Google search or recommendation from a client).

Just a few advices about how to choose a web designer or web design studio in Toronto, however it not only applies on Canada but almost anywhere:

1. Ask questions! It’s important to know how the company operates, where are its designers, what forms of payments they accept, what’s the payment structure, etc. You want to get as much information as you can about the designers so you can form an opinion on whether you can trust them.
2. Never hire web design company that uses outsourcing!Ask about outsourcing, where the company’s designers and developers are located. If the price looks too attractive – it usually means web design company uses outsourcing (usually to India or sometimes eastern Europe). Outsourcing, by countless previous experiences of Roman Design clients, means total or partial failure in most cases. It just doesn’t work. Even if the programmers are OK, time delay, difference in mentality, linguistic and logistical problems are a almost guaranteed recipe for disaster. Sorry for the plug, but Roman Design never uses outsourcing! And more and more businesses come to the same conclusion. Saving money and paying cheap prices sounds good, but in the end you will pay more to fix the damage.
3. Check out online portfolio. Designer or a studio without a nice portfolio is a definite no! Make sure you like the design style, that all works in all budgets look professional and modern. Also it never hurts to check for fraud – I not only get regular phone calls from other businesses about people I’ve never met who that say in the resume that they worked at Roman Design, but some of them also steal portfolio examples from Roman Design. Simple way to check is actually go to some of the websites mentioned and see if they link back to the designer and if that’s really the person or company you are researching.
4. When requesting quote – be very specific and descriptive about what you need. Make sure everything is written in your specifications, to eliminate any later misunderstandings and to make sure you get accurate quotes. Roman Design has a nice and detailed Quote Request Questionnaire that will help you with that. Writing out everything also protects you from your designer asking to get more money from you later for something you want but haven’t clearly mentioned when requesting the estimate.