Commissioning a designer or using a template: how to choose

What a template is genuinely good at

Speed, certainty and low commitment. You can see exactly what you are getting before you commit, and you can have it today. For a one-off event, an internal document or a first attempt at something you are still working out, that is the correct answer.

A template is also fine when your requirements are genuinely ordinary. Not everything needs to be distinctive.

What a template cannot do

It cannot be about you. Anything specific — a particular history, an unusual constraint, two languages, a set of pieces that must feel related — is where a template starts fighting you.

It also cannot be owned. Somebody else is using it, possibly a competitor, and you have no say in that.

What commissioning actually buys

Judgement, mostly. A designer who understands the problem will make decisions you would not have known to ask for, and will tell you when what you asked for is not what you need.

You also get files that fit your actual uses, and a person who can adapt the work later.

• Something specific to you
• Judgement about what will work
• Files sized for your real uses
• Somebody to ask next time

The real cost difference is time and involvement

Commissioning asks something of you: a brief, availability to give feedback, and decisions. The projects that go badly are almost always the ones where the client wanted to hand it over entirely.

If you do not have the attention to give it, a template today may genuinely serve you better than a commission you cannot participate in.

A reasonable middle path

Commission the pieces that carry your identity and template the rest. A logo and a card are worth designing; an internal form is not. Spending everywhere is how budgets vanish without anything looking better.

The hidden cost of the cheap option

A template that nearly fits usually gets adjusted, and the adjusting is done by somebody without the skill to do it well. The result costs time and looks worse than either the original template or a commission.

If you find yourself editing a template heavily, that is the signal you needed a commission.

Decide what actually carries your identity

Not everything you print represents you equally. The card you hand somebody, the packaging on a shelf and the sign above a door do. An internal form does not.

Spending on the first group and templating the second is how a modest budget produces a business that looks considered rather than one that looks evenly average.

How to start

Everything runs through one place. Artists sign in at the artist studio, upload work, choose which products each piece suits, and see what they have earned. Customers browse the artwork, pick a design, and choose what to put it on.

Nothing about it is exclusive. You can sell the same work elsewhere at the same time, and there is no listing fee and no minimum.

• Apply with three pieces so we can see how you work
• Choose which products each design belongs on
• Get paid by bank transfer on what sells

Common questions