CEOs, CTOs, product managers, and project managers at top companies and startups work with Toptal brand identity design freelancers to augment their design teams for app design, website design, and other design projects to achieve their business needs.
Since 2010, Roman has been working as a product designer for startups and some of the largest companies worldwide, such as Vogue, Oriflame, Socialbakers, and more. He specializes in clean and functional mobile apps and eye-catching web designs. Roman joined Toptal to work with companies that value a human approach and have a strong passion for design and life.
United StatesToptal Member Since November 17, 2016
As a creative leader with over 15 years of experience, Eduard's expertise encompasses a variety of mediums and communication channels, working across a wide range of both client industries and creative teams. He's passionately creative, quality-driven, and motivated to create the best design solution. Combined with an in-depth approach to research and analysis, he's able to focus on the target audience and engage design in the most effective way.
Linsey has been designing websites, apps, and digital products for over 7+ years for various agencies, startups, and freelance clients. She specializes in branding, UI, and visual design and also has expertise in UX and brand strategy. Linsey has a lot of experience managing and completing projects remotely and is eager to partner with new clients helping them achieve their goals through digital strategy and design.
Rehan is an award-winning designer specializing in branding, interactive experiences, and digital twin solutions. With a deep passion for multidisciplinary creative endeavors, he has demonstrated exceptional leadership across multiple sectors, seamlessly merging art, design, storytelling, and technology. His expertise lies in the jobs-to-be-done theory and value proposition design. Rehan is known for his collaborative spirit and portfolio of award-winning work featured in global publications.
With an early career woven into the rise of the internet, Pierre's experience in digital is vast. Over the last 20 years, he founded one of the first award-winning web shops in Montreal, crafting work for major accounts, such as Burger King. Pierre designed an event app used by Airbnb, Salesforce, and Cisco. He continues to serve on a jury at the prestigious FWA. Typography, smooth interactions, and a glimmer of sassy irony are the driving forces behind his elegant yet highly functional style.
Victor is an award-winning designer and brand strategist with a decade of experience leading teams and working in various organizations, from pre-funding startups to MIT, Siemens, Forbes, and Save the Children. He focuses on data-driven design products and brand strategies that delight and convert customers. He has changed how organizations solve problems and produced world-class B2B and B2C interfaces in various industries, from AI and fintech to aerospace and Web3, with over a billion on TVL.
United StatesToptal Member Since February 11, 2016
Evgeny is a self-described hybrid designer which means that he's very experienced and successful in both UX/UI and visual design. He has over 15 years of experience in designing the UX/UI for web and mobile applications across a broad range of industries including the internet of things (IoT), retail, computer games, design, real estate, and entertainment. His specialties are UX design, UI interaction design, and mobile/web application design.
Jordan is an expert designer whose focus is on visual communications and whose work integrates strategy, service design, and UX/UI. She has worked in a range of companies, from corporate in-house to boutique design studios. A self-starter who wears many hats, Jordan is in her element leading a project or managing a team.
Brand designers specialize in crafting the visual elements that represent a company's brand identity. This guide to hiring brand designers features an overview of relevant skills, job description tips, and interview questions and answers that will help you identify the best candidates for your company.
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What our clients think
Clients Rate Toptal Brand Designers4.4 / 5.0on average across 182 reviews as of May 18, 2024
Testimonials
Michael is an incredible designer, and has been a great fit for our project. He just gets it in a way that can’t be taught. My goal was to pay Toptal to find me a high quality designer for my project, and that is exactly what happened. It was easy. Being able to see the portfolio work on Toptal’s platform is what gave me the infomation I needed to choose Michael. I have nothing but good things to say about Toptal and am looking forward to using Toptal for other projects in the future.
Edward Daniel
Co-Founder
I've worked very closely with Martina for over a year and have to say she is one of the best people I have ever worked with. Instead of simply following instructions blindly, she thinks through the task at hand, becoming a thought partner to help with whatever the project may be. Besides being super talented at design, she possesses specific qualities that make her exceptional to work with given the fast paced nature of being a startup. I would definitely recommend her to anyone looking for a talented, professional designer who doesn't need much direction to hit the ground running.
Sahil Khanna
Sr. Manager, Marketing
Darko did a great job figuring out the user architecture for our concept, which led him to produce terrific wireframes. His knowledge of usability and design was a perfect match for the outside voice we needed to help jumpstart our project. We would certainly recommend him and work with him again in the future.
Rich Danker
Founder
Carlos has the unique talent of blending both quantitative and qualitative research to keenly identify UX challenges and opportunities. He thinks methodically, emphatically, and holistically to produce data-driven strategies and well-executed designs. Over the past 8 years of working with fully or partially distributed teams, Carlos manages working remotely far better than anyone I've encountered because of his strong communication and presentation skills. He is the first on my list the next time I need a UX designer.
Michelle Krogmeier
Project Manager
Rafael is an amazing designer. His aesthetic sense is spot on, and he seems to be able to anticipate our needs before we even know what they are. He's taken the time to understand both our company and our clientele, and his solutions are consistently in-line with our values, interests, and our customers' needs. He delivers on time (if not earlier), works quickly, is well organized, and very effective. He's a pleasure to work with, and we're very happy to have found him through Toptal.
Ethan Brooks
CTO
How to Hire Brand Designers Through Toptal
1
Talk to One of Our Industry Experts
A Toptal director of design will work with you to understand your goals, technical needs, and team dynamics.
2
Work With Hand-Selected Talent
Within days, we'll introduce you to the right brand designer for your project. Average time to match is under 24 hours.
3
The Right Fit, Guaranteed
Work with your new brand designer for a trial period (pay only if satisfied), ensuring they're the right fit before starting the engagement.
Find Experts With Related Skills
Access a vast pool of skilled designers in our talent network and hire the top 3% within just 48 hours.
To hire the right brand designer, it’s important to evaluate a candidate’s experience, technical skills, and communication skills. You’ll also want to consider the fit with your particular industry, company, and project. Toptal’s rigorous screening process ensures that every member of our network has excellent experience and skills, and our team will match you with the perfect brand designers for your project.
How much does it cost to hire a brand designer?
Brand designer rates vary depending on the project scope, timeline, and the brand designer’s geography. Some brand designers bill hourly, while others charge a flat project fee. More experienced and accomplished brand designers tend to charge more for their services. As a point of reference, Glassdoor lists the average salary for brand designers in the United States to be $79,632 as of February 2024.
What exactly does a brand designer do?
Brand designers specialize in refining the visual identity of a brand. Working in tandem with additional creative team members, brand designers generate products such as logos, typography, color palettes, and graphics that reflect a company’s values. These skilled professionals conduct market research, assess feedback from the target audience, and adapt the brand’s image accordingly. Consistency is key, and brand designers make an effort to develop a branding profile that appeals to customers on an emotional level, builds trust, and sets the company apart in a competitive marketplace. Brand designers also work with several stakeholders, including suppliers, vendors, social media managers, investors, and leadership teams, to ensure quality, continuity, and company growth.
Why do you need to hire a freelance brand designer?
A quality brand designer helps your company build a strong brand presence, which drives customer engagement, increases customer retention, and leads to larger profits. Innovative design ideas distinguish companies from their competition, and brand designers are key to driving and maintaining brand relevance. Additionally, a refreshed brand design promotes a stronger sense of community within your company, fostering brand pride and purpose among your employees. A brand’s messaging and front-facing image are vital to its prosperity, and freelance brand designers can help achieve this goal.
Atishay is a product designer and UX expert who has worked in close collaboration with McKinsey & Company and Boston Consulting Group on B2B and B2C products for a wide range of industries. He is the head of product design at Agility Group and was recognized as one of India’s top designers of 2023 by Siliconindia.
Brand design is a field that is highly attuned to the consumer psyche and shifting market landscapes. As a result, jobs within this field continue to be in demand. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, graphic designers and, by extension, brand designers can expect 3% employment growth between now and 2032, which is on trend with other roles and suggests a level of stability and availability for the foreseeable future. Whether your company is looking to refresh its current brand identity or build a compelling visual profile from the ground up, hiring a brand designer is a smart decision.
Brand designers conceptualize and promote a company’s public image, often working with clients and other creatives to develop a distinct look, feel, and message. Expert brand designers are adept at crafting cohesive visual narratives that resonate with consumers on an emotional level. If executed well, an organization’s brand identity becomes both recognizable and trusted.
In this hiring guide, we outline what a brand designer does, how to identify a freelance designer who aligns with your organization’s goals, and how to adopt recruitment strategies to help your business reach the strongest pool of qualified brand design candidates.
What attributes distinguish quality Brand Designers from others?
Expert brand designers are capable of developing clear, consistent, and captivating messaging that appeals to clients and end users. Hiring a skilled brand designer can help your business engage with customers, increase revenue, and promote lifelong brand loyalty.
When considering what type of brand designer would best suit your organization’s needs, be on the lookout for a dynamic candidate with competency in the following areas:
Strong Visual Skills
Brand designers usually have graphic design experience, which heavily emphasizes visual hierarchies, form, flow, and verbal or nonverbal communication. A strong understanding of layout and composition is imperative for a brand designer to convey meaning and represent ideas more successfully.
Strong candidates will also be able to visualize how their designs will appear across a multitude of platforms, such as websites, apps, billboards, brochures, print ads, and digital data visualizations. Brand designers should be detail-oriented, comfortable with problem-solving, adaptable to changing consumer landscapes, and willing to collaborate with company owners, managers, directors, and additional creative professionals.
Logo Design
Any brand’s identity is heavily dependent on an easily recognizable logo. A proficient freelance designer will be able to transform intangible business goals, values, and personality into a carefully crafted visual representation using images, shapes, and colors. Traditionally, this process begins with conducting market research to assess the target audience, evaluate industry trends, and gauge the competition from similar brands. Insight gleaned from this undertaking will help guide the direction of the overall project.
A quality brand design candidate will synthesize this information in order to generate a logo that aligns with a company’s overarching message. Depending on the deliverable, a brand designer may use certain typography styles or fonts that resonate with the brand’s objectives. A skilled hire will understand the psychology of colors and how to employ them in order to convey specific emotions. Additional elements such as illustration, iconography, texture, and pattern may also be incorporated into a logo’s design.
Remember that brand designers should be comfortable using graphic design software, such as Adobe Creative Cloud, to create mock-ups and refined digital versions of their work. Additionally, professional designers will be open to receiving feedback from clients in order to develop logos that satisfy each brand’s vision.
Client Brand Guideline Expertise
Brand designers should be keenly aware of their client’s current brand guidelines, which often dictate the use of color palettes, spacing, logo placement, typography, and other visually driven design elements. When reviewing brand guidelines, the designer should ask questions about specific constraints, limitations, variations, or modifications a client may have. Throughout this process, an experienced brand designer will also review any past marketing materials and design assets that adhere to the brand guidelines, which will aid their understanding of the brand’s history, mission, and overall positioning.
Communication is critical during this stage, and a designer should be able to iterate as needed. Refining design materials to meet the guidelines is to be expected, and quality candidates will ensure that any modifications are cohesive and ready to use across a variety of marketing channels.
Market Awareness
In order to create meaningful and impactful brand assets, a brand designer should be familiar with ongoing market trends, emergent technologies, and consumer preferences. Staying abreast of cultural and social shifts is also important, especially when partnering with clients from various countries.
Professional designers should always be receptive to adjusting design strategies based on a client’s industry while maintaining ethical design practices that adhere to copyright and trademark laws. By actively maintaining a level of market awareness, brand designers can make informed and relevant decisions while offering a leg up on the competition.
How can you identify the ideal Brand Designer for you?
If your company is interested in revitalizing its brand’s identity—or even if it’s in the earliest stages of brand development—a brand designer’s discerning eye can make all the difference. Hiring a brand designer is a surefire way to bolster your business’s market presence and reinvigorate consumer relations.
To begin the hiring process for a brand designer, your company should define the project’s scope, mission, and budget. This allows your team to decide whether it’s best to hire a junior or senior candidate and to set expectations as to what the final deliverables will look like. Factors such as timeline and workplace culture should also be taken into account. Regardless of whether you choose to hire a junior brand designer or a more seasoned professional, it’s necessary to weigh each option carefully before making a decision.
Typically, junior brand designers will have limited professional experience, which means they have limited hands-on training. As a result, brand designers who are still in the nascent phase of their careers are responsible for tending to smaller and more straightforward project tasks. However, this provides your business the perfect opportunity to direct these candidates in accordance with your design standards and workplace expectations. By partnering a junior brand designer with a veteran mentor, you allow them to hone their specializations.
In contrast, senior brand designers will have considerable experience within the design realm. These designers have nuanced, insider knowledge, which helps to lay the foundation for polished and impactful end products. Senior brand designers should exhibit a masterful command of brand identity craftsmanship and can offer unparalleled levels of insight, articulation, and flexibility. Of course, senior brand designers are significantly more expensive than their junior counterparts, but their price tag reflects a successful track record and suggests a skillfully executed branding campaign.
A solid brand design candidate should possess a combination of creative and technical skills. Proficiency in graphic design software, a sharp eye for aesthetics, strong typography skills, and a deep understanding of color theory are only a few of the abilities a designer should display. Brand designers should also excel in visual storytelling, exhibit a knowledge of branding principles, and have the ability to create memorable logos and eye-catching graphics. Communication and collaboration are also essential skills for any worthwhile brand designer to possess.
In an ideal world, a well-rounded team full of both junior and senior designers would be advantageous to the sustainability of your company’s design-related ventures. By blending the technical expertise of long-serving design veterans with the enthusiasm of entry-level creatives, your brand’s identity is more likely to resonate with a wider audience, paving the way for a stronger branding presence.
How to Write a Brand Design Job Description for Your Project
Drafting a brand designer job description doesn’t have to be a chore; however, it’s imperative to outline exactly what your organization expects from a potential candidate. Oftentimes, brand designers are mistaken for graphic designers, and while their roles may seem similar on the surface, each of these roles demands a finely tuned skill set. In order to reach a top-tier brand design candidate, consider including the following competencies when writing your job listing:
Proficiency in Graphic Design Tools
A valuable brand designer candidate should be proficient in a number of graphic design software tools geared toward delivering a polished final product. As mentioned, Adobe Creative Cloud, which includes applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, is a popular suite used in the design industry. Brand designers may also be familiar with additional tools such as Sketch, Figma, Canva, Procreate, or Affinity Designer.
Relatedly, a strong candidate will also exhibit a working knowledge of font management systems such as Adobe Fonts and Google Fonts. Finally, brand designers often utilize stock image websites such as Shutterstock and Unsplash as a means to incorporate high-quality images into their designs.
Prototyping Tool Knowledge
Brand designers are frequently involved with creating user interfaces (UI) and user experiences (UX) for a wide range of digital products and platforms. In these cases, brand designers should be comfortable working with prototyping tools that help bring their design concepts to life. Popular programs include Sketch, Figma, UXPin , InVision, and Proto.io. Depending on the complexity of the project, the needs of the design team, and the prototyping requirements, certain tools may perform better than others. However, a competitive candidate will be able to easily translate design ideas into real-life, working models.
Presentation Tool Experience
After laboring to create a brand identity that accurately reflects a company’s values, brand designers use presentation tools to showcase their work, pitch ideas to clients, and communicate effectively with stakeholders. Top candidates should be aware of, if not entirely proficient in, one or more of the following: Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides, Apple Keynote, Adobe Express, or Canva.
Social Media Copy Design Expertise
Brand designers play a chief part in ensuring that social media copy and design work together seamlessly. Working alongside content creators, copywriters, and social media managers, brand designers help to ensure consistent messaging and identity. Creating templates and brand assets, establishing responsive design, adhering to social media platform standards, maintaining brand guidelines, and rolling out engaging campaigns are only a handful of tasks that fall on brand designers. A quality candidate will have experience with these types of responsibilities.
What are the most important Brand Designer interview questions?
In order to make well-informed decisions throughout the brand designer hiring process, consider discussing these questions with members of the hiring team beforehand as a way to gauge their understanding of the position:
How can a new brand designer align with and advance vision?
In order to answer this question, it’s imperative that members of the hiring team have a clear understanding of the brand’s core values, its target audience, and its overall market positioning. Regardless of the industry, a company should prioritize data-driven improvements that ultimately contribute to the brand’s longevity and success.
When adding a new brand designer into the mix, ask questions such as, “Will the new hire collaborate with cross-functional teams to promote strategic growth?” “Will they commit to preserving brand consistency?” “Are they eager to explore and expand the brand’s creative vision?” “What innovative design can this brand designer offer our organization?”
Should hiring managers weigh the importance of certifications, specialized courses, or professional affiliations when recruiting brand designers? If these are deemed valuable, which specific ones stand out as particularly advantageous in enriching a designer’s skills and expertise?
From a business standpoint, it only makes sense to take into consideration the time and effort invested into earning additional certifications or pursuing specialized courses. These types of credentials demonstrate a brand designer’s commitment to professional development and a willingness to sharpen creative skills. Take note of applicants who have earned credentials such as the Graphic Design Specialization from CalArts or the Graphic Design Certification from Adobe. Connections with professional affiliations such as the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) or the American Marketing Association indicate a commitment to networking. However, it should be noted that additional certifications may be cost-prohibitive or inaccessible to certain candidates. With this in mind, it’s always best to review a candidate’s design portfolio in order to allow the work to speak for itself.
Do you have a clear grasp of your company’s existing brand identity and its future direction? How will a new brand designer fit into and enhance this vision?
Again, it’s of the utmost importance that your hiring team is well-informed in regard to your company’s current brand identity and its objectives. A new brand designer is charged with bridging the gap between your business’s present and future brand aspirations. In theory, this transition should prove seamless, as designers strive to preserve a brand’s core values. By developing and sharing fresh, innovative, and relevant design choices, brand designers are poised to generate an appealing and cohesive public-facing image.
Why do companies hire Brand Designers?
Brand designers are primarily responsible for helping to establish and refine a company’s visual identity. Using logos, typography, color schemes, and messaging, brand designers work with clients and additional stakeholders to capture a brand’s essence, ultimately setting it apart from competitors. When a brand’s identity is carefully crafted and consistent, it can influence how consumers perceive a company, which helps foster long-term trust and loyalty.
Accomplished brand designers are sensitive to design trends, consumer preferences, and market shifts, which allows them to develop visual identities that are relevant and appealing. Additionally, brand designers can assist in creating marketing materials such as websites, apps, billboards, brochures, banners, and other advertisements to increase a brand’s visibility.
Well-rounded brand designers will have a strong portfolio, a willingness to collaborate, excellent communication skills, and an eye on the future.
