A Great Small Business Solution for Low Budget Website Projects – Students rather than Studios

You get quality work at a fraction of the cost. They get valuable work experience.

I'm often approached by small businesses and startups regarding mega-affordable options for custom website design – not a generic template site like those offered by companies such as Intuit, GoDaddy and the myriad of web hosting companies. And I often come back with the same bit of advice: “Look for a design student.”

As the academic term kicks into high gear, students are back on campus, and many are looking for part-time employment opportunities to gain solid, client-driven work experience, as well as make a few bucks. At Y INTERACT, we often hire students to intern in our studio during the academic year, as well as during the summer months. Being in New York City, we've got the luxury of having top design schools such as Parsons, Pratt, School of Visual Arts, and the Cooper Union from which we can recruit talent. But even if you're not in the NYC area, many colleges that offer design degrees have pools of students to choose from. These days, many schools use the College Central Network as their career services online tool, while others use their own proprietary systems. I've had great experiences with types of sites – they're easy to set up and manage job postings, and in the future if you choose to go back to the site, it's quite simple to re-post an available position.

The biggest advantage of hiring design students is that you get the opportunity to recruit young men and women who possess the vision, creative skill AND technical expertise needed to complete the job – whether it's a website, graphic design project, animation, or other – as well as the youthful energy to get the job done. Additionally, because they're students, they'll only charge a fraction of what a studio would charge.

Here are a couple of guidelines to follow when exploring working with a design student:

1. Start your search early. Just like shopping for anything, the early birds get the worms. The real Jedi Masters (the most diligent and talented students) tend to be the first to search for jobs, as well as the first to get nabbed by employers. Within just a few weeks, the cream of the crop will find opportunities, leaving you with tier-two talents.
2. Pay them. Call/Email career service offices and ask what's the going rate for internships. Whatever it is, just pay it. It's not a ton of money and nobody likes to work for free, no matter what they say during an interview.
3. Recognize that your project, although important, is not their first priority. You're also competing with class, academic deadlines, social life, etc. If your project is super-duper time sensitive and urgent, you may want to consider a full-time freelancer, or a design studio. And as exam period approaches, you can forget about getting anything from them until testing is done. As long as you're aware of the basics of their academic schedule, you'll be fine.
4. Although a student may be extremely talented, they may be professionally rough around the edges. This is understandable since he/she may not have a ton (if any) real world work experience. Opportunities to provide guidance and advice tend to be welcome. Remember, they're getting just as much out of the situation (a few bucks, experience and portfolio work), as you are (a low cost alternative). If your student is working off-site, twice a week or weekly status calls or meetings can be useful to keep things on track. Establish a solid set of deliverables, and set a realistic timetable.
5. For all of the reasons above, students are great for smaller scale projects with shorter timetables. If your timetable is anything over a couple of months, or for large-scale projects, you may want to explore other options.
6. For interns, think of what you can offer to entice a student that they cannot get elsewhere. For example, at Y INTERACT, we're always looking for top talents. Being talented, we know they can go anywhere they want, so our proposition is a summer of real client-driven work that can go into their portfolios, vs. spending three months retouching photos in a large media company, or fetching coffee for some Ad Agency Muckety-Muck.
7. MOST IMPORANT: Once your project is wrapped, make sure you get all source material from your designer. I'll repeat this one since it's a constant error that small business owners make:

MAKE SURE YOU GET ALL SOURCE MATERIAL FROM YOUR DESIGNER

In the case of a website gig, make sure you get (on a CD/DVD/Flash drive or other) all HTML files, Photoshop (.PSD) and/or Illustrator (.AI) files, Flash (.SWF) files, etc. For print projects, get your PSDs, AIs, and InDesign/Quark files. Also important: for online projects, make sure you GET ALL WEBSITE ACCESS credentials (registrar company, host company, all usernames, passwords, etc). Even if you continue working together, at some point when your student transitions to the Next Adventure in their life (summer internship at BBDO, Fall semester in Florence, graduation, etc) you can easily switch to the next designer without a major search and discovery process.

Keeping the above points in mind will help you successfully find a student to design and construct brilliant, compelling media with a startup/small business budget.

Ahmed Yearwood
Owner/Founder
Y INTERACT

Follow me on Twitter: @ahmedley (my personal posts) or @YINTERACT (our studio posts)