If you’re running a design agency, there comes a point where you simply can’t do it all yourself anymore.
The briefs pile up, deadlines get tighter, and the question of how to build a design team stops being hypothetical.
At Design Force, we’ve built a team of 50+ designers in just four years, working with 350+ businesses worldwide. A lot of that growth came from figuring out, often the hard way, what scaling actually requires.
Not sure where to start? Read on…
How to know when It’s time to scale your design agency
There are only so many hours in a day. At some point, the problem isn’t how hard you’re working. To scale a design agency, you need more than longer hours. Ask yourself:
- Are you turning down work because you don’t have the time or resources to complete it to a high standard?
- Is your team’s skillset limiting the projects you can say yes to?
- Do you or your designers regularly feel stretched too thin?
If the answer is yes to any of those, the first step in how to build a design team that actually works is knowing you need one. The timing will never feel perfect. But waiting costs more than most people realize.
Spending money to grow can feel backwards, especially when you’ve worked hard to get here. But staying the same size has a cost too. It just shows up as missed revenue instead of an invoice.
Why building a design team is worth it
More designers = more output and revenue
Adding even one designer changes the math pretty quickly. While you’re briefing a new client, your designer is finishing work for the last one.
If your calendar is the reason you’re turning work away, that’s the clearest sign it’s time to grow.
A wider skillset means you can win bigger projects
Design briefs have a way of growing. What starts as a logo request becomes a full brand system. A social campaign turns into a video series. If your team covers only one specialty, you’ll eventually end up in the uncomfortable position of turning down a design project.
Building a team with varied capabilities, covering UI/UX, motion, branding, advertising, packaging, and more, means you can say yes when projects expand instead of referring clients elsewhere.
Hiring remote designers gives you a serious competitive edge
When we decided to hire remote designers, it wasn’t a trend we were chasing. It just made sense. Having designers worldwide bring different references, aesthetics, and instincts into their output. That variety shows up in the work.
There are more benefits of having a remote team. A distributed team means your projects don’t stop moving when your office closes. While your US clients sleep, someone in another time zone is already working on their brief. That’s a hard thing to replicate with a local-only team.
Managing a remote creative team is it's own skill level
How to build a design team without overspending
A lot of agencies choose to outsource graphic design before committing to a full hire. It’s a smart middle path, and there are two options worth knowing.
Option 1: Hire freelancers
Freelancers are often the first move. The commitment is light, rates are flexible, and for a specific one-off project, a good freelancer can get it done without much overhead on your end.
However, the difficulty starts when your needs are ongoing. Vetting takes time. Briefing every new person from scratch takes time. Managing several freelancers across several projects simultaneously is, honestly, a job in itself.
Freelance design rates on platforms like Upwork run anywhere from $30 to $150 an hour, and for businesses running 10 or more design projects a month, a flat-rate subscription service tends to make more financial sense.
For occasional work, freelancers make sense. For consistent, growing design needs, there’s a more efficient option.
American Window Film was spending more time managing freelancers than managing their brand. See how that changed when they partnered with Design Force.
Matt Faulkner, Marketing Lead @ American Window Film
Option 2: Work with a managed design subscription service
A managed design service like Design Force removes the part that slows most agencies down: the management itself.
When you submit a request, a dedicated Project Manager handles everything behind it. They assign the right specialist for the job, whether that’s a motion designer, a UI expert, or packaging specialist. You get the output, review it, request changes, and approve. No hiring. No briefing strangers required.
Because it runs as a design subscription service, you adjust based on how busy your quarter actually is. Scale up when you need more capacity, pull back when you don’t. Hours roll over, so you’re not burning budget on time you didn’t use.
There’s also a compounding benefit that’s easy to overlook. Designers who work with you regularly start to internalize your brand. The briefs get shorter, design work gets sharper, and you’ll stop re-explaining things you’ve already explained a dozen times.
That’s how you can run like a full-service agency from the start, before you’ve made a single in-house hire.
When you’re ready for full-time in-house hires
At some point, hiring someone in-house starts to make sense. The workload is steady, you know what you need, and you want a designer fully embedded in how your agency operates. That’s a healthy progression.
Go into it with clear expectations on cost. A full-time graphic designer in the US runs $60,000 to $80,000 in base salary. That number climbs once you factor in benefits, software, and equipment. For agencies still building their book of clients, it’s a meaningful commitment to take on.
A subscription service like Design Force can run alongside your in-house team without friction, picking up overflow, specialist projects, and production work so your permanent hires can stay focused on the strategic side.
Ready to build your design team?
Design Force is trusted by teams at HubSpot, TikTok, and agencies. Whether you need to fill a gap or build a dedicated on-demand design team for the long haul, we can help.
