In theory, it sounds good: because of the low cost of living in countries in Asia or Eastern Europe, there are countless designers and web programmers willing to work for less. On the surface, this seems like a great solution for your company’s budget: you can get your business’s website and branding done quickly for cheap.

I’m going to argue against going this route. Not only because the influx of cheap offshore “design firms” takes work away from skilled local designers like me (and yes, I have a bias here); I can think of several good reasons why your company’s public image shouldn’t be farmed out to people you’ve never met in a developing country.

1) Potential for sweatshops. Yes, the cost of living is lower in many parts of the world where these web-based offshore design companies are located. This does keep their price to their clients down. However, these countries also have different labour laws and regulations. One introductory (read: spam) email I received encouraged me to take advantage of a “design studio” in India, which was open 24 hours a day, 6 days a week. In my head, I’m picturing a dimly lit room, smelling of burnt silicon, full of old computers and exhausted malnourished teenagers. For all I know, it isn’t like that, but I doubt these “designers” are working 8 hour shifts with paid overtime to keep the studio running constantly. (As an aside, I think this would be an interesting topic for some investigative journalism. We know there’s sweatshop situations selling consumer goods, but are there similar setups for supposedly high-paid tech jobs?) If you’d hesitate before buying athletic shoes you know were made overseas by children, why would you risk buying your company’s image from a sweatshop?

2) There are good designers in every part of the world, in every country. But they’re not selling their services for $5/hour online. Any graduate of an accredited design school in any large city around the world would likely look for a job in an established advertising or design agency. They’ve invested time and money in education to work in their field. If they’re good, they’ll be doing projects for large national corporations and working their way up to art director. What they won’t be doing is selling their services at incredibly low prices over the internet.

3) There’s no local reputation, references, or network in place to give these offshore studios accountability. Working with a local freelancer or design firm, you know you have recourse if there’s ever a dispute over the work or price. Aside from the legal system in your country, you can also talk to the designer’s other clients and ask for professional references. You can physically meet them and see their place of work. You can gauge, person to person, if they’re someone who you can trust with your company’s brand image. You have none of this security when you outsource your work offshore. While you can damage an internet company’s reputation online, there’s nothing stopping these companies from simply changing their name and website and starting over with the same business formula.

4) It can be difficult to communicate with someone you can’t see face to face. When you’re working long distance with someone, you have to ensure your written communication is very clear. Not a lot of people are excellent communicators; it’s a rare enough skill that many design studios have a full time writer on staff. When you’re dealing with someone whose first language isn’t English and you only communicate through email, misunderstandings can happen. Cultural differences won’t help this either. What may start as a cheap project can end up costing more and more as mistakes have to be corrected.

5) There’s no ongoing relationship between designer and client. You probably won’t be getting the same designer working on your projects even if you do go through the same offshore company over and over. (You actually have no way of knowing who is working on your project; it probably won’t be the person you’re contacting.) If you work with a local freelancer or team, however, you know exactly who is working for you. This client/designer relationship is so important. I can’t stress enough how crucial it is to have someone who really gets your company working with your image. There will be no consistency in quality or branding standards if you risk taking your projects to an offshore “design firm.”

6) Copyright and intellectual property rights are different in the developing world. Knock-off consumer goods are everywhere, and so is copyright infringement. Someone who is only being paid $5/hour might be lazy enough to plagiarize or outright copy existing design work. They may not even know they’re doing something wrong, because attitudes towards this are different in different areas of the world. Unfortunately, there’s no way for you to know this is happening, and your company will be the one threatened with legal action, not the offshore company.

7) If you’re a design firm, studio, or freelancer who outsources client work offshore, you’re lying to and ripping off your clients. I don’t care if you’re busy, if it’s just a small project, if you agreed to more work than you have time for, etc. There is no excuse for charging your clients your studio rate, then farming the work off to some $5/hour offshore web company. Your valued client believes they’re getting the care and attention of a design school graduate, when in reality you’re just being greedy. Now, outsourcing is part of the business for sure, and I frequently work with outside developers, illustrators and copywriters on my projects, but surely to God you have a local network built up of skilled professionals whose work you trust and don’t mind putting your studio’s name on.

I’m sure these statements don’t apply to all/some of the offshore companies out there. I’m writing mainly about the cheap branding and design packages out there from web-based companies referring to themselves as “design firms” or “design studios”. Regardless of their location, these companies undermine the importance of design work in our society. They are not contributing to a competitive market for design services.

If you’d still consider going this route for your business, cavaet emptor. You get what you pay for. Be prepared to pay a second time to get a local professional you can trust to fix the offshore work.