Design-conscious companies see on average a 219 percent greater return than those that don’t keep product design in mind.
How To Select The Best Product Designer For Your Business
The Top Product Designers Know What “Usable Products” Your Brand Needs
Top product designers create captivating and usable designs that increase product efficiency, creativity, and credibility.
They infuse their creative knowledge as well as their intuitive understanding of the industry landscape to create products that not only work well, but sell well.
Top-rated product design companies will know what “usable products” you need creating. They understand how to mix the digital with the physical to create a product that leaves
Not only that, but they will integrate a design that is capable of evolving with the times and the technological advances of the 21st century.
Top-Rated Product Design Companies Offer Corresponding Design And Branding Services
77 percent of marketing leaders say branding is critical to growth.
Therefore, your business needs to ensure all aspects of your brand are in-line with each other. This includes your website, your in-store experience, and your product design.
Increased brand exposure and an engaging brand identity lead to increased sales, interactions and traffic. That being said, the best product design companies understand the powerful effect of positive brand identity.
These successful product designers infuse the necessary branding services your brand needs to accompany your product. This includes branded content, package designs, ads, website design, user experience interfaces, mobile apps and more.
They ensure all collateral creates the same experiences and fosters the same engagement.
Reputable Product Designers Have A Pricing Structure Within Your Budget
There are a number of costs that go into product development and product design.
From brainstorming to materials to testing to 3D modeling to management and beyond. Pricing for product design can range from a couple thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Therefore, it’s important that your brand thoroughly vet the product development agency you’re considering partnering with.
Understand their service costs, what comes included and what costs extra.
The best product designers will have costs within your budget so you don’t have to worry about breaking the bank before your product ever ends up on store shelves.
The Best Product Design Firms Have An Efficient And Goal-Oriented Process
People that set goals are 10 times more likely to achieve them.
That’s good news for you. Because these award-winning product designers take a results-driven, goal-oriented approach to their design and development process.
They set deadlines and ensure fluid communication throughout the process. They keep your business in the loop at all stages to make sure they are hitting their targets and providing you with the work that will help you meet your key performance indicators (KPIs).
The best industrial product designers create a transparent plan for success. They follow a strict timeline that both parties agree upon. And these initiatives drive results.
Leading Product Designers Have A Strong Portfolio And Track Record Of Success
Look at a prospective partner agency’s past case studies, portfolio, prior work, and track record to determine if they are the right product design company for you.
Ask for client referrals and look into the agency’s background. Look to see what types of products they’ve created and for what industries. Ensure these professionals understand your audience and your competitive landscape.
The best product designers will have the experience that matches your product and brand. This will help them more effectively create a product design that resonates with your audience and drives consumers to buy.
24 Questions To Ask Before Hiring A Product Design Company
Ask A Top-Rated Product Designer How They Will Create A Strategy
It’s important that the product design company you work with has a clear and result-driven strategy for success. Ask how they outline their strategy and what drives them to achieve results.
- How will you create a product design and development strategy?
- What tools do you use to gather data and analytics?
- What is your workflow like?
- How do you conduct market research and analyze data?
- How has this strategy led to success in the past?
Ask Your Prospective Product Design Agency Partner What Goals They Will Try To Achieve
It’s important that you hit your goals — the ones you outline for your brand and the ones outlined by the product packaging design agency itself.
These agencies have access to tools and resources your brand doesn’t. so they should be able to identify trends and analyze data in a way that helps them develop clear-cut objectives for this project to reach.
- What goals will the new product achieve?
- How will this product design solve key problems from the past?
- How do you plan for goal completion?
- What brands have you worked with in the past that have resulted in successful campaigns?
- How do you identify key goals to hit?
Ask How The Best Product Design Firms Will Market Your Product
It’s not just important that the product design firm you work with can build and manage an award-winning product. They need to be able to promote this product to the public and highlight the key attributes that make it worthy of consumers’ attention.
- How will you inform the public about our new product?
- Which channels will you use to market or advertise on and why?
- How will you ensure the product is well-received by the public?
- How will you ensure this product represents our brand well?
- How will you maintain product and campaign performance?
Ask Your Product Design Firm What Additional Services They Offer
In addition to brainstorming, creating, testing and building these products, the best product design software companies also come equipped with additional services to boost branding, increase conversions and drive sales.
These services come in the form of UX design support, digital strategizing, advertising and brand strategy creation. Ask what additional services your potential design agency partner might provide.
- Do you offer full-service design and development services?
- How will you manage and monitor our product launch?
- Do you offer advertising and marketing services?
- Do these services cost extra?
- How do you determine when these additional services are necessary?
Top-Rated Product Design And Development Companies Have A Team Of Professionals That Are Experienced & Results-Driven
The Best Product Package Design Firm Employs Professional Project Managers
For any project to be successful, it needs to have a project manager that works as a point of contact between the team and the client.
A lack of clear-cut goals is considered the most common factor behind project failure.
That means that if you don’t have a head point of contact in place keeping everyone on the right, goal-driven path, your product might not achieve the results you want it to.
The product design company you work with will have a professional staff of top-level management to oversee your project and provide you with timely information about its completion.
A Reputable Industrial Design Company Houses Creative Branding Experts
It’s important that your product design and development project doesn’t end up changing the face of your brand for the worse. That’s why you need a team of experts that are dedicated to understanding what makes your brand tick. This ensures that all collateral is consistent and cohesive.
That means that your product design firm needs to house a team of creative brand experts that know what to say and how to say it, relying on past experience, industry knowledge and cold, hard data.
These experts include:
- Branding professionals
- Copywriters
- Research and data analysts
With their past experience, track record and product design portfolio, you can be sure this product launch will be the best one yet.
The Best Industrial Design Firms House Design Professionals
Product design isn’t the only important area of design when it comes to building a successful brand. You also need to have a consistent and cohesive brand presence across a variety of other mediums.
This includes your print and packaging collateral. This branding also needs to be seen and felt online, on mobile devices and all across the digital space.
Luckily, the design work at these top product design agencies is extensive. And they include professionals in the following niches:
- Package designers
- Graphic designers
- Web designers and developers
- App designers and developers
- User experience designers
Top-Rated Product Design Companies Come Equipped With Technical Experts
It’s important when working on a technical product that you have a team of technical experts that innately understand this complex environment. Some of these experts at top product design companies include:
- QA testers
- Information architects
With their access to top tools, education in complex and intricate systems and understanding of the technical landscape, you can be sure that your product will be managed and maintained with the utmost skill.
Top Product Design Companies
The Best Product Packaging Design Companies Have A Strategic Process That Helps Drive Results
1. The Best Product Designers Start With A Clear Strategy
These top-rated product design and development firms define goals, target audience, mission, and core values. With this information, they can begin brainstorming a strategy that will hit all of the right markers and ensure results.
Right from the start, award-winning product designers develop a plan for every step of the game — from brainstorm to prototype to testing and beyond.
They create this plan with strategic goals in mind to ensure they are succeeded at every stage.
2. Industry-Leading Product Design Companies Conduct Research
75 percent of consumers expect a consistent experience when they interact with brands.
Therefore, your product design firm needs to do its research when it comes to analyzing your brand and your audience.
It’s important that this project accurately portrays your brand and what it stands for. Even if you’re trying to innovate with this project, it still needs to feel like your brand.
The best product designers ensure this consistency by conducting effective consumer and market research so that they understand the competitive landscape, your brand, and the audience they’re trying to attract.
3. The Best Product Design Firms Implement Design Thinking
Design thinking is important. It helps these product designers get into the heads of the brand they’re working with and the target audience at hand.
By keeping the user in mind, they are able to create a product that identifies key problems and provides effective solutions to these points of contention.
They answer the question, “How will this product solve a problem for the users?” And they do so by creating a user-friendly design interface, drafting a fluent storyboard for workflow and efficiency and keeping the users' emotions in mind at every step of the way.
4. Top-Rated Product Packaging Design Companies Make A Plan Of Action
Once the best product design agencies have laid down their workflow and aligned goals, it’s time for them to start planning what the product will do and what it will look like.
Only one out of seven product ideas result in a successful product.
That’s why effective brainstorming is a pivotal part of the product development process.
It’s at this stage the product design agencies:
- Outline user flows and user experience
- Establish the Information architecture
- Outline features
At this point, the product is just on paper. But by taking the time to thoroughly outline all the physical, digital and technical aspects of the product, these product designers are making sure nothing falls through the cracks.
5. The Best Product Design Companies Develop, Prototype & Test The Product
Quality assurance testing is imperative throughout the entire creation and builds process of a product design. This is where designers can see the product in action.
The can identify shortcomings and failures. They can see what works and what doesn’t. They can test its performance in a beta group to see what additional features to modify and fix.
A product will go through a number of prototypes and versions before it goes live. And the best product design firms take the time to test and retest their product to ensure success.
Only four out of seven products that launch actually succeed, after all.
So it’s important these designers get it right.
6. Product Designers Finalize The Visual Design
The final step of the product design process is the finalization phase. This is where designers finalize the visual design and its interactions with users.
The best product design companies ensure that the product they create help with problem-solving (design thinking), user experience, the customer journey and more.
7. The Best Product Design ANd Development Companies Maintain Performance
Just because a product is launched doesn’t mean the project is over.
In fact, it could be months or even years before a project can be put to bed. That’s because there is a need for management and monitoring of your product once it’s launched.
There will inevitably be bugs to fix. You will need to add updates and new feature integrations to keep the product relevant.
You’ll have to adapt to what your audience wants. And that means that your product design agency will likely stick with you for the long haul.
5 Traits The Best Product Design Companies Possess
The Top Product Design And Development Companies Utilize Design Thinking
Design thinking encompasses the following process for product creation:
- Empathize
- Define
- Ideate
- Prototype
- Test
With this outline in mind, the best product design companies can create captivating products that encourage your audience to interact and establish your brand as a credible leader.
Only 13 percent of companies integrate “product thinking” into their product design and business strategy.
But when you work with the top product designers in the table above, you can be sure they take a very strategic, user-focused and results-driven design thinking process to drive results.
The Best Product Designers Take The Time To Understand Your Brand And Your Goals
A key indicator that the industrial design company you’re working with is at the top of its game is its ability to understand who you are and what you’re trying to convey.
As we’ve said, branding is vital. So you need your partner agency to innately understand your brand, your products, and your audience.
To do this, the top product design and development firms gather data and analytics about your brand, target audience, industry and market to understand what will work, what won’t and why.
Reputable Product Design Companies Offer Comprehensive Services
When it comes to the industry-leading product design firms, you aren’t just getting a product created. You’re getting a host of services and collateral to ensure that your brand is consistently represented in the media.
Brands that are consistently represented see a 23 percent revenue increase on average.
Top-rated product designers do more than just build your product, they build up your brand through marketing, design, development and maintenance services that keep your business fresh, your products innovative and your presence positively represented.
Successful UX Product Designers Reinforce Design Thinking By Emphasizing User Experience
“We put user needs at the heart of our development”
77 percent of top-performing companies agree with the above phrase.
The best product design agencies fall into this group, understanding the importance of a positive user experience.
When creating your product design, they put a heavy emphasis on user testing, reviews, data, feedback, problem-solving, journey mapping and more to ensure that your product is answering key questions and giving your audience what they’re looking for.
A product needs to look and act the part your consumers are expecting. Therefore, a key trait these product designers have is understanding those wants and giving it to them.
The Best Product Design Firms Create Products That Communicate A Consistent Brand Message To Consumers
Your product is the bread and butter of your brand. It needs to accurately and positively communicate who you are, what core values you believe in and why consumers should have faith in you.
Brands that are consistently represented are three to four times more likely to experience brand visibility.
This means that more people will be able to interact with your brand, learn more about your services and buy your products.
It’s important that your brand has core values and a succinct mission statement to promote to the public. And with it, these leading product packaging companies can come up with the winning strategy.
Top Product Design Companies
How Top Product Designers Charge For Product Design And Development
The Best Product Design Firms Charge For Time And Effort
The first thing leading product designers take into account when setting up costs is the time and effort that will go into creating the product.
Depending on how flushed out the product concept is at the beginning, and depending on the resources, effort, and work that will go into its creation, the leading product design companies will come up with a pricing structure that calculates the time and manpower that goes into their efforts.
Top-Rated Product Design Engineers Charge For The Physical Product Created
Another key aspect of the cost is the product itself.
If a product is more complex and painstakingly intricate, it will cost more. Similarly, if it’s a quick, simple and straightforward design, it will cost less.
Take into consideration how complex your product is -- and whether it is a physical product, like package design, or digital, like a mobile app. This will give you an idea as to how much your project will cost.
Award-Winning Industrial Design Firms Include Maintenance Costs
An added cost that many brands forget about its the cost of maintenance.
The best industrial design company won’t just create a product and send you on your way. They will take the time to offer maintenance and support. This might mean that they will need to fix bugs or make adjustments based on consumer feedback.
This cost is added to the overall cost of your entire product design project.
The Top Product Design Firms Include Marketing Campaigns In Their Projects
Marketing campaigns and collateral creation are other exciting services offered by the best product Design companies.
Award-winning product designers don’t just create a product and send you on your way. They create an entire campaign around these designs to help you promote it to your audience.
And these services are included in the cost of your project as a whole.
Why Your Brand Should Invest In Top Product Designers
Product design is the first step to product creation and brand launch.
Without a captivating, functioning and engaging product design, your brand quite honestly won’t survive.
The best product design agencies innately understand the creative, technical and complex area of product development and design. With their knowledge, experience, and expertise, they can create products — and full-fledged campaigns — to promote your product, your brand and your identity as a whole to increase traffic, drive sales and establish your place in the competitive market.
Explore the best product design companies around the world in the agency listing table above.
