Web Designer Freelance Interview Questions And Answers

This is your chance to show off-but don't overdo it. Of course you want to showcase your best accomplishments as a designer, as well as the positive qualities that you can bring to the workplace. But that's where many people lose their focus-they forget about what's important to the company they're interviewing with. Frame your strengths in a way that they are relevant to your potential employer. Whenever possible, try to tailor your responses so that they match closely with what the company is looking for. For example, instead of just saying that you know InDesign, you might mention that you have plenty of experience designing multi-page materials if you're interviewing with a company that puts out a lot of brochures.

Avoid using clichés, like saying you're a "hard worker" or a "team player." These are empty words unless you have examples to back up your claims-which you should. You want to sound impressive to potential employers, but you also have to present yourself in a way that makes you stand out over all the other candidates, who are likely just as "hard-working" and "team-playing" as you are.

...you also have to present yourself in a way that makes you stand out over all the other candidates, who are likely just as 'hard-working' and 'team-playing' as you are.

This is not your own personal forum for airing out all of the grievances you had with your last employer, and doing so is not going to help you get the job. Instead, you want to remain professional and honest without coming across as someone who makes a lot of unnecessary problems. Put a positive spin on your reasoning as much as you can.

For example, money is a common reason why people leave their jobs, and it's not unreasonable to seek out new employment opportunities in order to increase your income level. However, telling a potential employer that you left over money is going to signal to them that you might do the same thing to them one day, or that it'll be expensive to keep you. Instead, you can say that you felt there was no longer any room to grow at your last company, or that you were looking for new opportunities to advance your career.

In some cases, you'll be interviewing for a job without having actually left the last one. That's okay, but expect to answer a lot of questions about what you do at your current job, why you're thinking of leaving it and how long it'll take you to be able to start your new job.

If you work freelance, you may be asked questions about your current clients and whether working for them will create time conflicts or prevent you from hitting your deadlines.

If you were fired or let go from your last job, this might be an extremely stressful and difficult question for you to answer. Don't be too nervous if you were fired-after all, everybody loves a good comeback story. Just make sure to spin this answer into something positive that helps demonstrate your growth as a designer.

Don't be too nervous if you were fired-after all, everybody loves a good comeback story.

For example, if you were let go from your last position because you weren't a good fit for your employer, it means you're ready to find a company which is better suited to your talents. If it was a personal problem, then outline the steps you've taken to correct that behavior and demonstrate your eagerness to get back in the game.

Above all else, stay positive and don't go into more detail than you need to in order to explain the situation. Don't point fingers or use this as an opportunity to badmouth your last boss. Just present the facts, show that you've grown from the experience, and move on to the next question. If the interviewer wants to know more, he or she will ask you follow-up questions.

A job interview might give you the chance to step into the spotlight, but that doesn't mean you're going to be the only one in it. Employers love to hear you talk about their company and the work that they do just as much as you like to hear people say nice things about your design work.

Employers love to hear you talk about their company and the work that they do just as much as you like to hear people say nice things about your design work.

This is also a bit of a test to see if you've done your homework, so try to be prepared to answer this ahead of time. Again, if you don't know anything about the company and can't find out any info, this is a good chance to hear more about them.

Give your honest opinion, but avoid being too negative-after all, if you didn't like the company or the work that they do, why would you want to interview for the job in the first place? Constructive criticism is okay, but again, you want to frame it around why you're the best person for the job.

It's okay to impart that there is something missing within their organization-perhaps it's a void that only you can fill! But you don't want to come across as someone who is ready to start tearing everything down and doing it all your way.

Regardless of what you know or how you feel, you should have some nice things to say-even if it's just your initial impressions when you came in for the interview.

When you use video on a website using the HTML5 video element (as opposed to embedding from YouTube, Vimeo or other video-hosting services) it's the website's responsibility to serve each browser that video in a format that the browser can play.

As of recently, major browsers, OS and devices support the MP4 video format (using MPEG4 or h.264 compression). To assure compatibility with Firefox clients and certain Android devices that can't play an MP4 video, it's good to have copies of the video in OGV and WebM formats. When multiple copies are available, all files should be listed as source elements of the VIDEO tag.

If you have a tight timeline, you need to know right away whether the freelancer has a conflict. Most freelancers often manage multiple projects; this doesn't mean they aren't the right fit for your project, but it does mean that they need to be able to balance your project against the needs of their other clients.

☛ Things to listen for: Project management skills. Are they confident about their ability to meet your milestones? What's their approach to juggling multiple projects?

☛ Follow-up question: "Is this timeline realistic?" An experienced freelancer should know whether you've allocated enough time, missed key steps, or aren't leaving enough "buffer" for challenges that are likely to arise.

With all the pressure and anxiety of being under the microscope during a job interview, people often tend to forget that you're just as much interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. You should always come prepared with questions to ask at the end of the interview. Not only does this make you seem engaged and show your interest in the position, but it also gives you a chance to make sure this job is the right fit for you.

...people often tend to forget that you're just as much interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you.

Try to avoid bringing up questions about pay rates or vacation days unless you're in a position where you absolutely have to. Most employers don't like to discuss pay until a follow-up interview, so try to wait out these questions if you can.

Questions about the company, the people you'd be working with, and what the job itself entails are all good places to start. However, you'll want to find questions that make you seem engaged, not just going through the motions. Instead of just asking what their company is all about, inquire about the future of the company: where it's heading, what projects are coming up, and what the future means for the position you're applying for.

This is usually the last question asked at the interview, so you don't want to take up too much of the interviewer's time. Stick to about three to five questions if at all possible. It's a good idea to have these questions written down and to keep some paper and a pen with you during the interview, so that you can write down any questions that might come to you while you're talking.

Although these tags create specific visual treatment (STRONG makes the text bold, EM makes it italicised and SMALL makes it smaller), this is not their purpose and they should not be used simply to style a piece of content in a specific way.

Each of the three has semantic purpose and should only be used to mark text as follows:

☛ EM - Emphasized text. This is text that should be emphasized thus changing the meaning of its context.

☛ STRONG - Strong importance. Can be used in titles, headings or paragraphs to emphasize the word or phrase that bears the most importance in the sentence. It can also be used to stress the importance, or seriousness, of a word or phrase.

☛ SMALL - Small print. Used for disclaimers, clarifications and general de-emphasizing of the marked text.

☛ To style text as bold, italic or in smaller font, generic tags can be used and the styles applied with CSS code instead of abusing semantic HTML5 elements.

Let's be honest-artists and designers sometimes have a tendency to turn into divas when faced with criticism or editorial guidelines. It can be frustrating to work in a creative field and have outside factors hinder your creative expressions. But for a professional graphic designer, criticism is a part of the job; employers want to know that you'll be able to suck it up and make changes to your design when necessary.

Let's be honest-artists and designers sometimes have a tendency to turn into divas when faced with criticism or editorial guidelines.

What's important here is to impart upon the interviewer that you can take direction, that you're open to the ideas of others, and that you understand how to work within a hierarchy. However, the interviewer might try to throw in different follow-up questions or add modifiers to test how you work when treated unfairly or when given bad criticism.

Answer in a way that's truthful, but that shows you can still be part of the team, even if you tend to be a little too argumentative and passionate about your work when faced with unjust criticism. Make sure the employer knows that you are open to critique and willing to listen.

An experienced professional should be able to share samples of their work or tell you about projects they've worked on. Use your best judgement about this based on how they've represented themselves: Some types of work aren't always public or easily shared, for example, and someone with years of experience may not have a big portfolio if they've recently made the move to self employment.

☛ Things to listen for: Quality. Does their work represent the skill level and attention to detail you're looking for?

☛ Follow-up question: "What was your approach to this project?" This question will help give you more insight into how they collaborated with others, addressed the client's needs, met challenges, or exceeded expectations.

Again, this is where research comes in handy. If you're applying to a design job as a 3D modeler with a company that uses 3DStudio Max you want to be able to say that you use that same program, not that you only use Maya because you think 3DS is inferior. You can frame it like this:

"I think it's important to know multiple modeling systems, because each has it's benefits and drawbacks. I understand that your studio uses 3DStudio Max; I'm very familiar with 3DS, so I should be able to hit the ground running here."

Employers are looking for designers who can not only deliver results, but do so in a timely manner. Failing to meet your deadlines can cost your employer money or make them lose face to their customers, clients and business associates. If you are good about keeping up on your deadlines, you'll be good to go when it comes time to answer this question.

If sticking to your deadlines is something that you have a hard time with, then you need to at least show the interviewer that you respect deadlines and that you do whatever it takes to get your job done. Give examples of times when you weren't able to complete a task on deadline, and explain why you fell behind and how you rectified the situation. Did you ask for an extension ahead of time? Did you bring in another designer to help you with the work?

Keep in mind, there's no reason to punish yourself if you've missed the odd deadline here or there in the past. Potential employers want to know how you're going to handle their deadlines, so you can always turn a negative experience into something positive.

...there's no reason to punish yourself if you've missed the odd deadline here or there in the past.

Say you've missed deadlines in the past because of last minute editorial changes. You might answer the question by saying you're good at keeping deadlines so long as you have everything you need to do the job ahead of time. This way, you can answer the question positively and truthfully while also giving the employer some insight as to how you work best.

White space in graphic design is any area left intentionally blank. It doesn't have to be white. Both in web design and other media white space can be efficiently used to visually separate or group elements, to draw attention to a specific element, to reinforce the content layout or grid. Sometimes, white space is also used purely aesthetically to create visually interesting compositions.

Gestalt principles are part of the theory of visual perception. They deal with the mind's ability to "see" things that are not explicitly visible, by subconsciously combining shapes, finding similarities, completing compositions of physically disconnected elements. A few of the principles commonly used in design are:

☛ Similarity - the human mind perceives elements with similar features (either in color, shape, size or combination of the three) as related, meaningfully connected or grouped together. This is especially useful in navigation systems design and application toolbars;

☛ Proximity - similarly to the similarity principle, elements which are placed close to each other are considered grouped, related, or parts of a whole. This is a building principle of layout design. It's especially important when designing pages with large amounts of varied content (like the home page of a news website or application)

☛ Closure - when faced with a familiar looking object which is incomplete in its visualisation (parts of the image are missing) the mind automatically "completes the picture" or fills in the blanks and effectively sees the image as if it was fully displayed. This is a principle often used in logo design. Using the closure principle can make an element more interesting to look at (as the user's mind "works" to complete the element) which makes the design more memorable;

☛ Figure-ground relation is the tendency to mentally separate "objects" from "backgrounds" based on combination of color, shape and past experience. When properly used in graphic design, this principle directs the user's attention to important elements of the composition;

☛ Common fate - elements moving synchronously in tandem are often conceived as grouped or as parts of a single object. Common fate can be useful in interaction design;

☛ Continuity - the mind's ability to see connections and follow one path or another based on similarities and to follow lines past their end points. This principle can be used in logo design to generate interest. It can also be used when building layouts or compositions to make them look as a single tidy object, rather than a bunch of cluttered elements.

With the abundance of devices equipped with high pixel density displays, it's important to provide high resolution of some images on a website, and especially important for those with simple shapes and fine lines, such as logos, figures, schematics and product photos.

☛ When an image is used in HTML as an IMG tag, techniques such as PictureFill may be used until the new PICTURE tag is widely adopted by popular browsers. This way, different versions and sizes of images can be served based on the user's device size and pixel density.

☛ When used as a background image in CSS, media queries can be used to target different devices so the most suitable size of an image is served to each user.

☛ When creating or slicing Photoshop (or other) mockups made for smartphones or high pixel density devices, it's crucial to remember that the mockup is twice as large as it would be on the device. A device's 1200-pixel screen width is generally treated as 600-pixel wide. This means a 32-pixel high text in the mockup should be coded as 16-pixel height when writing the CSS file, and a 300-pixel wide image has a width of 150 pixels on the web page (of that device's screen). Effectively one should treat every two-by-two pixel square of the Photoshop mockup as a single pixel on the device.

A question like this is why it's so important to do your research. You don't want to apply for a job doing layout design for educational materials and moon over how much you love motion graphics for social marketing campaigns. A sample answer might sound a little like:

"I'm always trying to develop better practices for streamlined User Interface layout graphics. I'm really excited at the work this company has done for XYZ website, and I hope I'll get a chance to contribute to a similar project."

Here's your first chance to sell yourself a little, but don't overdo it. Think about the qualities that make a graphic designer great, and then expound on them a little. For example, you could say something like:

"There's no substitute for design intuition, of course, but understanding design technology as it changes is absolutely vital. For that reason, I make it a priority to stay up to date with software like Adobe CS and keep my eye out for changing market trends."

Some fonts work together nicely and look good on the same page. To combine two fonts properly we need to look for similarities and differences between them (serifs, historic background, x-height, thickness, aperture, stroke contrast).

As a good general rule of thumb, two fonts work well together if they are either similar except for one important thing (analogous fonts), or if they're very different but have one thing in common to connect them (complementary fonts). It thing that is always good for the two fonts to have equal x-heights (the height of a lowercase "x" compared to the uppercase "X" of the same font-size) in common.

Combining fonts that look too similar should be avoided (like combining Helvetica with Lucida Grande or Arial with Verdana).

A few rules to create good combinations:

☛ Combine a serif with a sans-serif font, both of which have very similar x-height, stroke contrast (the difference between the thinnest and thickest parts of a character's lines) and aperture (how open or closed the characters are);

☛ Use contrasting thickness options of a single font; a light/thin version of a font is very different than its bold/black versions and the two versions work very nicely in combination;

☛ Some fonts are designed as families and work well with one another. Examples are Adobe's Myriad and Minion pair or Museo with Museo Sans and Adelle with Adelle Sans.

☛ When selecting fonts, it's important to keep in mind the context each will be used in. The headings or display font could be more lavish, exquisite and detailed, while the main copy should be a simpler font that is readable in smaller sizes.

☛ For most designs, one or two font families will suffice with a possible third used sparingly for very specific purposes.

Some color combinations are more visually appealing than others, and there's a reason for that: The human mind looks for harmonies, order and systems, and color schemes that adhere to such systems look more "pleasing". There are several ways to combine colors effectively.

Here are a few:

☛ Monochromatic - using a few different hues of the same tint, such as combining pale green with deep, dark green and using bright green for accents. It's good for foreground color and background color combinations.

☛ Analogous - using colors that stand close to each other on the color wheel (and the rainbow), such as orange and yellow, blue and green, or red and purple. Usually, it works for elements placed next to each other, but not as effectively as combinations for foreground and background.

☛ Complementary - using colors which stand on opposing sides of the color wheel such as orange and purple, blue and yellow, or green and red. These colors generally have good contrast and if they also differ in lightness, they can be used as pairs for foreground and background colors. The designer should remember that certain complementary combinations don't look good (red on green and vice versa are irritating to look at and are rarely used in combination) while others have stunning contrast.

No matter if you're an in-house designer or working freelance from home, you are a part of something greater and you belong to a team of people all working towards the same goal. When employers ask this question, they're not looking for a simple "yes" or "no." They're looking for some sort of indication as to where you fit in the team.

Are you the type of person who naturally ends up leading the team? Are you happy to just play whatever role is necessary on the team to get the job done? Are you the type of person who can always be counted on to put in the extra work to do last-minute tasks that pop up? These are the type of things that employers want to know.

If you're a bit of a lone wolf, it's okay to run without a pack, but you're going to have to make some sort of concessions to your future employers. If you work best alone, find some other way that you can contribute to the team. Suggest that you're happy to participate in planning and development meetings, or that you'll check in on a regular basis with your team through e-mail.

If you're a bit of a lone wolf, it's okay to run without a pack, but you're going to have to make some sort of concessions to your future employers.

Employers just want to make sure that everything will keep running smoothly if they hire you, and that you'll be able to get along and work effectively beside the people who already work there.

Again, this is where research comes in handy. If you're applying to a design job as a 3D modeler with a company that uses 3DStudio Max you want to be able to say that you use that same program, not that you only use Maya because you think 3DS is inferior. You can frame it like this:

"I think it's important to know multiple modeling systems, because each has it's benefits and drawbacks. I understand that your studio uses 3DStudio Max; I'm very familiar with 3DS, so I should be able to hit the ground running here."

White space in graphic design is any area left intentionally blank. It doesn't have to be white. Both in web design and other media white space can be efficiently used to visually separate or group elements, to draw attention to a specific element, to reinforce the content layout or grid. Sometimes, white space is also used purely aesthetically to create visually interesting compositions.

Gestalt principles are part of the theory of visual perception. They deal with the mind's ability to "see" things that are not explicitly visible, by subconsciously combining shapes, finding similarities, completing compositions of physically disconnected elements. A few of the principles commonly used in design are:

☛ Similarity - the human mind perceives elements with similar features (either in color, shape, size or combination of the three) as related, meaningfully connected or grouped together. This is especially useful in navigation systems design and application toolbars;

☛ Proximity - similarly to the similarity principle, elements which are placed close to each other are considered grouped, related, or parts of a whole. This is a building principle of layout design. It's especially important when designing pages with large amounts of varied content (like the home page of a news website or application)

☛ Closure - when faced with a familiar looking object which is incomplete in its visualisation (parts of the image are missing) the mind automatically "completes the picture" or fills in the blanks and effectively sees the image as if it was fully displayed. This is a principle often used in logo design. Using the closure principle can make an element more interesting to look at (as the user's mind "works" to complete the element) which makes the design more memorable;

☛ Figure-ground relation is the tendency to mentally separate "objects" from "backgrounds" based on combination of color, shape and past experience. When properly used in graphic design, this principle directs the user's attention to important elements of the composition;

☛ Common fate - elements moving synchronously in tandem are often conceived as grouped or as parts of a single object. Common fate can be useful in interaction design;

☛ Continuity - the mind's ability to see connections and follow one path or another based on similarities and to follow lines past their end points. This principle can be used in logo design to generate interest. It can also be used when building layouts or compositions to make them look as a single tidy object, rather than a bunch of cluttered elements.

Different image compression formats have different purposes with different compression methods.

☛ JPEG compression reduces the image size by finding areas of a similar color; the higher the compression level, the more aggressively it looks for such areas leading to a loss of visual information and the generation of artefacts at the edges of the compressed areas. This compression is effective for photos, drawings, gradients, most illustrations and other colorful, rich images. JPEG doesn't work as well for screenshots, simple UI elements, flat icons, schematics, and it is especially bad for text.

☛ PNG compression works by reducing the number of used colors. Depending on the level of compression this could lead to slight loss of color shades. PNG is great for logos, icons, signs, images containing text, for simple illustrations, UI elements and screenshots. Unlike JPEG, it also allows images to have transparent areas. PNG files are usually larger than JPEGs and don't provide good compression for photos and complex, colorful images and gradients.

Here's your first chance to sell yourself a little, but don't overdo it. Think about the qualities that make a graphic designer great, and then expound on them a little. For example, you could say something like:

"There's no substitute for design intuition, of course, but understanding design technology as it changes is absolutely vital. For that reason, I make it a priority to stay up to date with software like Adobe CS and keep my eye out for changing market trends."

☛ What graphic design software are you most comfortable working with?
☛ What graphic design software do you know best? Which one could you improve?
☛ What do you think are the most important qualities in a graphic designer?
☛ How comfortable are you being told what to design?
☛ How well do you take criticism?
☛ You are asked to design a new logo for our company. What would it look like?
☛ Do you sketch your designs first before converting them to digital format?
☛ How many designs do you usually sketch before choosing one?
☛ Do you have a tablet at home? What is it and why do you like it?
☛ How long would it take you to plan, design, and complete a 300×400 banner?
☛ How familiar are you designing graphics for [online marketing, newspapers, etc.]?
☛ You may be given strict parameters for your designs. Will that stifle your creativity?
☛ You are told to create a design without any instructions. What do you do?
☛ How do you plan your designs before you start drafting them?
☛ Tell me about some of the designs you have created, and their success.

☛ What is most important to you, quality or speed?
☛ How often do you want updates on my progress?
☛ Do you hire freelancers very often?
☛ Is your preferred work process structured, or unstructured?
☛ If necessary, would it be okay if I used subcontractors or outsourced parts of the project?

☛ What is the budget for this project?
☛ Who will own the intellectual rights to the finished project?
☛ What is the deadline for this project?
☛ How will you be making your payment?
☛ When will you pay?