• Spreading yourself too thinly: this would entail your wearing yet another 'hat' within your business;
• No training, no qualification, no experience: most professional designers and creative directors worth their salt have studied design or marketing at university, obtained a degree / higher diploma and continue to attend training courses. You may think a job took 2 months, but in truth it has already taken several years;
• Lack of speed: designers design all day, every working day. This keeps them speed and efficient, as well as knowledgeable about fast-changing software;
• Initial outlay: if you decide to tackle this yourself, you need the right software. No, we don't mean Microsoft Office, or Corel Draw! We mean professional standard software, which give you precise and efficient control over every single aspect of every single element of design. If you use Micorosft Office or Corel Draw or any other half-measure programs, there is no way you will fool your customers / clients into thinking you employed designers to produce your literature. And if your customers or clients think you've gone for cheap, your company will become cheap to them.
      So, you will need: Adobe inDesign or Quark Xpress for page layout, Illustrator for graphics and digital illustration, and Photoshop for visual effects and photographic editing. Together, these cost over £1,000, unless you buy older versions through ebay. If you cut more corners and forego any training, you are likely to find that very few books cover everything you need for the job, and there is no one to call if the book falls short. A training course in design software and / or theory should be a bare minimum.
• Vanity blindness: One of the first things a design degree or diploma teaches you is critiqueing, where you have to stand and defend your work while those around you pick holes in it, and this is fantastic and essential preparation for working in the design industry. Don't be the fool who takes up the design challenge for their own fledgeling business and then asks friends, family and colleagues what they think of their work: of course they'll praise you, and you'll be so proud of it yourself, your ego will make you blind to whether it does what is required of it.
• Well-executed finish: Designers know many printers and develop an awareness of print restrictions as part of their day-to-day. They also know how to produce print-ready artwork, and will have a good relationship with their printers, which is useful if things go wrong. That relationship and mutual understanding can make all the difference between a good and bad print job.
• Making something look good is not enough: Even if you turn out a beautifully crafted piece, it is the invisible stuff behind the design that makes it succeed or fail. Nowhere is this more important than in website design. The design of a website – if done well – will entice, intrigue, engage and direct, but how does anyone know your website is there? And how quickly can they reach the information they seek? Function, structure, speed and content are paramount. Most businesses have a website, but the smarter ones have development and optimisation built-in. Do you really have time to learn how to deliver all those criteria too?

If you're still sure you want to take on this task yourself, take a look at our courses:

• Design for Print: Workshop Combo
• Design for Print BLITZ training course
• Design for Web: Workshop Combo
• Design for Web BLITZ training course
• Web Overview for Business training course
• Design Workshops (Websites, Magazines, Branding, Leaflets, Books)