Are you struggling to get decent-looking creative designs for your business? Maybe it’s your personal blog, like mine, that you want to look more appealing?
Having good quality creatives on your site can certainly lift the bar and make you stand out from the crowd.
This has been the case for me ever since I started working online. Getting a quality designer to work on my creatives is not easy, which is ironic considering the number of options available online.
I have tried them all; hired graphic designers on Upwork/Fiverr, design competitions on 99Designs/Designcrowd, and subscription-based unlimited graphic design services from Kapa99, DesignPickle, and Pebbled.
The guys at Kimp.io reached out to me last week suggesting I give them a try as they had seen my review of unlimited graphic design services.
Although I was at first I was a little reluctant, the timing was perfect as I am in the middle of producing creative for my supplement brand (SuperGreen TONIK).
So, here is my experience working with Kimp.io during their 7-day free trial. In my Kimp.io review, I will also reveal some of the designs they produced.
What is Kimp.io?
Kimp is a dedicated outsourced design team that gives you unlimited graphic design requests for a fixed monthly fee of $389.
Aimed at entrepreneurs, marketers, agencies, and small business owners, Kimp.io offers a cost-effective solution to getting the creative design work you need without the need to recruit freelancers or hire designers.
The idea is simple, you can make as many design requests each month as you want, Kimp.io then outsources it to a team of professional designers.
Once completed you are shown the creatives and have the option of making revisions or accepting them and completing the task.
The attractive point of this service is the ability to have “unlimited graphic design”, which means you literally have a design team at your disposal as and when you need it.
What the Kimp.io subscription service offers
- Unlimited Requests
- Unlimited Revisions
- Unlimited Brands
- Free Stock Photos
- No Contract
- Dedicated Design Team
- Dedicated Account Manager
- Trello Project Management
Kimp.io explainer video
To explain in more detail how this works, check out the Kimp.io explainer video.
Signing up and Onboarding with Kimp.io
Signing up with Kimp.io is really easy, you just enter your email address into the “start free trial” box on the home page.
You then complete your name, phone number, and company name (not compulsory) before then entering your desired username and password.
Next, you select how you wish to manage your tasks. I really suggest using Trello it makes life MUCH EASIER to track the progress of your design requests.
The process is very straightforward. The last step is selecting either a Credit Card or PayPal as a payment method, but you won't be charged for the first 7-days.
I selected PayPal to make life easier, and so I was sent to PayPal to agree to the subscription service (remember the first 7 days are free but you will be charged $389.00 USD for each month afterward ).
You're then sent an email with a video of the next steps and access to your Trello board.
A quick mention here about Kapa99 and their onboarding sequence. I still rate the process of providing one-to-one video calls during the onboarding process as one of the best that I have tried so far.
This is something that maybe Kimp.io would like to give a try.
Kimp.io 7-day FREE TRIAL
The guys at Kimp.io currently provide a 7-day completely free trial where you can have up to 3 design requests to test out the service.
How Kimp.io Works in Practice
Requesting your designs is really simple.
Similar to Kapa99, Kimp.io uses Trello, a project management tool, to manage the process of managing your design requests until the finalized version.
According to a basic guideline for the type of creativity, you're requesting you submit your design brief to a Trello board in the “Requests” card. Your Kimp.io team member will check over the request and clarify if anything is missing.
This board then gets moved to the “In Progress” card so that the designers can get to work.
Once the creative is ready it's moved again to the “In Review” card so you can take a look and either request a revision or mark it as completed.
The great thing with Trello is the ability to see all the activities that took place for the design request.
You can see the screenshot of my Trello workspace below.
Managing design requests using Trello is super easy and you can tell at a glance the progress of your design requests.
I got my first design request back in 21 hours, which was pretty quick and a little faster than some of the previous services I tested out.
Speed is good, but ultimately it comes down to the quality of the graphic designs. Does this beg the question was my first design any good?
Just how good are the Kimp.io graphic designs?
Having unlimited graphic designs at your fingertips is all well and good, but the key question is how good are the actual designs?
I have to admit my expectations weren’t particularly high. This was nothing against Kimp.io but I know from previous experience with similar services that quality can vary significantly.
When I got the first designs through though I was really impressed.
I have added a couple of the designs below, pretty good, eh?
I did request minor revisions that took a few hours to make.
Explaining exactly what you want in a design can sometimes be a challenge and so you need to keep this in mind when requesting work.
Similar to working with one designer by your side, over time the Kimp.io team will develop an understanding of how you prefer designs to look.
For example, the team was really keen to have my logo on the designs a bit too big for my liking. A few design requests and feedback and now they are spot on.
Knowing Your Unlimited graphic design needs
Before jumping into an outsourced unlimited graphic design service there are some considerations you need to think of.
It’s worth keeping in mind that whilst you can submit 2-3 designs per day how quickly these are done depends on the complexity of the task.
My expectations for these types of unlimited design services are to receive 1 good design per day, two if the jobs are fairly small, or maybe revisions.
Also, the service is not 24/7 but 24/5, so like you these guys want to have a break at the weekend too!
Is Kimp.io graphic design service worth it?
The monthly cost is a fixed $389 with no contract commitments in place, so you can start and stop at any time.
Considering the monthly cost of hiring a decent graphic designer this is good value. You would be hard pushed to get a full-time graphic designer anywhere in the world for this price.
You do have to factor in your design requirements though.
If you only require 2-3 simple designs per month then this is probably not the service for you.
I held back from originally trying out these services as I was unsure of my graphic design requirements. I knew I needed help, but just how much? Currently, I estimate that I need between 10-15 creative designs per month, so this sort of service works out very cost-effectively for me.
How does Kimp.io compare to other unlimited design services?
I have tried several other services (Design Pickle, Pebbled.io, and Kapa99 – check out my unlimited graphic design services review) last year when I compared them side by side.
I picked Design Pickle as the overall winner and used them for several months after the trial until my graphic design requirements mean't it wasn't cost-effective to continue.
Who uses Kimp.io?
I was impressed with the brands that have used Kimp.io, names that you would have definitely have heard of; Hostgator, 1and1, MarketHealth and Russell Brunson (for those affiliates out there).
Check out their portfolio of work and you can see why. They produce a variety of solid graphic design work from Facebook posts, logos, website assets, book cover designs, prints designs for flyers and t-shirts, illustrations, and some pretty cool packaging designs.
The packaging designs were interesting as I will likely get Kimp.io to work on the next version of my supplement label.
When I originally needed this design I reached out to freelancers on Upwork, whilst I was happy with the result it did end up costing me $550 altogether (you can check out the process I followed for branding and logo design).
It’s clear that they can handle pretty much any graphic design work you can through at them.
My only reservation is for anyone looking for complete websites being built or for landing pages. This is probably not the service for you if you’re looking to build a website from scratch.
That said, Kimp.io can certainly design the website assets you need for a website.
Kimp.io: Bottom Line
I am really glad that the Kimp.io team reached out to me, I was so impressed with the service that I have decided to keep using them. They will be primarily supporting the creative design work I need for my supplement brand.
If you have been on the fence as to whether to try out an unlimited graphic design service like Kimp.io, I recommended first understanding your graphical needs and then giving them a go.
With the 7-day free trial, they currently offer it's a no-brainer, you can test if the service works for you without costing you a cent. And within a few days, you will know if this service is a good fit for you.
For me, I knew that it was worth signing up after receiving the first design. I will be using Kimp.io over the next few months under their unlimited graphic design subscription service.
