Choosing a design studio is difficult because the things that predict a good outcome are mostly invisible during a pitch, and the things that are visible during a pitch mostly don't predict much. Here's what we'd look at if we were on the other side of the table.
Portfolios tell you less than you'd think
A portfolio shows you what a studio's best clients let them do. It doesn't show you what happened when the budget was tight, the client had strong opinions, or the content arrived three weeks late. Those projects are in every studio's history and in nobody's portfolio.
It's still worth looking, but look for the right things. Range matters more than polish. A studio that has only ever made beautiful sites for restaurants may struggle with your industrial supply business, however good the restaurants look.
Read the case studies rather than looking at the pictures. If they explain decisions and trade-offs, that's a studio that thinks. If they're screenshots and adjectives, you've learned something too.
What to ask in the first conversation
The best question is simply: what would you want to know before you could answer that? A studio that immediately starts describing what they'd build hasn't understood the problem yet. One that asks about your customers, your sales process and what's changed is thinking properly.
Ask what they think the risk is in your project. Every project has one, and a studio that names it honestly in a first meeting is telling you they've done this before.
Ask what they'd do if you disagreed with their recommendation. The answer reveals a great deal about how the next three months would go.
Check the working relationship, not just the work
You'll be dealing with these people weekly for one to three months, often at moments when something has gone wrong. Whether you find them straightforward to talk to matters more than most people allow for when they're comparing proposals.
Ask who you'd actually work with, by name, and whether it's the person in front of you. This is the single most common gap between what clients think they're buying and what they get.
Phone a reference and ask a specific question: what was the hardest part of the project, and how did they handle it? Vague praise tells you nothing. That question gets you a real answer.
Compare proposals properly
Two quotes with the same number can describe completely different projects. Read what's included, particularly around content, testing, training and the weeks after launch, which is where scope quietly differs.
Be suspicious of a quote significantly below the others. It usually means something has been left out, and you'll pay for it later as a variation, which is more expensive than including it at the start.
Be equally suspicious of one significantly above, unless the proposal explains why. Sometimes it's justified. Sometimes it's an agency with a larger overhead to cover.
Local or not
For most projects it matters less than it used to. The work happens over video regardless, and a good studio two time zones away will serve you better than a mediocre one down the road.
Where local genuinely helps is when the project needs photography, when there are multiple stakeholders who benefit from being in a room together, or when you simply prefer it. Those are legitimate reasons.
Local knowledge matters more if your customers are local. A studio that understands the Irish market will ask better questions about your customers than one that doesn't, though you should test that rather than assume it.
Signals worth taking seriously
A studio that tells you what you don't need is worth more than one that agrees with everything. Disqualifying themselves from work is expensive for them and it's the clearest signal of good faith you'll get.
Clear, prompt communication before you've paid anything predicts clear, prompt communication afterwards. So does the opposite.
And if a studio can explain your own business back to you slightly better than you explained it, in the first meeting, that's usually the one to hire.