Thanks for the great question Don.

The answer is BOTH, but more without their own design resources.

Some of my clients are small to medium sized businesses without any internal design or development resources. I do everything for them, or coordinate a development partner when required.

Some of my clients, like web app startups, often have in-house development but no design. It’s common in that situation to have a technical founder but they are not at all design-led. So I become a remote part of their team for a time to help them with branding and UX/UI design.

Other’s are web dev agencies who may have inadequate in-house design resources (or none at all)— either because they have growing demand beyond what their staff can handle, or because a project requires certain skills or experiences they don’t have, or because they recently lost an employee and need someone to fill the gap until they hire a replacement.

And other still have in-house design teams but they need help anyway. They want someone with more specific design experience pertaining to a project’s unique requirements, or most of their team is junior and then need more experience and guidance.