You said you'd next time go with a freelancer as one of your solutions. I'd argue you can run into the exact same problems as you described in your main post, just on a smaller scale.
In this comment:
> There were still issues, but I was prepared this time. WebAgency kept suggesting new flourishes to the design. I declined them all and told them to focus on the design I’d approved. I’m glad I did because they’d probably still be working on the website today.
I think you need to do this with every project reguardless of the size of the team you are working with.
Design companies seem to want to make customers feel like they are unskilled / unable to make design decisions for themselves, but maybe this is all experts? And I can say I have had very stubborn customers in the past, and it was good for everyone involved to have a customer that knows what they want and expects it, even if the designer doesn't really like the results as much as their own ideas.
In this comment:
> There were still issues, but I was prepared this time. WebAgency kept suggesting new flourishes to the design. I declined them all and told them to focus on the design I’d approved. I’m glad I did because they’d probably still be working on the website today.
I think you need to do this with every project reguardless of the size of the team you are working with.
Design companies seem to want to make customers feel like they are unskilled / unable to make design decisions for themselves, but maybe this is all experts? And I can say I have had very stubborn customers in the past, and it was good for everyone involved to have a customer that knows what they want and expects it, even if the designer doesn't really like the results as much as their own ideas.