When do you need a graphic designer?

For most of a game's life, you do not need a graphic designer at all. During design and early playtesting, plain text on white cards is not just acceptable, it is preferable. Ugly prototypes are faster to change, and playtesters give more honest feedback on games that look unfinished, because they can tell the design is still open to change.

The first moment graphic design starts to matter is blind playtesting, when strangers play from your written rules with no help. At that point layout is functional, not decorative. Players need to find the attack value at a glance, tell factions apart across the table, and read your iconography without a legend. A designer's job here is clarity, not beauty.

You genuinely need professional graphic design when the game is heading to production: pitching to publishers with a polished sell sheet, launching a crowdfunding campaign, or preparing print files for a manufacturer. Crowdfunding in particular is unforgiving. Backers judge campaigns on visuals within seconds, and amateur layout reads as amateur everything.

A useful rule: spend money on graphic design in proportion to how many strangers will judge the game by its looks. Zero strangers, zero budget. A convention demo table, a modest budget. A Kickstarter page seen by thousands, a real one.