If the “UX and Graphic Designer” is:
- Graphic design;
- Web design;
- Print design;
- User Experience design;
- Navigation and information architecture;
- Design for usability;
- 22-years old blond girl with big boobs;
- …and if she swallow;
- …and if she don`t want any kind of salary…

Well… may be she had some chances for the job.

Just once I'd like to read a a job post that says “We need you to accomplish X. If you can do X, we will give you the tools and authority necessary to do X.”

To reframe it in programming terms: this is similar to a design company wanting a developer to work with Javascript, Java, assembly, LISP, as well as the occasional Windows application and database tuning.

It might be possible to track down a few people that can do all of those, and that even are good or great at one or two of them, but trying to match all the listed areas will likely only find habitual liars or those with inflated egos.

In my experience interface design is a rather different skill set than print design, even though many of the fundamentals are the same. Just a like a game engine developer will need different skills than someone doing realtime AI, even though they might work on the same project and use the same programming language.

I think the outsourcing model could work great, especially since books, stationary, etc probably aren't Fog Creek's most critical areas. Getting someone with design sense into the company is a first step, and if that person can call on more resources if/when needed, all the better.

Anyway, anyone that brilliant would be wasted in a small software company.

I know Fog Creek is small, (what, maybe 20 coders?) I'm just saying that the optimal ratio of design/UX people to programmers is probably not 1 to 20. Even companies with billions of dollars and legions of smart employees often get design wrong.

So anyway, speaking as an armchair quarterback, I'd hire a senior UX genius with a great track record, then have that person hire 3 more multi-disciplinary creatives with web software design chops and strong tech ability. Your UX genius should then outsource any book or print design, and probably even branding (but to a great branding firm, not to a contest site or “some guy we know”).

The biggest challenges will likely be cultural and interpersonal. The UX genius must have the juice to do what needs to be done, and that means displacing whoever was making design decisions before.

Most small companies don't have the luxury of legions of people, and can't hire a UI designer, UX manager, information architect, pixel pusher, creative director, stock art photography curator, and deputy editor in charge of fonts and typesetting. Even large companies that can afford to separate all those tasks just get caught up in committee meetings around every design decision. The right thing to do is for modern UI/UX/Web designers to understand the broad spectrum of product design and not force themselves into one particular ghetto of “just” fonts or “just” typesetting or “just” “user experience.”