The Freelance Life Part 1

Welcome to Abstracted.View. We hope you enjoy your visit.

You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.

Join our community!

If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

The Freelance Life Part 1
Topic Started: Nov 11 2005, 09:14 PM (581 Views)
Zeerus	Nov 11 2005, 09:14 PM Post #1
Spank My Monkey! Posts: 1,596 Group: Admin Member #1 Joined: July 31, 2004	Listen up kids, web design is a tough business, and it’s even tougher if you’re jumping into it alone. Sure, you may enjoy web design, have the drive and the talent, but chances are, you’re not going to be the next Mike Davidson, Eric Meyer, or Jeffrey Zeldman. Of course you’ll get some small jobs here and there, and maybe a large client or two to keep you moving, but what if that’s not enough? Living life as a freelancer is tough, but it can be done. I’ve been doing a lot of research on this subject for a good amount of time now, and think I have just enough information to pull together a great guide for anyone looking to live the freelance lifestyle. Throughout this series I’ll cover project management, exposure, budgeting, and just about everything else you need to know to get the freelance ball rolling in the right direction. Lured in by promises of adjustable work hours and tempted by unlimited “free-time” more and more designers are opting to go freelance, but flying solo isn’t just a question of buying yourself Photoshop and setting up a desk in your bedroom. In order to be successful in this field you have to be dedicated to what you do, and when reality sets in, you’ll find that freelancing is almost exactly the same as working for another design firm, only this time you’re the boss. As mentioned earlier, you have to have a pretty good amount of talent to make it in this field. Besides knowing how to throw together something in Photoshop you also need to know how to break it down, code it, and make it look right on all browsers across all platforms, but I’ll save that issue for a future discussion. While talent and luck play an important role in freelance design, you also need to remember your roots, as they say. Stay true to yourself and let your personality show through in your projects. Don’t do anything that’s against your morals and don’t be afraid to say no. Remember, most companies are looking to build a relationship with a living, breathing designer, not just a man behind a computer monitor. Building successful client relationships is the key to great referrals and repeat customers. One good customer could bring you an unlimited amount of business, so always be professional, polite, and prompt. Now you’re probably asking yourself where the promptness comes in to play. Well, it doesn’t exactly fit with the other two p’s, but trust me, it’s just as important. Chances are your clients aren’t always going to be perfect. They won’t meet deadlines, they’ll forget to send you content for the website, or even worse, they’ll forget to pay you all together. This is when you need to get down to business. Send them regular updates, and let them know that you’re waiting for them to make the next move. While you may think it makes you sound annoying, if you’re dealing with professionals they’ll respect you for being so prompt. This only shows them that you know how to handle your business and it’s something you’re really serious about. Overall, freelancing can be the best thing that’s ever happened to you, or it can be your worst nightmare. Monster clients, horrible design choices, and overdue payments are all things that come with the freelance territory. But as long as you know how to handle yourself you’ll be just fine. In the next part of this serious, which should be finished sometime next week, I’ll give you some helpful tips and tricks on doing your own PR, because what’s a career without exposure?



1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)


« Previous Topic · Articles · Next Topic »