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I started freelancing my Junior year of high school. Most of my initial work was done for free from my bedroom in my parents’ house – These were dark times.
I was doing what I loved and I was completely ignorant to the wealth of design and business knowledge I’ve garnered since. It’s a constant learning experience; one that I believe should begin as soon as possible. Freelancing during college is a fantastic opportunity to gain industry experience, expand your skillset, and build a kick-ass portfolio… but where do you begin?
Prerequisite:
If you don’t love doing what you’re about to freelance doing, think you know everything about it, or expect to make quick, easy money, stop right now. You’re about to waste a lot of time. Freelancers need to be passionate and eager to learn. That’s what its all about.
1. Read a lot (then read a lot more).
When I started out, I had no classical training in business or design. I had no idea what I was doing. I constructed a comprehensive reading list of blogs, periodicals, and design inspiration sites to follow on a weekly basis and search through when I had a specific freelancing question. It’s helpful to pull from a variety of sources ranging from design, business, freelancing, and finance. The more resources you have at your disposal, the better prepared you’ll be when something does come up… you’ll also be a lot less stressed.
Read as much as you can, and bookmark helpful articles for later. When a new clients asks for a W-9 and your EIN for a 1099 at the end of the year, you’ll be glad you did.
A few of my favorites:
FreelanceSwitch (insanely helpful… here, here, here, here… just read the whole archive.)
Unicornfree (simple, direct business advice)
PSDtuts (Photoshop techniques and tutorials)
LifeHacker (Work smarter)
Mashable Dev & Design (Industry updates, news, etc)
Abduzeedo (all around helpful)
2. Think about your goals
For some, the move to startups / freelancing is obvious. For others, taking a job at a big firm or high-end design agency is the way to go. Before you dev0te a good portion of your time to a freelancing career, think about your objectives.
What are you trying to accomplish? Where do you want to be in a year? In five?
If you can set a specific timetable (for example, “I want to become Creative Director of my own firm, and have it be profitable with employees within five years”) then you’re more likely to work towards it. I had a vision for Bionic Hippo and, while it has changed and matured over the years, we’re moving in the right direction. We avoid projects and work that doesn’t fit our niche or vision because they only serve to hold us back. Without a concise set of goals, you may end up treading water in the freelance realm forever – something you definitely do not want to do.
3. Get inspired, but maintain your integrity
This is a personal pet-peeve, but I think it’s worth sharing. There are hundreds of design inspiration and tutorial websites out there, and sometimes it’s very helpful to browse through others’ work to jog your brain and think differently. Unfortunately, I also see many junior designers copying directly off a tutorial and presenting it as their own work.
“Inspiration” (used in this context as ‘someone else’s work’) is best used sparingly. Find an element of something else you think is successful and generate something new based on your new knowledge. The result will be something distinctly yours. Don’t worry about being completely new and innovative – no one is. It’s all about having a style or technique that you can honestly call intentional. It’s what separates you from everyone else and helps you maintain rock-solid integrity as a designer.
4. Do real work
Another pet-peeve of mine is vapor design – that is, creating a logo, website, or ‘product’ for no one – as an example of your ‘skill’ as a designer. Design is about so much more than creating something aesthetic; it’s about solving problems. Creating fake problems you can easily solve yourself honestly doesn’t take much skill.
One of these logos was created as the face of an international brand, the other is a play on words. I’d say both have the same level of aesthetic competence, but only one has purpose. Only one of these logos solves a real problem, and that’s one of the most coveted skills a designer can have.
(Spoiler: Gillette has a superior logo)
A great portfolio goes beyond aesthetic. Real designers solve real problems, and that’s really, quite simply, what design is all about.
It can be hard at first to find awesome work, and rightly so. I spent several years in the trenches honing my skills and learning more about design. Awesome projects are not easy to find, and they never fall into your lap without any effort, despite what some on the Internet may make you believe.
The takeaway here is that you need to work hard to get good work. Working on real projects means you’re starting one step closer than those staring making useless crap like this. (protip: for a design inspiration site built on real work, check out dribbble)
5. Brand yourself
It’s decision-making time again! Your brand will determine how people perceive you, your work, and how you perceive yourself. You might not need a logo right away, but you do need to make some conscious choices about how you want the world to see you.
- Are you a small design firm? Larger than life? One-man operation?
- Design for the masses? Boutique? Elite? Expensive? Cheap and quick?
- What’s your angle? Why are you so special? Why should I NEED to work with you?
These are all questions (among many others) your brand needs to subconsciously answer.
Your brand should also lend itself to #2 – Your Goals. If you’re looking to start a design agency, can you start building the brand now? Do you even want to do that? Will the work you’re doing now lend itself to your future goals, or is this an experimental tangent? There’s no harm in either approach (and never any harm in branding yourself personally… you really can’t lose) but the goal is to be intentional and conscious of that decision and how it will affect you down the road. Brands aren’t built overnight, even if your logo is. Have a plan and a destination, and work tirelessly towards it.
6. Be intentional, always. (bonus!)
I’ll say it again and put this in bold:
Design is not about aesthetic, it’s about solving problems.
Never forget this. Anyone can learn Photoshop, but it takes a designer to solve problems with it. Aesthetic is a tool – just like code, video, steel… the list goes on. Regardless of who you’re working for or what project you’re doing, always be intentional. Design for the sake of aesthetic (or a sweet brush you found online) isn’t design at all. A clever and practical solution to a design problem is almost always elegant and beautiful.
To add on to number 5, I’ve found that appearing professional and confident is just as important as delivering a good product. If you want to be taken seriously, you have to look the part and be prepared – act like you’ve done it a thousand times even if it’s your first freelance gig. When you meet with a client, bring a notepad, write up a contract, give estimates, etc. whatever the standard is in the industry in which you’re freelancing.
I’ve also found that an interesting part of how seriously you’re taken is how much you charge. Once you’ve built up enough experience that you feel confident in charging clients, you should keep in mind that if you lowball yourself, you’re going to get some bad clients who think of you as cheap college labor. Once you start raising your hourly rate (and this only works if you’ve got project requests coming in), you change how clients perceive you, you’ll start to get better clients, and you’ll filter out the bad ones. You just have to make sure you’re delivering a great product and that you meet your deadlines.
Excellent points, Edwin. I spent a lot of time with the “fake it ’till you make it” strategy – not in a deceptive way, but to understand things from a professional mindset. I didn’t ‘need’ invoices, fancy contracts, or a PO Box to run Bionic Hippo while it was still a small operation but I used them anyways. It added to our legitimacy, seriousness, and helped me grow into the tools I’d be using on a daily basis as the owner of a larger agency.
As for billing rates, that’s something I’ll have to write another post on sometime. While you need to charge what you’re worth, you also need to balance that with your customers’ expectations. If you’re doing a CD cover for a local roots band, for example, you can’t bill at $150/hr for print design because it’s simply not appropriate for that project and they will go elsewhere. That being said, you also need to figure out what kind of work you want to do, what you’re capable of, and then come up with your hourly rate. It isn’t really as simple as “charge more, and bigger clients will come” – it’s all about who you know, how you market yourself, and how active you are at going after the right work.
Good points. I was afraid that my comment on payment might come off as “charge more, get better work.” That’s not quite what I meant, but I think you nailed it with that last sentence. Payment is part of a bigger picture of building up your reputation.
Sweet information, refreshing webpage design and style, carry on the good work
Thanks, Curt!