How Succesful Are You As a FREELANCER??
How well you do last year as a freelancer?? As for me, I really had a blast through out the year 2007 where I’ve come up with several good contacts + potentials clients + lots of sucessful projects graphic related. Here’s the EsharkDesign income statistic through last year 2007 which is supposed to be confidential but in the end I like to share with all of the freelancers out there.
Here are some key points which I’ve been practicing through last year which I think best to share with you guys out there :
Business Card
Business card is the easiest + simplest way to represents your design services. Even though business card is just a simple kind of promotion to yourself and there are thousands of them, but one thing you need to understand is why people have to look at your business card more than two times. Create + design your own business card uniquely different from the others, put some ‘WOW’ factor on the design which might catch the intention of a new clients.
Contacts
Built up good continous contacts among the best. Make a good contact relation with friends that knows how to deliver good designs. For instance you are good in doing illustration but not on web designing while one of your friend are really good at it, so why not making a collaborations and start building up good design business together.
Join Community Design Online
There are hundreds of community online and forums where you can register for free as community member. Registering with a popular community online offering you to showcase your artworks among a number of groups of professionals, amatures, beginners and a hardcore. This will give you a chance of learning + understand fresh new ideas also having a good online discussion among the best with wide range of design topics + problems + solutions. Here are some good communities which I think you might love to join : Coroflot, NewWebPick, DeviantArt, AllGraphicDesign, DesinersTalk.
Create a Website
The fastest + easiest way to get your creative projects online and in front of the right people is to showcase your artworks through online. Compile + make a collections only of your best previous/recent artworks online will create a wide range of potentials clients. If you don’t have any idea where to start one or you don’t even know how to make one, you can choose from one of popular free blogs like Blogger or WordPress.com which recently is now offering 3GB of storage.
Priorities
Make your priority based on How Much You Get In The End. You have several list of clients wanting you to do a Logo design for instance, lets say Client A has given you design job for 3 logos at $200 each, while Client B has given you the same design job for 1 logo at $2000. At this point you should complete the design job for Client B first then only you complete the rest as the amount you’ll get is $2000 at one go instead of having $200 for 3 logos which might result only one of the logo is been approved.
Pricing
How much it will cost you for your design? That’s a question for you to answer it brilliantly. First thing you need to understand is how’s the level of your clients buying power. Are they a big shots companies or are they just a small agency with few workers. Secondly, what is your levels towards the eyes of your clients . Keep your pricing as affordable as it can be for your new clients based on their buying power, once you have built up a good business relation with them after a number of successful projects, gradually increase your design pricing as this will reduce your design job listings while it will increase your income.
Resources
Good graphic design resources will helps your ideas bloom and up-to-date. There are hundreds of good quality blogs designs resources out there useful for your reference. Here are some few good resources for you to check em out Digg, FreelanceSwitch, ColourLovers, WebDesinerWall, Mojizu,
That’s what I’ve been practising and I’m not a PRO and I’m not as good as what you think and I’m not as some says I’m the best. I’m still learning and eager to learn some more, it’s just I love to design and I got style!!..
What about yourself?
