Luckily i wont need to pay out much in order to freelance. As i already have the hardware and software and wont be doing any printing. Therefore i dont have to worry about it too much and can just freelance without having to worry about it too much, but it is important to maintain finances.
Design crowd is a great medium for finding freelancing jobs and creating a portfolio of work to present. It has a large collection of jobs and you can approach jobs you would feel comfortable doing. For example;
I decided to go for this as it did not have many quotes, making it more likely they would choose me. It was also a T-Shirt design which i quite enjoy doing and is quite a quick and simple creative process. I submitted a quote of $40 which i think is a decent rate. As i would like to spend a couple of hours on the design (2-3 hours) that puts me at $15-$20 per hour which is good.
It is important to identify people in the Graphic Design industry who can help you succeed. A lot of times it is not about how good you are, but who you know. Having good contacts within the industry can open up opportunities and keep you in the know. This leads on to maintaining a working business relationship with them so you can further develop yourself and your company.
Keep yourself involved and up to date is also very important. In this day and age, new technologies are being developed all the time and it is important to keep on top of them. For example if there are new design softwares being released, you would like to know as much as you can about them as they could be the new medium for design.
Enhancing your professional reputation is always a good source to promoting yourself. The more people who know about your business and have good things to say about it, the more work you will pull in. You can maintain a good reputation by being fair, polite and work to a good standard. This can have a rollover effect where people tell their friends, who could be potential customers.
Staying in the public eye is a great way to get more recognition. Although a lot of people use flyers, banners or small ads to promote themselves, I think the best way to promote yourself is through social networks. As a lot of people use social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr you have a huge platform to promote yourself on, knowing people will see it.
Being able to bring in work is important to any business, if theres no work then theres no money, which will ultimately be the downfall to your business. You have to know platforms which you can generate work when you need it. A lot of people may come to you to have something designed but as a graphic designer you also need to go find work for yourself.
You can do this by identifying potential work, look at businesses that need help or support and contact them. Sell yourself and tell them what you can offer them. This helps build not only a name for yourself but a list of contacts.
You always want to be in a work stage where you take in some constructive criticism, for example, although you may love the work you have designed for someone, they may not. The creative industry relies a lot on personal preference and it is important to make sure people are pleased with your work.
To avoid any problems, you would normally have a few stages when it comes to designing something for a client. You would first throw up different designs and see what the client prefers and how they like it laid out, take feedback and work from there. Constantly checking back and fourth what the client wants, so it can be designed to their needs or intention.
Set yourself objectives and goals, for example, how many jobs you would like to do in a month. Where you would like to be in a year, or even five years. This helps base a rate on your time and how much your going to charge, per hour, for your services. For example if you spend 4 - 5 hours designing logos for a company, you want to make sure your paid the right amount for your hours spent.
Try to remain sensible when it comes to your time spent designing. Treat it like a normal full time job, don't spend too much time designing. Make sure you have work to do and plan ahead so you can go from design job to design job. It is also important to make sure you spend antiquate time per job. You don't want to spend all day doing a logo which would normally take you 2 - 3 hours.
Plan ahead, in an ideal situation, you would have enough jobs to cover you for the next 2 weeks. Taking in new jobs as they arise and putting them on the to do list. This would ensure a constant work flow and mean you had less down time. You could go from job to job whilst taking new jobs in. Make sure you have a constant stream of work and cash flow.
When dealing with contract based work make sure all criteria is met to avoid problems in the future. Meet all the legal and industry requirements and work to meet all the criteria. Contract work is always a good cash flow as you know you have work guaranteed when work flow is slow.
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