A Creative Year

2007 marked the first full year I offered freelance design services. While still a side-business for me, business was good and the lessons learned were many. Here are a few tips if you are considering offering freelance design services in the near future.

1. Being Dependable Sets You Apart: I’ve dealt with many clients this past year who had gotten burned by their previous designer and were turning to me to either save a project, or start from scratch. Perhaps the previous designer was testing the waters and didn’t know what they were doing, or realized that working with a client can sometimes feel a lot like work. As a result, the wounded client is wary, and looked at me with beady, piercing eyes. After all, they have designer baggage and it was my job to win them over. This is the perfect opportunity to earn a life-long client by being dependable, and delivering a quality finished design.  

2. Find Time To Get Better: You are going to learn a lot just by doing, but also set aside time to improve your skills, bone up on fundamentals and otherwise try not to make a fool of yourself when a more talented designer looks at your stuff or a client asks you a tough question. It’s your career, your passion – actvely sharpen your skills and increase your knowledge!

3. Be Prepared for Personality Conflicts: When you go freelance, in some respects you still aren’t your own boss. In fact, you now have multiple bosses. Some of those will grate on every nerve in your body, hammer your senses with stupidity, and otherwise aggravate you. However, differences in personlaity don’t have to test the limits of your sanity. Prepare yourself ahead of time and be professional. Handling these kinds of situations will mature you and ultimately increase your people and communication skills (which some introverted designers, like me, can always improve).

4. Don’t Take on Something You Don’t Know: It’s my opinion that you offer clients services that you can perform. I’ve heard others say, that if a client needs something that you can learn on the fly, never turn that client away. I find that if you are busy, and striving to do excellent work, sticking to what you know is the better option. Yes, this means occassionally turning clients away.

If a client needs a service you don’t provide, try and partner with someone who does offer it, and have that relationship in place for next time. If you are not prepared at that moment to offer the service, my advice is to be honest and stick to what you know. There’s more that can be written on that, and maybe we can come back to this topic later.

5. Taxes Suck: Make sure you know what to expect come tax time. Don’t be caught owing for all those sweet freelance projects, and not having the money because you bought that new Mac. Plan ahead, get your business ducks in a row, so when the tax-man cometh, you can send in your paperwork with confidence.

I know there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything you want to do. Like sleep. For those who are creatively inclined, sometimes we find ourselves going in a million different directions. Web designers, especially, can get overwhelmed with all the rapidly changing and emerging technology. It’s tough to stay on top of things, and improve your creative skills, much less find time for a hobby or a creative project that is just for fun.

But it’s worth it.

If there is a creative project that sort of just hangs around in the back of your mind and won’t let go, it’s time to block out some time and get cracking. Don’t let those creative ideas fade away. Get them sketched, jot them down, and, hopefully, find the time to work on them. You will find a sense of fullfillment, your abilities will be stretched and will grow, and you will have trained those creative juices to keep on flowing. Who knows where trying something different will take you in the future!

I’ve completed my first illustration project since the launch of A Creative Year. In case you missed it, I tend to work on more print and web design projects, and don’t get to do much drawing or illustration. I found an old sketch and worked it up in Illustrator, brought it over to Photoshop for some final touches, and the completed product is below. It was fun, and it’s a start. What creative projects are you working on?