5 Tips for Novice Freelance Designers
The freelancing market is rapidly growing, and more and more freelance designers prefer to work remotely. In this article, we’ll show you how to start freelancing, build your brand, and protect yourself from unscrupulous customers.
Many people believe being a freelancer is something very easy and relaxing, not requiring a lot of efforts. Yes, on the one hand, it is true since you can work when and where you want. However, the success is all about hard-working and discipline and sometimes even sacrificing something.
- Introspection is a Key to Freelance Designers
The first thing you should do is to analyse you skill and abilities, with all your strengths and weaknesses. It’s the minimum basis required to determine the direction of the design.Please occupy the niche you’re really interested in since it’s very hard to force yourself to do something that you don’t like. You are the boss and the motivator for yourself. You have to work to earn, not just sit in the office.
- Improve Your Skills in Parallel with the Work and Take a Rest
It is no secret that the entry threshold is lower for freelance designers than for office workers. In this connection, you can complete the job not even without any essential skills and experience in the design.It’s very dangerous to apply for a job before you are sure that you can cope with it. However, too high demands can ruin your career at the very start.Of course, sometimes you will have to work harder than you want.The key here is a good rest. The key is to feel satisfaction from the job done along with self-confidence. Determine the rest intervals sufficient to recover completely both mentally and physically, and then good mood and high spirit will be a reward for the high-quality work.
Again: plan time to rest. Many newcomers gain a bunch of orders and then find themselves under the pressure of unrealistic commitments and unbearable loads. After that, some are no longer able to work normally for several days or even weeks. Moreover, you have to pay attention to other aspects of your life outside of work. Ultimately, a good rest always positively affects the quality of work.
- Do not Lose the Thread of Communication with the Customer
You should always strictly follow the deadlines and make a design that customer demands. All the important things have to be agreed and specified with the client. In the process works, you have to communicate constantly with the customer to correct all the potential misunderstandings before the job is done.The biggest trouble for the designer is to do something that is far from the client’s ideas and expectations. If a customer wants a green logo, please make sure it’s green. - Determine the Reasonable Price for Your Services
Before setting prices for the services, please do a preliminary study: ask your friends or colleagues, or even potential customers how much they could pay for such a job. If the price is too high, and considering that you’re just a beginner, you will have no chances. If the price is too low, clients may find you as unprofessional; moreover, you will likely to have problems with motivation. - Trust, but Verify
Many freelance designers are faced with the problem that from time to time they got not quite honest customers and lost time and money. Therefore, it’s better to check the client before applying to the job.You can find the client’s profile in social networks, Google it, or, at least, look at his profile on the website. If he does not describe the problem clearly, have a company but does not have a website, and ask for a test job…then, at least, he is stingy. After all, if the customer is not willing to invest in the development of his campaign, it is unlikely that he will be willing to pay you.
It would seem that in these simple tips, there’s nothing extraordinary or unknown to you before. But they do work. Improve your skills, practice, change the pricing policy, be a kind person, and then you’ll pave the way to success, money, and complete freedom.
Bio:
Brian Jens is a writer and designer who works at one of the logo crowd-sourcing platforms – DesignContest.uk. He’s always in researches. Brian loves to unveil the most valuable solutions to the crucial problems in the industry of design. Therefore, feel free to contact him with the ideas you have.