A Graphic Design Student's Guide to Freelance

Practice Makes Perfect

Ben Hannam

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781118397046
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Design
• Subtopic: Graphic design

A complete guide to freelance graphic design—created specifically for design students

Why wait until you graduate? Freelancing is a great way to jumpstart your career in graphic design. It lets you apply what you've been learning in school, close the gaps in your education with real-world experience, enhance your portfolio—and make a little money at the same time.

A Graphic Design Student's Guide to Freelance: Practice Makes Perfect covers everything you need to know to begin successfully freelancing as a designer, including how to set up your business, deal with legal and financial issues, find clients, and work with them effectively.

This full-color guide is divided into sections that correspond to your particular skill level as a student—beginner, intermediate, or advanced. These sections give you specific tasks and goals to help your freelance design work go smoothly as you progress from your very first professional job to gain experience with a range of projects and clients and prepare to move into a full-time graphic design career once you complete your studies.

Complete with sample forms available online (invoices, a proof approval form, job jacket, and more) and 175 color images, including samples of paid work created by students, A Graphic Design Student's Guide to Freelance: Practice Makes Perfect will help you navigate the world of freelance design with confidence.

Inside this book, you will learn to:

• Write a business plan
• Purchase key equipment
• Set rates and draw up contracts
• Find and manage clients
• Create and show concepts
• Market your company
• Expand your business
• Develop your portfolio
• And more

General Information

Chapter 1

Introduction

My first job after graduating college was at a local printing company. They hired me to prepare files for printing and to do some graphic design work when it was needed. I remember being nervous, but feeling confident that I'd do well. In fact, I felt so confident in my graphic design abilities that I was already calculating ways I could approach my boss to talk to him about giving me a raise. I hadn't even made it through my first day, and I was already thinking about strategies to convince my boss that I was worth a lot more money.

My job was simple enough. People sent in their files to get printed, and my job was to open the files on the computer and print out color separations on a special printer, which printed on film instead of paper. As film came out of the special printer, it spooled into a light safe canister, and it was my job to take the canister of film to a darkroom and run it through a processor to develop the film. After the film had been developed, I gave the film negatives to a person called a “stripper,” who registered the cyan, magenta, yellow, and black separations to make an impression on a metal plate that was treated with a light-sensitive coating. After the metal plate had been “burned,” it would get delivered to the printing press operator, who would prepare the printing press.

Eager to make a good impression, I tried to work quickly, but within minutes I was informed that I had done the job incorrectly. The stripper told me that I had forgotten to include “traps” and that I would have to fix my error and reprint the job correctly. I blushed as I confessed to the stripper that I didn't know what a “trap” was. She sighed loudly and stared at me indignantly.

“Trapping,” the stripper explained, “is an overlap that prevents the appearance of tiny gaps of white space, which are caused by small misalignments on the printing press.” I had never heard of this term before and asked the stripper to explain it again slowly. The stripper sighed and said, “You have to set your traps in your computer document before your print them out. There is a window in QuarkXPress that lets you set them, but I don't know where to find this window. Didn't they teach you this in school?”

I spent the next several hours with my nose buried in a QuarkXPress manual trying to learn about traps. I felt humiliated that I had dropped the ball. Production came to a halt as everyone waited for me to figure out what I was doing, and I felt like crawling under a rock! The stripper's comment “didn't they teach you this in school?” kept going through my mind.

When 5:00 p.m. finally arrived, I walked out to my car and began to replay the day over again in my mind. “So much for asking for a raise,” I thought to myself, and I was angry that my teachers hadn't covered something as fundamental as trapping color in any of my graphic design classes. I began to wonder what else they hadn't told me and hoped that this was an isolated incident. The feelings of confidence that I felt on the drive into work were gone, and I thought long and hard about quitting and never returning. If my bank account hadn't been dangerously low, I probably would have quit that day. But there's nothing like desperation to keep you motivated.

Sometime later that evening, I decided that I was going to stick with the job and learn from the experience. Even if I got fired, at least I'd learn something new about the printing process.

Filling in the Gaps in Your Education

The truth is, no matter how hard your teachers try, they aren't going to be able to cover everything you need to know about graphic design in four years of school. Now that I'm a professor, I can see firsthand how difficult it is to prepare my students for the many challenges they will face as graphic designers. There is a Chinese proverb that states, “Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for the rest of his life.” That's why I'm writing this book. I want to help you create your own freelance graphic design business, so you can use this experience to fill in the gaps in your education. I'm going to show you how to find clients and earn a little extra money while you're in school. It's my hope that through this process you'll continue to learn about the graphic design profession and help you identify your personal goals.

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“How do I fill in the gaps in my education when I'm not really sure what they are?”

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Before you get freaked out or too fired up about the idea of starting a freelance business, you need to do a little planning to make sure that you don't get in over your head. Starting a business can be risky, and I am going to try to help you minimize your chances of a less-than-successful outcome. It's important to strategize and understand your role as a business owner and freelance graphic designer and to get a feel for the business environment you're planning to enter.

I hope you're a tiny bit uncomfortable with starting your own freelance business, because it's not something to be taken lightly. But with planning, discipline and patience, you can do it! Let's face it. You're going to have to do some “outside the classroom” learning anyway, so why not dictate the pace of these lessons and make a little money on the side?

Most graphic design programs seem to either try to cover the most important aspects of graphic design and then touch upon specialties that might interest you, or they focus on a particular aspect of graphic design and help you become extremely proficient in this one area (e.g., website design, print design, advertising design, typography). In either case, you're going to have to tackle some self-initiated projects to deepen your graphic design skills. You might be thinking to yourself, “How do I fill in the gaps in my education when I'm not really sure what they are?”

Reading books and magazines about graphic design can be helpful in determining which techniques and skills you might want to hone. Internships can be a great way for you to bridge the gap between academics and real world experience. Professional organizations like the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), the Graphic Artists Guild (GAG), and the Art Directors Club (ADC) can also be great resources for information, trends, and inspiration. Both internships and professional organizations give you an opportunity to meet professionals in the graphic design community and can provide a variety of learning experiences that you can add to your résumé. However, I've always learned the most by rolling up my sleeves and getting my hands dirty. While I recommend that you secure an internship sometime during your college career and become active in a professional design organization, I think it's important for you to freelance as well.

Freelancing is a great way for you to test the waters for a career in graphic design, to make a little money, and to fill in the gaps in your education. The key is to keep it simple, start slowly, and build momentum over time. By starting your own business, you'll gain experience and begin to understand how the projects you're working on in school have been designed to prepare you for problems you are likely to encounter in the profession. It's my hope that you will bring your freelance experiences back into the classroom and share them with your professor and peers in order to enrich everyone's academic experience.

This book is written to serve as a guide on your graphic design journey, but you need to realize that there are many paths to success. Running a freelance company can be anything but formulaic. The best advice I can give you is to keep an open mind, to be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses, and to seek the advice of people you trust along the way. Ultimately, the decisions are yours to make. But taking the time to look at your business through the eyes of people whose opinions you respect can be invaluable.

What Is Freelance?

A freelance graphic designer is someone who is self-employed and not committed to an employer for the long term. A freelancer designer sells his or her services and generally enjoys a greater variety of projects than the typical company employee, although a freelancer's income may fluctuate more than a company employee's does. The uncertainty of your income is perhaps the biggest drawback of working as a freelance designer, but having the ability to choose when you work, the projects you work on, and the rates you charge your clients are perks that many designers appreciate and take advantage of when possible.

Don't Wait until You Graduate

While it might be tempting to wait until you graduate before you begin to freelance, there is no reason why you can't start now. In fact, starting a freelance business while you're in school will help you develop your business skills and establish a few industry contacts. If you start freelancing now, then by the time you graduate college, you'll potentially have less debt, an established client base, and a more thorough understanding of the graphic design profession. Freelancing isn't suited for everyone, so reading this book might be able to give you an idea about what you can expect and help you make a more informed decision about whether freelancing might be a good option for you.

Having a diploma in your hand and four years of college under your belt isn't a magic formula for success, so don't be afraid of getting started sooner rather than later—the risks are virtually identical no matter when you start. Business is essentially about relationships, and you're going to be ahead of the game if you begin to build these relationships while you're still in school. Having a degree and training in graphic design does have its advantages, but the strongest relationships are forged over time. Don't wait for the perfect moment before you jump in and get started—you might find yourself waiting a really long time before you feel ready.

The truth is, I can't recall a time where I felt that I had it all figured out. Part of your role as a graphic designer is to problem-solve and figure out solutions to a variety of problems. There are no shortage of problems that will stump, frustrate, confuse, and terrify you, but they can be solved through creativity, ingenuity, and perseverance. Overcoming these problems (and your fears) is part of the adventure and are reasons why I think it's so much fun to be a graphic designer. I am always exploring ways to be more efficient with my time, to communicate my ideas more clearly, to become more creative with my solutions, and to grow as an individual.

Businesses want to work with people who will help make them be more successful, so it's important to know your strengths and weaknesses. It's a good idea to make sure you focus in areas where you are strong, while working to improve your self-identified weaknesses. Basically, you are going to start simple, do a great job with a small project, and add in complexity only when you feel comfortable doing so. As the jobs you get become more complex, the amount of money you make will increase, but it's extremely important to start slowly and make good decisions along the way. It's important to not agree to work on jobs that are too big, have deadlines that are too tight, or have clients who are difficult to work with—it's not just about the money you can make. Keep in mind that each business endeavor is a marathon, not a sprint. You're going to want to underpromise and overdeliver instead of the other way around.

A few years ago I brought a client into my classroom to work with my class. The client described his needs, and each student developed several concepts as a potential solution. One by one each student presented their concepts to the client, and the client shared his feelings about the designer's direction. Two weeks later we met with the client again, but I gave the next round of presentations an interesting twist—I gave the client permission to fire the student designers.

If the student designer had ignored the client's feedback or did not produce enough work between Round One to Round Two, then the client had the option to fire the designer and the student would have to write a research paper instead. After announcing this change to my students, I noticed that they seemed more worried than usual about the critique. I wondered out loud if it was because they didn't want to write a research paper or if they hadn't given the project their full attention and were about to be called out on their lack of effort.

Almost half of my class was fired by the client, and my students suddenly felt the gravity of being ill-prepared for this particular meeting. One of my students who had been fired by the client wrote in her paper, “Throughout this whole process, the designer should guide the client in decision making. Designers have the upper-hand in the visual world and should offer the client advice on what is visually appropriate and what design will be the most effective. This diminishes the chances of a disastrous outcome and helps the process run smoothly.”

As I read through my student's papers, I discovered that the common theme from students who had been fired was regret. My students regretted not being prepared and didn't want to make the same mistake again. I didn't want my students to get fired by the client, but I wanted them to understand that if they didn't do their job correctly, they would have to deal with undesirable consequences.

The experiences you gain through freelancing will help you understand the graphic design profession better, challenge you to work more efficiently, and help you realize how important it is to establish boundaries. Just like my student who was fired and suddenly realized that she had a few areas that she could improve, you will undoubtedly know your strengths and weaknesses much better by having worked as a freelance designer. You shouldn't be afraid of failing, you should be afraid of “not trying.” I hope that you have discovered a profession that will be rewarding, fulfilling, and challenging to you—as well as respect.

About This Book

The information in this book is divided into four different sections. Each section is color coded, so that you can find the information that is most relevant to you quickly and easily. Information that is he...