Do you want to start a freelance graphic design career? If so, this blog post is for you. In today’s world, everyone needs graphics on their website and social media pages. But the problem with many businesses is that they don’t have the money or time to invest in a full-time designer. This leaves them scrambling for freelancers who can provide the same quality of work without costing too much money. So if you’re looking for a way to get started as a freelance graphic designer, keep reading!
Starting out:
Gaining Experience
The first thing you need to do is gain experience. A lot of people think that they can just jump into the world of freelance graphic design with no previous work under their belts, but it’s never a good idea to go in blind.
Formal design school
Formal design school is a great way to get the training you need. But even if you didn’t go to school, there are many places in your community where one-on-one design work is needed. Offer your services for free or at an extremely reduced rate until people can see what kind of quality they will be getting when they hire you full time later on.
Self-teaching
If you want to learn the basics of graphic design on your own, there are a wide variety of resources available online. You can find free tutorials for virtually every type of program out there from Adobe’s website and various design forums where designers will gladly give advice about their programs.
Maintaining Your Freelance Career
Create Your Brand
You want to start thinking about what your brand is going to be. Will it reflect the type of clientele you are looking for? What kind of design style do you enjoy creating, and how will that come across in any promotional materials you make? Put as much thought into this as possible because these factors will help determine which companies hire you first, and which companies hire you at all.
Build your Portfolio
One way to get some practice and build up your portfolio is to offer your graphic design services for free to local non-profit organizations that don’t have the budget or know how (yet!) to hire a professional to create and maintain their branding. What you do for them will help build up your portfolio, and they get an inexpensive way of getting some solid marketing material created.
Reach Out to Potential Clients
If you have a lot of job experience, start with your network. Ask friends and family if anyone they know is looking to hire a graphic designer. Chances are there’s somebody at least one person who needs some help getting their branding or marketing materials set up. Don’t forget about the potential clients that aren’t currently hiring designers too!
Building relationships/network
Building strong relationships with clients is the key to having success as a freelance graphic designer. You will need them for your referrals, and they will rely on you to give their companies an image that represents who they are. That’s why it’s important to do great work every time! Don’t undersell yourself; if people like what you create for them, they will come back to you and refer their friends.
Understanding Freelance Finances
One of the most challenging parts of working independently is understanding your finances and billing. Some clients will pay you right away, while others may take weeks or months. You’ll need to be able to understand what your expenses are and how much money should go into savings each month so that you’re not left without a paycheck for too long if one client doesn’t pay on time
Avoiding Burnout
This is probably the hardest part of being a freelancer. You may find yourself staying up late to finish projects so that you can keep the flow of money coming in, or working on weekends because you have no other time to get work done. This is going to lead you down a dark path very quickly and burnout will happen sooner rather than later if this continues for too long.
Scaling Your Freelance Design Career
Pitching your Dream Clients
You’re going to be tempted. Everyone always is. The minute you see a job that’s perfect for your skills and experience, you want it! You NEED it! This is called the “lure of the shiny object.” It will happen and you need to know how to deal with this when (not if) it happens so as not to crash and burn.
Experimenting with Your Brand
You’re going to go through periods where you feel like your work isn’t up to par with what you want it to be. You’ll experiment constantly, trying new styles and even completely different topics for your content. This is all part of the process of finding out who YOU are as a designer (or writer or whatever) so embrace this phase and don’t beat yourself up about it. It can be a real drag if you’re trying to build a business and aren’t quite feeling confident in your work, but there’s nothing wrong with being experimental as long as you keep putting out content that represents the values of your brand.
Conclusion
In order to maintain a successful freelance graphic design career, you need to be able to juggle many things at once. The art of freelancing is about time management and organization in addition to creativity. This blog post has been full of tips that will help you get started with your freelance business, as well as how best to scale it up into something sustainable long-term. I hope this information has helped! Now go out there and start freelancing like the artist you are! If any of these points resonated with you or if there’s anything else we can do for you when it comes to starting or running a successful creative business, please reach out anytime. We’re here and waiting for your to become next freelancer on Artmeet