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Advice

Maintaining Business Standards As A Freelancer

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Share Freelancing is very different to the majority of other businesses due to its innately personal involvement and attachment to every aspect of the business. Maintaining objectivity and a decisive decision process can be hard as your personal feelings begin to creep into the equation.


How to Avoid Over Working Yourself As A Freelancer

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Share When running your own business it is very easy to run yourself into the ground as it feels like there is always something that needs to be done…


Designers – Maximising The Value Of Your Work

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Share We here have been looking at developing a CRM system here, and as such we got talking about customer service and its relation to our business. Importantly, our pricing.


General Rules For Doing Free Freelance Work

Share Every now and then, hopefully not too often something may come along whether it is for family / friends / a charitable cause / a non-profit organisation etc where you make the decision to waive your normal fee for your services. I have been in a few of these situations and I have learnt [...]


Interview With Will Kay of OddKingdom – Becoming Your Brand

Share When first starting out in any of the creative arts as a freelancer or sole designer; marketing is one of the biggest concerns. Getting clients, letting people know that you exist. Many of us started out and drudged through the first year or so through referrals, family and friends and exhausting every contact we [...]


Factors To Consider When Pricing For A Project

Share One of the things I suffered from in the beginning when pricing clients is often forgetting to bill for all aspects of a project and thus half way through I was feeling cheated or clients were commenting on how remarkably low my prices where in comparison to other quotes they had received. We all [...]


5 Essential Books For Running A Successful Freelance Design Business

Share Christmas approaches as does the end of the year, below are 5 great gifts you can get yourself. These are books that I have personally read, so they definitely are receiving my full recommendation – full of tips and great answers towards running a successful business and making money from what you love doing! [...]


Long Term Freelancing Success – Part 1 – Dedication

Share Hi all, welcome to what I hope to be a series about some factors I think will be key to long term success..The first is to address your working discipline. Read many interviews of freelancers and a common answer to ‘what do you love about being a freelancer?’ – one of the expected answers [...]


How To Deal with Non-Paying Clients

Share At some point you will come face to face with the worst type of client. The client who despite numerous attempts on your behalf, is refusing to pay outstanding fees on a project. As a business you will at some point have to go after a non-paying client, and as such should be prepared [...]


When Your Client Wants To Become The Designer

Share Every now and then you receive a client who gets involved in your end of the deal, and is questioning / making firm suggestions about directions to take. This could be due to their eagerness, misunderstanding of professional boundaries or personality; but it needs to be addressed when they begin to intrude too much [...]


Designing With Distractions

Share “To choose art means to turn one’s back on the world, or at least on certain of its distractions.”  Melvin Maddocks Designing with distractions. Maybe this doesn’t only apply to freelance designers and illustrators. I think it’s probably a conundrum that faces people in every walk of life, particularly as they progress through student [...]


Creative Block – Beating It – Fresh ideas and inspiration

Share So your self-promotion has worked and you have that all important new client. The project itself has scope for you to add some personal style or artistic flair to it as well. After the initial brainstorming, research and sketches you are nowhere – with nothing visual to guide yourself. Creative block! We have various [...]


What is the best 22″ 24″ 28″ 30″ graphic design photography monitor

Share Whilst searching the web for a comprehensive resource to help me to decide what monitor to buy, I came across this great thread on the AnandTech Forums: Best Monitor for Purpose The thread is segmented into different purposes you may require monitors for. Here is the section related to Design:


Interviewed by Crazy Leaf Design Blog

Share Hi all, recently we had the opportunity to respond to some questions put forward by Alex from Crazy Leaf Design… you can read the interview here: Interview between Crazy Leaf Design Blog and Acuity Designs