Maintaining Business Standards As A Freelancer
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.
Should Your Website Have A Client List
Share Should your website have a client list? This is a question that a client popped to me not long ago. That got me thinking.. is it a necessity or a bit of self indulgent showy-off-ness? I then asked some of my previous clients about what they looked for when they selected Acuity Designs for their project; [...]
5 Free Non-Disclosure Agreements
Share Non disclosure Agreements are something that comes up at some point in time. Especially, say you are outsourcing a part of a project to another freelancer or design agency. Over time – I have compiled the following samples that helped me create my own tailored NDA. Thanks to their authors. If an download errors pop-up, please [...]
Does a successful freelancer have to be a good sales person?
Share When starting out, when your down in the trenches fighting against the colossal agencies and your fellow freelancing kin, do you have to be a good sales person in order to secure projects? Do you feel freelancers need to be sales orientated? Are you a good sales person? The internet has given clients information [...]
10 Ways To Score and Evaluate A Client
Share My past two posts have covered how to deal with non-paying clients and clients who want to become the designer. Good clients do exists and for the most part form the majority of your clientele; in a book I read through the idea of evaluating your clients. Times are hard, sending christmas cards to [...]
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 [...]
Your Quote is too high! – Charging/Negotiating for design work
Share It is inevitable and if it hasn’t happened to yourself yet, it is not far round the corner especially in the economic times were in. Quite often, a potential client will challenge you on your pricing. i.e your rate per hour, total price etc The first time it happened to us, we were hit [...]
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 [...]
Freelance Contracts
Share Hi all, While surfing forums and the like found a great free contract resource , over at WDF. This is a contract that I came up with several years ago, with the help of a lawyer [personal friend]. I didn’t want anything too technical or full of legal speak. Just wanted something simple, straightforward, [...]
7 Things To Consider When Starting As A Freelance Designer
Share Many just pick up and go when entering the freelancing world, but to ensure things go smoothly for everybody involved, there are a few considerations. Setting up a small studio, office or dedicated work area within your household; keeping the font police off your heels, invoicing and paying correct taxes etc are vital. Being [...]
5 Little Tips for Designers
Share These are more focused on just getting into what we perceive as good habits, and its always best to egt into good habits from early on! Some of these are somewhat obvious, maybe even dumb but its easy to forget the simple things. Hope they help. 1) Ensure that your client is pleased with [...]
5 Ways To Copyright Your Work
Share This post is a short extension and continuation and summary from a previous article: Importance of Copyrighting Your artwork - it would serve well to read this before reading the following, as good background knowledge. 1) Deviant Art By uploading your work to a personal gallery on deviant art, you can protect your work under [...]
Free Business Plan, Projected Balances and Expenses Templates
Share When we first began, a friend sent over some very nice business plan, asset, balance sheet, started up expenses etc type templates. You can use, edit these at your own discretion. Unfortunately, I do not know and cannot ascertain who created them, so am unable to give credit, where its due as these templates are [...]
When Meeting A Client as a freelance designer…
Share When first starting out, the prospect of going to meet a client to discuss the project and work through the nitty gritty details can be a little daunting. This little list is just some things to make sure you have the predictable bases covered: Firstly, I am just going to say remember that they [...]
Free Invoice, Receipt, T&C and Privacy Templates
Share Found these great templates, originally created by Traxor over on Web Designer Forum Invoice Template (*.PDF File) Receipt Template (*.PDF File) Thanks to Traxor Designs for the templates. Original Source
How Do You Organise Yourself As A Freelance Designer?
Share This is more of a search for ideas and methods than an informative article. No matter how often I tidy and plan ahead, my desk after about 2 weeks always seems to revert back to the same crazy chaotic mess that it does. Trying to give everything that I have to do/ handle organised [...]
10 Resources to Help You Decide What To Charge for Design Work
Share As website designers , we know all to well how difficult it can be to competitively price your work; we compiled the following list of resources to help us in our endeavors. 1) Design Talkboard: ‘How much to charge for Graphic Design’ in reality, freelance designers will need to research carefully and develop a [...]
Using Humour Effectively in Design
We went on a short trip to amsterdam, and stayed in, probably the worst hotel in Europe. (that anchor text is adding to their advertising, trust me!) It wasn’t an exaggeration to suggest that our room resembled a prison in every way, except for the bars. However, the budget hotel embraced it’s flaws instead of trying to cover them up – using humour in their advertisments, they successfuly turned what should have been the worst aspect of any hotel, into its biggest selling points.
Copyright Your Artwork
As artists and creative minds it is becoming ever more important to make sure you copyright your work! This protects you from infringement, criminal clients and a host of other problems that can arise when you realise someone has stolen your work. We are about to produce a poster for mass sale through various outlets, so we have managed to find out the following on copyright in the UK. If you have anything to add or correct, let us know!!!
10 Great Free SEO Tools and Resources
Share Great basic to intermediate SEO Tools Hi all. In my efforts to search engine optimise websites for myself and various clients i’ve compiled a little list of free SEO analysing tools that I use. Hope you find them useful. 1) SEOmoz | SEO Cheat Sheet This wonderful PDF courtesy of Danny Dover contains every [...]
A Good Work Environment
Share I personally have never paid attention in detail to the space that I use to design in and how it can have an impact negatively or positively on the work i produce and how much of I produce… The space I use is often in a state of ‘organised chaos’ full of everything from [...]
10 Resources For The Starting Freelance Graphic Designer
Share 1) Register for tax! Source: CarolineMurphy.co.uk ‘I feel like a broken record when it comes to this subject, but a lot of people are either unaware or chose to ignore the fact that once you are self-employed /freelance in the UK, you must register with HM Revenue and Customs.’ 2) Contracts! Author: Jacci Howard [...]
Designers – Maximising The Value Of Your Work
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.
May 09, 2010 | Categories: Advice, Business, Commentary, Freelancing | Tags: value, Work | 4 Comments »