graphic design, freelancing, illustration, advertising, web design

I am looking for more people who would be interested in taking part in Freelancer Focus please see this post for details if you are interested. I am also interested in design case studies too.

Freelancer Focus is a regular feature, where freelance designers are invited to answer a series of questions about themselves and freelancing. This week Rob Turpin (pictured left) is the freelance designer in question. If you would like to take part please read my previous post. Any designer or illustrator can also take part in Design Case Studies.

1. Your name?
Rob Turpin (thirty five years old, how did that happen?)

2. Where are you are based (Country/Area)?
Near Twickenham, SW of London

3. What type of work do you do? (design for print, web, multimedia etc)
Almost all design for print, a mix of work for small businesses, charities and work for the NHS.

4. How many years had you been working in the design industry before you went freelance?
On and off about eight years.

5. How long have you been freelancing?
Eight or nine months.

6. Why did you decide to go freelance?
I’d been out of Design for about three years and found the thought of going out to interviews a bit daunting, so I thought why not try and get some work myself.

7. How did you market yourself (find design work/new clients) in the beginning - (online portfolio/brochure/direct mail/email/phone etc)?
I was very lucky, I was helping my girlfriend at her shop and would sit at the front working on my Powerbook - my first client came from chatting about my computer.

8. How do you market yourself (find design work) now?
Word of mouth so far. One client, as long as you do a good job, seems to lead to another. So far all my work has come to me.

9. How did you decide what to charge? What was the process?
Well, roughly I thought about the salary I had when I was last in a full time design job and tried to match that to an hourly rate. It does vary a lot though, depending on the client and the job sometimes I will charge a flat rate for a piece of work, an hourly rate or a daily rate. I also offer a discount on invoices that are paid before their due date. It always helps with the cash flow.

10. Do you work from home/have an office/work inhouse at design agencies?
I work from home.

11. How do you organise your workload, do you work long hours?
I’m nowhere near as organised as I should be. When I am busy I find myself working stupid hours long into the night.

12. How much holiday do you give yourself?
It’s important for me to have a normal working life, so I think I have pretty much a normal holiday allowance of twenty days or so. Saying that, I do work weekends, bank holidays…

13. How do you keep up to date with what is happening in the industry?
Keep my eyes open - it’s all out there.

14. What blogs, magazines, podcasts etc do you subscribe to?
freelanceswitch.com, computerarts.com, gomedia.com, Design Week, Creative Review (occasionally).

15. How do you generate ideas/what techniques do you use to stimulate creativity?
Often its things like the tutorials on GoMedia or Computer Arts. Following a tutorial can give me a great idea for something completely unrelated, or maybe it’ll inspire a personal piece of work which will then end up in a clients design.

16. What about the business side of things, accounting, invoicing, bookkeeping, how do you manage it?
Shhh, I don’t.

17. What is the biggest piece of advice you would give to someone starting out freelancing?
Be confident in your own work, and don’t make the mistake of believing everyone else is doing something better than you - they’re not!

18. Would you ever go back to fulltime work?
Oh no. Never.

19. Any thing else you would like to add?
It’s all in the hips.

20. Where can we see some of your work (URL)?
www.thisnorthernboy.co.uk

Although there isn’t actually any work up yet!

I am looking for more people who would be interested in taking part in Freelancer Focus please see this post for details if you are interested. I am also interested in design case studies too.

Freelancer Focus is a regular feature, where freelance designers are invited to answer a series of questions about themselves and freelancing. This week Joseba Attard (pictured left) is the freelance designer in question. If you would like to take part please read my previous post. Any designer or illustrator can also take part in Design Case Studies.

1. Your name?
Joseba Attard (pronounced yoh-seh-bah)

2. Where are you are based (Country/Area)?
North Devon, UK

3. What type of work do you do? (design for print, web, multimedia etc)
Mainly design for print although also some website work

4. How many years had you been working in the design industry before you went freelance?
4

5. How long have you been freelancing?
Since 2005

6. Why did you decide to go freelance?
I was burning out running a design studio, and decided to take a break. Working from home gave me the flexibility I needed.

7. How did you market yourself (find design work/new clients) in the beginning - (online portfolio/brochure/direct mail/email/phone etc)?
Online portfolio and signed up to a couple of directories

8. How do you market yourself (find design work) now?
Send out emails from time to time to various agencies but to be honest I only tend to think about marketing myself more when I’m not very busy. (I don’t recommend this by the way).

9. How did you decide what to charge? What was the process?
Well, my work for various design studios gave me a good indication of how to price up jobs. I don’t put mark-up on print, but I do charge if I have to print manage a job. Some jobs I charge by the hour but for the bigger jobs I’ll quote a job rate.

10. Do you work from home/have an office/work inhouse at design agencies?
Work from home but have also travelled to agencies to work at their premises from time to time.

11. How do you organise your workload, do you work long hours?
I try and work 9-5 but as some of my clients are abroad with different timezones, I tend to keep an eye on emails etc throughout the day.

12. How much holiday do you give yourself?
I build it into my work schedule. I’ll take a holiday if I need one during a quiet spell.

13. How do you keep up to date with what is happening in the industry?
Magazines (creative review, computer arts etc) portfolio websites, blogs and forums, generally looking around at what styles and trends stand out in the crowd.

14. What blogs, magazines, podcasts etc do you subscribe to?
Huck and Stranger magazines. No blogs or podcasts though.

15. How do you generate ideas/what techniques do you use to stimulate creativity?
I usually head down the road to the beach, go for a surf and think about ideas in between sets. If there’s no waves, I’ll sit on a rock with a thermos flask sketching out ideas. I always carry my camera with me too to snap any inspirational design I see on billboards/posters etc.

16. What about the business side of things, accounting, invoicing, bookkeeping, how do you manage it?
I do all the quotes and invoices myself, and at the end of the tax year I pass on everything to an accountant. I try and keep receipts for everything business related.

17. What is the biggest piece of advice you would give to someone starting out freelancing?
Never sit still.

18. Would you ever go back to fulltime work?
Possibly, but I’m not sure it’d be in design. If anything it’d nice to take a break from the screen. Before I was a designer I worked as a shepherd in Shropshire!

19. Any thing else you would like to add?
Don’t be sensitive. Take advice from people in the know. Also treat each job as if it were for your own marketing.

20. Where can we see some of your work (URL)?
www.joseba.co.uk

I am looking for more people who would be interested in taking part in Freelancer Focus please see this post for details if you are interested. I am also interested in design case studies too.

Freelancer Focus is a regular feature, where freelance designers are invited to answer a series of questions about themselves and freelancing. This week Jacob Cass (pictured left) is the freelance designer in question. If you would like to take part please read my previous post. Any designer or illustrator can also take part in Design Case Studies.

1. Your name?
Jacob Cass (20 years old)

2. Where are you are based (Country/Area)?
Newcastle, Sydney, Australia.

3. What type of work do you do? (design for print, web, multimedia etc)
Logo Design, Branding (ie. letterheads, business cards, stationery). I also dabble in web design.

4. How many years had you been working in the design industry before you went freelance?
I am still a graphic design student however I am freelancing at the same time to pay my bills.

5. How long have you been freelancing?
Let us put it this way, my first paid job was when I was 16.

6. Why did you decide to go freelance?
I never really decided, I more of fell into the design world. I first came across the internet when I was about 11 and I put a webpage onto the net at that time for my basketball team (ah good ol’ Frontpage) and ever since then I have loved the design world. Kinda weird I know.

7. How did you market yourself (find design work/new clients) in the beginning - (online portfolio/brochure/direct mail/email/phone etc)?
At first it was all through word of mouth and referrals however I just recently started Just Creative Design, which is a blog focused on graphic design and I have been receiving work through there as it has made my blog/website show up in search engines. I am currently #1 on Google for ‘logo designer newcastle’ which sends great targeted traffic. online portfolio at Just Creative Design.

8. How do you market yourself (find design work) now?
As I am a full time student, I really am pushed for time like the rest of us so I don’t market myself any other way other than via the internet and word of mouth however I do have an online portfolio.

9. How did you decide what to charge? What was the process?
I have read blogs and discussions on these matters to help me decide what is the best price. It also changes depending on the client and the project at hand of course.

10. Do you work from home/have an office/work inhouse at design agencies?
Work from home and love it! Everything is in my room, it has my bed, office, tv, desk, storage, phone, scanner, printer, sound system and fridge. There really is no reason for me to leave! How is that for productivity?

11. How do you organise your workload, do you work long hours?
I work all over the place and I usually juggle a couple of projects in the same day as I do not like working on one project for one long time. This helps the project and myself stay fresh.

12. How much holiday do you give yourself?
Too much. We are very privileged here in Australia, with the beaches, sun and great outdoors so I make the most of it. However as much as I love Australia, I also love traveling too. I have been over to 20 countries so far and I am booked to travel to 14 countries over Western Europe in June this year which I can’t wait for as you can imagine. You can read a bit of my travels and view some pics here.

13. How do you keep up to date with what is happening in the industry?
I am subscribed to many many blogs which I read on a regular basis. I also receive email newsletters and my professors at university also keep us in the know.

14. What blogs, magazines, podcasts etc do you subscribe to?
I am subscribed to about 40 graphic design blogs which I try to keep up with - very unsuccessfully… there is so much quality content!

15. How do you generate ideas/what techniques do you use to stimulate creativity?
Brainstorming is my best technique and sketching. If I am ever stuck I refer to my how to boost your creativity post that I kind of wrote for myself

16. What about the business side of things, accounting, invoicing, bookkeeping, how do you manage it?
Excel sheets keep most of my data, along with online records.

17. What is the biggest piece of advice you would give to someone starting out freelancing?
Don’t under value yourself. Many starting designers do this and in the end, do it quite rough!

18. Would you ever go back to fulltime work?
Never have done full time work in my life and don’t look forward to it.

19. Any thing else you would like to add?
Thanks Tara for letting me have this opportunity to share a little bit about me and the freelancing world!

20. Where can we see some of your work (URL)?
You can check out my graphic design portfolio here. Thanks!

This post is from Graphic Design Blog