Designers… please for the love of God pick up a business book before you go out and aggressively pursue freelancing. It is becoming too commonplace to hear about clients screwing Designers out of work and only a few take it to court or change their methods. As I have stated before in many posts, being right-brained does not have to be synonymous with peaceful, weak and easy.

That being said, if you are new to freelancing, or being an entrepreneur in the field of design, here are a few things to keep in mind before starting:

1. You are seen as an artist
   I am a natural born artist (could always draw and paint anything), I am a schooled Graphic Designer (4 years BS Degree), and I have 10+ years of professional experience. I still take being called an artist by any client as an insult. It’s the weight that comes with that title, and the stigma of what an artist is.

   To your client an artist is a person who would do work solely to be appreciated, or to get exposure. What that means is that they will find it odd when you the so-called “artist” ask them to sign a contract to guarantee payment for your time, or a deposit. They will insult you with saying things like “your logo will be seen all over the world”. It is put up or shut up and an artist is not expected to ask for money.

   Do not go into freelancing as an artist, go into freelancing as a business man or woman. Make sure that this is established at your first meeting with a client. Dress professionally, not “artsy”, speak first of your ability to accomplish what is asked but make sure that you discuss the price, your initial deposit and the terms of working with you. Most business people will respect the professionalism and will trust you more whilst the con artists who would have ripped you off anyway will walk.

2. You are not respected
   Few people will understand what the process of creating a logo, website, or print marketing piece entails. They will give you insulting feedback like “I could have done that in 2 minutes” or “I can’t believe that really took 4 hours to finish”. That is why it is very important to make sure that they are contractually obligated to pay for your time or that the deposit will cover your work. They do not know or understand your work, so please do not assume they do.

   People are opinionated, and people can be very rude. Expect these comments because many times people do not like to pay you, they will insult your work and then try to make you “earn” their business for free. Get your money and deliver the product, everything else is childish and below you. Clients like this should be fired when they cross the line (and the contract is met). Never, ever take it personally, get used to it and stay professional.

3. Your competition will work for free
   This is a fact that you have to get used to. It is the sole reason I’ve decided to start sharing my thoughts and experience. Designers make things hard for designers. Many times a client will come to you knowing that you will give them a professional piece but try to leverage pricing and time with reference to their cousin or niece who just graduated some fly-by-night school of Design and wants to do it for a portfolio credit.

   Do not play ball with these people. They know and you know that the quality will not be up to par with yours, more often than none it will have to be re-designed in a year or so and it will cost time and money to re-do their identity once the cousin or niece has hacked it up. The majority of my work from last year was re-designing bad web designs and low level logos. Keep this in mind and stick to your guns.

4. Your pricing will reflect your clients
   Do you want a ton of heartache from cheap clients who want something for nothing? Then go ahead and charge below level prices on your product. Volume may seem important at first but it will soon come to show that one good client who pays $100/hr for a logo is much more reliable than 10 cheap clients paying $15/hr for a logo. People who believe in paying for quality will not waste your time and with that good price, even if they waste your time you are getting paid for it.

   It also hurts less when a project is cancelled or rejected after 40 hours of work. Walk away with $4,000 and you can buy yourself a Mojito to forget it all. Walk away with $600 and you have to worry about rent being paid for the month. You will lose many clients with a high bottom line, but you will earn quality clients and firms with the budget to cover you by staying there.

5. Every Designer thinks the other Designer sucks
   Not really, but when they try to steal your client they will. There will be times when you will be getting feedback from an otherwise ignorant client (of design) and it will seem likely that another designer is there critiquing your work. “Why did you choose to use a gradient mesh on that shape?” Things like that. Do not get offended, just keep track of your time and charge for the edits.

   There will be other times when you are given a logo to re-design and the client asks your opinion on what could be improved. NEVER, EVER insult another person’s work. First of all it is unprofessional, second… you don’t know whether the client designed it themselves or a family member did. Stick to what it is you can do to improve the design, not what is wrong with it.

   Sometimes a client will bait you for the insult, but do not do it, this is one of the most important things to remember in the re-design of any work.

So to summarize, stay professional, expect the worst and stick to your bottomline. You are freelancing to make money, you did enough free work whilst learning in school. Do not let clients bully you and make sure the price is right before working. Remember the better your business, the more successful you will be. Clients love to talk about great experiences with colleagues, those talks result in you getting a phone call for more business. It is an endless web of relationships.

Thanks for reading.

Written by Greg Dragon on Monday, November 17, 2008 

Filed under Money and Business
Tagged with artists, graphic design, hustle 101