Freelance Design Tips - Don’t Be Too Available…

By jimdiggitydog

Your clients expect you to be available - and you should be. You should answer the phone. You should answer emails. You should pick up on the occasional instant messenger buzz.

But how available should you really be? What does availability do to your productivity? What does that availability do to your life in general? Your creativity? Your professionalism?

In my business, I’ve found that availability is a double-edged sword. You want to be available to your clients, but you don’t want to be there all the time, as it can kill your real working time, kill your work and make you look needy or unpopular.

But at the same time, if you’re aloof or distant or unavailable all together, you’ll upset the very people who keep your freelance business going. It’s a fine line to walk, but it’s one that you have to address. You want your clients to feel loved. You want your clients to feel that you’re watching out for their best interests. But you also want your clients to understand that they are not the only clients you have - and you want them to understand that you have a life outside of their project.

I’ve also found that if you give them an inch, a lot of clients will take a mile. If you make yourself available after hours or on the weekend once, they’re going to expect you to do that all the time.

So much about the freelance and self-employment business is about training your clients, managing their expectations and also managing your image. All of these can take a long, long time to do - and if you approach it incorrectly, it’s enormously difficult to change any of these down the road.

If you make yourself seem too eager for the client’s business, they’ll see you as unprofessional or unpopular. The tattoo of “Please! Give me business! I’ll do anything!” is a tough one to wash off. Being over-eager or overly available can give the image of desperation, and no client wants to work with a desperate designer.

So - how do you handle your client’s expectations of your availability? Don’t rush to answer the phone. Don’t check your email and respond to it every 10 seconds (I’m guilty!) and don’t tell them that they can call you after hours, on your cell phone or on the weekend.

Give it time. Mull things over before you respond. Only respond to the things that need to be responded to.

What does this do? It lets the client know that you have a life away from your desk and chair and keyboard. It’ll buy you some space. It’ll buy you time. It’ll buy you the ability to communicate and work more on your terms - which is why you started down the twisting path of the freelancer.

Right?

Well - I gotta go. Phone is ringing, IM is buzzing, and I just got 45 emails that I need to ignore for a while.

The Perfect Gift for Your Favorite Freelance Design Webmaster…

By jimdiggitydog

(hint, hint)

I colleague of mine (check her out here) clued me in to this the other day - custom engraved moleskin sketchbooks at engraveyourbook.com.

I’ve mentioned before that I use sketchbooks and paper and pencil and pens extensively, and I think it’s a good idea for everyone out there. Wether it’s just for notes or for actual sketching and illustrating, it’s a great idea to always keep all your great ideas, bad ideas, magazine clippings, random thoughts and general doodling in a place that you can go back and use it as reference, idea starters or just for chuckles.

You are an artist, after all.

Now, you can keep all your ugly thoughts in one beautiful, custom place.

Noise Canceling…

By jimdiggitydog

There is so much noise these days.

It’s everywhere. Visual and audio noise is pervasive, invasive and omnipresent. It’s hard to get a moment of real quiet. Ears and eyes are constantly bombarded.

Having a quiet space to work is important for a few reasons.

• It makes it easier to concentrate: That ALWAYS makes it easier to work.
• It can help you stay organized: When there’s not so much stuff stacked up and so much swirling around, it’s hard to keep things in order
• It will slow you down: Your brain will relax a little when there’s less of a garble. That will help everything.
• It will keep you level-headed: A calm worker is a good worker. A calm customer service agent is a good customer service agent.

Peace and quiet is hard to find, but there are ways to do it. 

• Clean up your desk: Simple, but not done nearly enough. And REALLY clean it up. Sort and throw away things you don’t need. Put things in a drawer or cabinet that you don’t use daily.
• Get rid of the knick-knacks and the tchotchkes: I’m a collector (toys - go figure) and I like to have a bunch of stuff out to play with and distract myself with, but I’ve forced myself to get rid of a good amount of stuff just to simplify and quiet my office. And really - do you need 75 pictures of your kids (or dog or car)?
• Turn off the radio/TV/iPod/stereo: Simple, but hard to do. Make it really quiet for a while
• Turn off extraneous computer gear: Hard drives and other little things make noise. Not much, really, but if you have enough going, it can add up.
• Take down posters or art that you don’t need: You don’t have to have a drab office, but you do need simplicity and calm - and too much is just too much.
• Buy some noise-canceling headphones: Man - this might be the best $50 I’ve ever spent. These beauties cancel out the minor noises that go on. They don’t muffle the phone or make it totally silent, but they drown out the little whirrs and whistles and whines and wooshes that seem to be everywhere. Very nice! You can listen to music or just turn them on for a little silence. I’ve got the big Maxell deals that go over my ears, but there are a million models out there - do a little research and you’ll find some that could work for you.

There are so many ways to find silence - and I encourage you to try a simple exercise: find 5 minutes of silence every hour. Set up iCal (or whatever) to notify you on the hour to take a 5 minute noise break. Turn off the music, shut off what you can and just sit in silence.

First, you’ll probably find it very hard to do, and you’ll really notice how much noise there really is.

Second, you’ll find that it helps EVERYTHING you do. Taking a break is good, and you need to do that, too - but try a noise break.

Those of you with children might find it a little harder. I know I do.

All right - the noise of my clicking keyboard is making me realize I need a noise break. Oh, and I need to clean my desk. Oh, and that poster of guitar chords needs to come down. Oh, and my miniature Stanley Cup needs to be taken off my desk. Oh, and I need to cut the radio off.

Man - it’s noisy in here…

“Budget is a big concern” is not my concern…

By jimdiggitydog

I garner a fair amount of work from online sources, and I’ve found that there are a couple of universal red flags when it comes to bidding on projects or quoting a job. I’ll go into some of the others later, but the big one is “Budget is a concern.”

While I understand that money is an issue in a lot of situations, if a person upfront about the budget being the primary concern, I’ve discovered that 99% of the time I don’t want that job.

If a prospective client makes it plain that budget is #1, then that’s precisely what the main concern is going to be. Not the design. Not the process. Not the thought that goes into the work. Not you. The money will be the main concern and will always be the main concern. And that’s really not a great way to start a relationship.

I don’t want my work to be all about the money. I want to make money. I want to be paid what I’m worth - but I also want the design and the art and the craft to be at the heart of it. If the client is only concerned about the dough, all the esoteric stuff is out the window. And that’s no fun.

The other issue with this sort of client and project is that it often turns into a situation where you get locked into a low bid and you wind up working way, way too hard for the money you are getting. They’re concerned about the dollar. Not much else.

This might be a generalization, but I’ve found that my worst clients over the past 10 years have been the ones that come in needling for low-ball quotes and bids.

Don’t chase the low bids. Don’t bid on projects that say “money is tight” or “we’re a startup, so budget is low.” You might unearth a diamond of a client - but more often than not, you’re stuck holding a lump of coal.

Freelance Design, 101: Touch Every Project, Every Day

By jimdiggitydog

As I think I’ve mentioned, I’m an old-school guy in a lot of ways. I like to draw, I like paper, I keep notes on pads and sketches in sketchbooks.

I also keep a clipboard with a quad-ruled pad on it, with all my projects and sub-projects listed in no particular order. I have a couple of different colored pens that I use to categorize projects into groups - large clients are in orange, one-offs or smaller projects in red, long-term or on-hold in green. Don’t ask me what any of that means - I just dig the colors.

But, what this list allows me to do is to touch on every project, every day.

So - the advice: Touch every client and project you have every day. There are a few reasons:

• It keeps the project fresh in your brain: That’s good, right?
• It keeps your clients apprised of what’s going on: They feel more important and in the loop.
• It keeps you honest: If you have 500 projects going, it will at the very least keep the lines of communication open and make you admit to your clients that you’re short on time. Even the most hardened and awful client you have will appreciate the honesty. There’s nothing worse than not communicating.
• It keeps you organized: You have a list. You can check that list off. That helps you (at least mentally) keep things in order
• It makes you look like a dynamo: Clients will feel like you’re constantly in motion. Even if you’re just sitting on your duff, spinning around in your desk chair and mumbling to yourself every day. And yes, I’m talking about myself.

And now, for something completely different…

By jimdiggitydog

Words of advice for freelance designers (gotta get the buzzwords, you know):

Laugh…

It’s one of those things that you get and find funny, or that causes you roll your eyes at us geeks that are rolling on the floor, clutching our ribs and making the universal symbol for “can’t. breathe. too. funny.”

Happy Wednesday, all - back with more stuff tomorrow.

A Good Cause…

By jimdiggitydog

TonerForAutism.com is a great cause, and it’s a simple one to support. We all use printers, and we all go through too much toner and ink.

I’m a father of 3, and while my children are all blessedly healthy, I have friends and colleagues that have children with Autism. It’s a confusing condition. And it’s sadly on the rise - big time.

I love kids, and I hate to see suffering of any sort - especially in children. TonerForAutism.com is out to raise awareness and raise money for what is considered to be a curable, treatable and preventable disease.

Check it out, pass it around. If you can use it - great! If you can’t, maybe you know of a business that does go through large amounts of toner or ink. Recommend it.

Learn more about autism, stock up on ink, do some good.

There. I’ve done my good deed for the day. Back to coffee, old gothic music and logo design land for me.

Freelance Design Job Sites - Toe to Toe

By jimdiggitydog

I have had subscriptions to many (if not all) of the freelance job-finding websites. They all have good points, and I think the amount of work you actually glean from them has a lot to do with how much time and effort you put into the searches, the portfolios and the profiles.

Recently, I sat down and really considered the pros and cons of two of the heavy hitters - Guru.com and Elance.com. I’m only going to comment on the paid portion of the sites, since I think if you’re going to explore, you should go for a more premium package and be serious. You gotta spend money to make money, right?

First up, Elance:

• $9.95 per month, includes 20 “connects” which are essentially bids. You can purchase more for around .50¢ each. Some jobs actually cost more “connects,” and you can have your bid appear higher in lists by spending more connects.
• Reasonably slick interface.
• Skill tests - lets employers see that you’re actually skilled in what you say you’re skilled in. You get 10 free with a paid membership, and you can buy more.
• Not a huge number of projects for non-web designers. Only 426 as of this posting
• Stiff competition - 14k plus design candidates for such a limited number of jobs.
• Decent bid levels - most logo jobs are going for “less than $500,” which is generally higher than Guru’s bid levels. Just using this as an example. All the jobs are reasonably close.
• Kind of sucky portfolio. Clunky and kind of awkward to upload large numbers of files.
• Most professionals seem to charge a decent rate - not too many $5 an hours designers. That helps prop up the rates - which is good for everyone.
• Fairly robust mediation.
• Good escrow and payment systems.
• 6.75-8.75% for transaction processing.
• Decent communications systems for client/freelancer relations.

Apple Keyboard Review (or I’m Slow to the Draw)

By jimdiggitydog

Yeah - I’m a little late to the party. But - that’s not really news. I’m always a little stubborn and reluctant to change. But a well-placed cup of apple juice forced my hand this time.

My son (5) spilled a cup of apple juice into the keyboard of the Mac Mini that we use for home schooling and fun for the kids. Keyboards don’t like that, oddly enough.

It fried, and I decided that I’d give my trusty white Mac Pro Keyboard to them and buy myself a new keyboard. I’m just generous like that. Besides, the eject button was shot and the command key was getting a little wonky from years of abuse from my left thumb.

Went online and found that the local BestBuy had the new Apple Aluminum Keyboard in stock, and I thought that $49 was a pretty good deal. I’ve read good reviews, and I could just go grab it. So - 15 minutes later and I had the pickup confirmation. Online ordering and in-store pickup is grand!

I got it home, unpacked it and started in on abusing it. After a 4 day trial - here are my thoughts:

• Very small. But only sort of. It’s actually the same size as the Pro, but without the tray.
• Very sexy. It’s typical Apple design fare. Sleek, minimalist and stylish.
• Nice key feel. Really smooth action, and a small distance between down and up, so you don’t have to press hard. Very nice for folks like me with arthritic joints and carpal-tunnel syndrome.
• Not adjustable. The only thing I don’t really dig. I prefer to have my keyboard cocked up at a slightly higher angle (again with the fingers and wrists.) But, not bad at it’s default angle.
• 19 F-keys. Huh? Wow. That’s a lot of function. Photoshop only uses 15. I’ve got more functions than a Swiss Army Knife.
• iTunes Control. Very, very nice!
• Quality Materials. Much nicer than the very plasticky Pro. Feels like quality.

Drowning In Work (or The Power of 43)

By jimdiggitydog

Well, well, well. It’s about time…

I’ve been out of the blogging business for a while and in the business of doing business. My list of open projects is currently standing at 43. Some are large, some are small. Some are fun, and some of them royally suck.

But - I’ve been working - A LOT - and I’ve not had a tremendous amount of time to blog. So - sorry for that.

I’ve made myself a vow (and by posting it here, I’m making a vow to you, too) that I will post at least a couple of times a week. And there are a couple of reasons for that.

One - I’ll keep traffic flowing in, which is ALWAYS good.

Two - (and much more importantly) it gives me an outlet. With freelancing, it becomes so important to have an outlet for the creativity that you don’t get to use.

Yeah, we all work in the creative field. But truthfully, we don’t always get to do precisely what we want to do with our creative juices. If I had my preference, I would do a lot fewer logo designs and websites, and do more writing and drawing and painting and all the esoteric little things that seem to escape a large amount of my day-to-day projects.

I’ve got 43 open projects. They’re not all creatively rich, but they pay the bills. There are some fun ones - and I can inject my own personality and fun and humor into the majority of them, but I need to have an outlet otherwise.

So:

Nice to meet you again, outlet.