Freelanceing. Starting your own business.

In simplest terms, one should never start their own business unless they know something about how to RUN a business. Just because someone can draw pretty pictures, it does not follow that they know anything about making a living doing this.

For one thing, most who try doing freelance graphic design don't realize that the primary function, the most important thing they do, the activity in which they must spend the MOST time doing is ... SALES. Seriously, one can't just put up a notice, somplace, stating that one is available to make pretty pictures, and expect people to show up with cash in their hands and throwing it at the artist, asking for the work to be done. A freelancer has to go out and FIND the clients, or, most often, CREATE a clientele by showing them that they have a NEED for design work that they don't even know about.

I mean, I suppose, at first glance that one could read the postings on Yahoo Answers and see countless requests for drawing to be done, and a fairly long list of artists asking if someone wants a drawing made for them. One would think that these would be easy, natural match-ups. But, on closer inspection and a bit of reasonable deduction, one could figure out that most requests for artwork don't come with any mention of payment or other renumeration. And the other half of the equation is made up of amateurs that are desparate for attention because they have been told, (or led to believe) that they have talent and should be doing it for a living. Sadly, these DON'T make good matchups because the result of someone wanting free artwork and someone else willing to DO that work for free, ends up only proving the one gets what they paid for.

See, that's the problem with free, amateur work. Now matter what the field, it tends to come out looking "amateurish."

But, even considering that serious artist who has worked hard at developing his craft; the one who did serious studying and practiced his technique, learned composition, color theory and has mastered the tools of the trade. What makes him think he knows anything about running a professional design studio? For example, the common Yahoo Answers 'plaint, "How do I get my artwork 'Out There?" The answer is not that hard. What's hard is putting it to practice. You get it "Out There" by PUTTING it out there. You advertise. You research your market and target your effort where it may yeild the best results. You find who the art directors are at the various publishing houses, agencies and studios. You learn their names and what kind of art they "buy" and what kind of artists they work with. You find the right "fit" and then you work at letting them know that YOU are that "right fit."

You do direct mail campaigns and then repeat that effort two, three, four times a year. The flyer you sent out last year is long in the compost heap. You need to send out hundreds of glossy post cards. You need to update your distributed mini portfolio and swap out the images from your online portfolio.

You need to make cold calls by phone and door-to-door by pounding the pavement. And so on until the effort begins to pay off. And if it doesn't, then you need to reconsider your marketing strategy. And if that doesn't work and you run dry of ideas, perhaps you need to reconsider whether or not you SHOULD try to run a business for yourself.

And, after the marketing efforts, one needs to know what to do about taxes. An entrpreneur in the creative end of the business is not exempt from state and fedral taxes. What about sales tax? Does it apply in your state? Consider other issues: Zoning laws, labor laws, copyright laws, accounting and other bookeeping tasks, contract writing, collections and dunning, invoices, work orders, etc. A graphic designer can't expect customers to necessarily find their own print service bureaus, or even know what KIND of print services they might need. Clients tend to come to a designer with a project in mind and want the designer to come up with a finished product, whether it is a newspaper or magazine ad, concert poster, billboard, tee shirt or baseball hat. If one wants to run a business, one had better be prepared to know what needs to happen BEFORE it goes to print, (color separation, traps, chokes, bleeds, typesetting, creep, etc) and then where the project needs to go to get it done.

I'm sitting, here, trying to come up with the mountains of trivia and arcana of running a graphic design business and I'm sure I missed several important bits of knowlege that one should have on hand BEFORE starting to run a business. It's a lot. And, I've had more than one failed attempt to start in doing this full time and trying to make a living at it.

So my advice to all those amateurs out there who want to make money from whatever level of talent they've got. Go ahead, make your pretty pictures. Do some work for your friends, "for free." Take on whatever jobs you can find by undercutting the prices of the professionals. But to REALLY make a living at it, one has to have an extensive skill set that doesn't traditioanally come as part of a high school or community college art class. And then, go out and compete in the real, cut throat world of professional graphic design.

Work hard.

luv,

vince.