The Comprehensive Guide of How To Evolve in Freelance Career
The majority of web designers are making a huge mistake – they are too busy with accomplishing the projects to do and neglect the career evolution. The term “career” sounds abstract for many web designers, but no doubt, many chances are wasted by ignoring it. It’s ironically; lots of designers are making tons of plans for their new websites, but ignore to plan their future!
From time to time, each web designer must think about his/her future. It’s a smart idea to have a plan even for a long term perspective. Everyone wants to gain more money and have a better position into an organisation or a team. The ones that reached top level positions are truly lucky people, but usually, they planned in advance each step and worked hard for each promotion.
Until few years ago, freelancing was an occupation mostly for students or amateurs designers. The common idea was that a serious and talented designer would work into a creative agency. Altogether, step by step, this misconception is forgotten.
Nowadays, we may admire really impressive portfolios of freelance web designers that have realized projects for huge brands. Working as a freelance web designer has many advantages, few are presented below:
- Working from home
Probably, the greatest advantage of a freelancer is the possibility of working from home. It means that the working place and the schedule are all up to the designer.In these conditions, the freelancer may work when his potential is at climax. Another very important advantage of freelancing is that the rent for an office is saved.
- Doing what you want
A freelancer is the single one that accepts/rejects the clients. Practically, he/she selects the projects to accomplish depending on the own preferences. Definitely, doing what you like is the best for every web designer! - Freelance is the new cool
Despite the huge majority of the design agencies, the freelancers are flexible and faster. Taking into account that many freelancers provided top quality services, it it’s obvious that hiring a freelancer is a solution.It was relatively recently discovered both by clients and web designers. As a result, what was in the past a childish occupation, today is something very appreciated.
No matter how cool is the freelancing, a web designer needs to evolve in his career and this evolution is associated with a higher position in a design agency. There are steps in an agency, from junior to senior designer while a freelancer remains still a service provider and nothing more.
It’s true, but evolving in career is more than changing a title, it’s about providing better products and services. Thinking from this viewpoint, a freelancer has the same perspectives as an employee designer. We appreciate that freelancing will have a shining future and the entire web design community should reconsider it.
Consequently, we believe that a freelancer can talk about his career and his opportunities to evolve. Much more, we identified two modalities of evolution – quite probable, there are many others, but these are the most important.
#1. Become a top web designer
Nothing great was achieved with small efforts. The same principle is valid in web design world. A designer that just creates layouts and he has/shows no interest in sharpening the skills won’t ever become a top web designer.
Transforming into an elite web designer supposes great endeavours that aren’t very “visible” for common people and they prefer to call this transformation good luck or talent.
The career evolution won’t be marked with having positions into an agency, but the quality of the services provided would be the most eloquent indicator.
A freelancer that is experienced and created a good image about his services may earn considerable amounts of money. Usually, the clients prefer to pay more, but to have the certitude of top quality services.
In conclusion, the evolution in freelance career requires “fighting” on two separated fronts: providing high quality services and creating a brand. Fortunately, for each situation we have for your tons of resources and advices.
The freelancers that want to sharpen their skills should visit OmahPSD’s homepage. Here are collected some of the best psd files available on the Internet and all of them are free! Anyone may download and study how some talented designers created various design projects.
iBrandStudio is another blog of us and no doubt, here are published very interesting articles about freelancing and branding.
#2. Launching a design agency
Many freelancers have a great entrepreneurial spirit and some of them launched amazing start-ups. It’s also the case of the freelancers that started design agencies.
Definitely, it’s not an easy thing to realize, but it’s possible. The long patch from a single freelancer to a design agency manager has ups and downs and only a few manage to reach the final point.
The first step in launching a design agency, as a freelancer, is to have a constant flow of clients. Secondly, the respective freelancer should have more projects to accomplish than he can do. Thirdly, he/she must find other designers willing to work for him.
It’s apparently a simple task- just add an offer on job boards and instantly the ones interested will reply. In practice, this fact is quite difficult. Making a team is more than finding a designer- it’s about having similar design approaches or ideas about the future of the agency. A freelancer doesn’t employ someone, he makes up a team.
Once established a team and each member trusts 100% each other, then the success is almost guarantee. The founder is, quite probable, the one that makes the decisions and it’s no exaggeration to call him creative director.
Conclusion
As you can notice, evolving isn’t an abstract concept, it’s a very practical necessity. No matter if you are part of a team or enjoy freelancing, the most important aspect is to offer top quality services.
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– Written by Daniel –