- Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to a new video in my design job series.
Today I have a special guest with me.
This is Nancy.
- Hi.
- Nancy is a freelancer.
So I brought her on today to talk about freelancing,
because as I mentioned in my design job types videos,
there's three main types of design jobs.
You can work in-house, you can work in an agency
or you can freelance.
So, I don't freelance personally full-time,
that's not something I've ever done the full time.
So I've got a Nancy on today to talk about it
because you do freelance full-time, don't you?
- Yes, yes I do.
(instrumental music)
- Do you wanna tell us a bit about your business
and your freelancing and how long you've been doing it?
How it all works?
- Well, I'm Nancy and I am a designer animator
in Northern Virginia.
And I have been freelancing for the last year and a half
and that's after working an agency job
- Right. - for about five years.
- Right, why did you wanna go freelancing?
Like what about it appealed to you the most?
- There was a lot of appeal to it
because you get to set your own hours
and you can work remotely if you need to.
And I found that that was something I really needed to do
because my mom is currently ill
and I needed extra time to you know,
- Yeah. - be able to take care of her.
- Yeah, of course.
- So it turned out to be the perfect fit for me.
- [Charli] And how did you go about
finding your first clients for freelancing?
- I went to people I knew and I went to agencies that I knew
and I reached out to them and I had conversations with them
and I let them know that, "Hey, this is something I'm doing
"and if you hear of anybody, please let me know."
So and sometimes they would be the ones who came to me
and they would say, "Hey, we have a job. Are you available?"
and I would say, "Yes. Yes, I am."
- I think that makes sense,
go to your personal connections first.
- Oh yeah, definitely.
- Word of mouth I've heard anyway about freelancing
and all of the freelance jobs that I have gotten
when I've done on the side
have been through word of mouth usually.
- Yeah.
- Do you find that with your clients?
- I do find that with my clients,
word of mouth, whether it's an agency job,
agency, I can't say that word today.
Whether or not it's an agency job or just a client job.
- Right.
- So it all comes from word of mouth
and it could come from the design community or your friends
or just anybody you know really.
- Okay, well you said something interesting,
the agency job or a client.
- [Nancy] Yes.
- So is this the two types of freelance
in case you find yourself working on
either you're freelancing for another design agency
or you're freelancing directly with a client, is that right?
- Yes, those are the two type of jobs I found so far.
The agency one and the client one
and they're both vastly different, really.
Because an agency already knows what they want.
They have a creative director and an art director
and you turn in your work
just as if you were working for an agency
and the art direct through it.
Whereas with a regular client,
you need to take them through step by step
the process that you've created for them,
- Right.
- to make it as streamlined as possible.
- Yeah, that makes sense.
I never thought about that before about how
working with essentially designers
and what other creatives is your client,
is very different to you know,
clients who perhaps aren't in the creative industries.
- Yeah there's a lot that we know,
- Yeah.
- That we assume other people like us know,
but they really don't and you have to educate them.
- There we go.
Okay, so you're freelancing,
you've been doing this for a year and half now..
What are some of the main challenges that you find
as part of your job, as part of being a freelancer?
What should people be aware of,
if they're thinking about choosing freelancing as their job?
- I would say you have to get used to the alone time,
- Okay, yeah.
- because again that's a pro and a con,
sometimes you really like that alone time
to crank through the work you need to do
but on the other end, you start to miss people
- Yeah.
- And you start to miss that human connection.
So you're gonna have to go out
and make sure that you see people,
go to meetups or get together with your friends,
go to, in you know, the United States
we have the AIGA events.
- Yup.
- So go to those events, so that way you can connect,
- Yeah.
- And don't feel yourself going insane.
- What about the business side of freelancing?
Was there a challenge for you to get used to?
Or did that come easily?
'Cause I think when you're freelancing,
you're essentially running your own company,
even if it's not technically like a legal company entity.
- Exactly. - Yeah.
- Yeah, it was a little challenging
just in terms of setting it up
and doing my own contracts and whatnot
but I used, a starting point for me was a AIGA contract
- Perfect. - which is on their website.
Just download that. - That's great.
- And then I had a lawyer look it over
and we made some subtle changes
and then I've been using that ever since.
So the other thing is setting up your proposal
maybe setting up some templates
that can help you so you can just tweak those
as needed for a client.
And then just setting up all your files systems as well.
And I'd also recommend setting up a Dropbox
or something along those lines
so your stuff's always available on the cloud,
just in case your external hard drive
decides to take a hike one day
(laughing)
- That's good advice for design in general.
- Yeah, exactly right? - Yeah.
Alright so what if
someone is just getting out of design school
perhaps they're super new to the design industry,
would you recommend them going into freelancing full-time?
Is it a good first option do you think?
- Directly outta school,
I would recommend working for an agency first,
- Okay.
- because you get to know so much through an agency
that you don't at a design school.
- Right.
- And you get to know the business life,
you get to know the file set up.
These are just things that they don't teach in school,
- Yeah.
- and I think it's really helpful
to have that agency experience.
- That makes sense. - Yeah.
- 'Cause I think a lot of people,
freelancing is the dream for a lot of designers
you know that, self employed, setting your own schedule,
finding your own clients, that sort of thing
- Yeah. - is really appealing.
- Yeah.
- But I think I agree that you need to know
a little bit more about the industry first.
- You do. - Yeah.
- And while it is very appealing,
just remember that there are gonna be those nights
where you do work an all nighter
and that's because you have your own schedule
and you set your own time when you're gonna work.
- Yup.
- But those deadlines come up
and sometimes you have to take those jobs.
- Yeah.
- You know, I mean not that it's great to work you know,
a 14 hour shift or you know,
working 'til three in the morning or whatever
but remember you've got all those off days too
from time to time,
so you know, that kind of balances everything out.
- Yeah, yeah. - Yeah.
- Just your schedule isn't gonna be as regular
as if you were in an office job.
- Exactly. - Yeah.
What would you say are some of the main skills that
a designer would need to have
to be successful as a freelancer?
- I think communication is a huge skill
because you need to be able to
communicate with your clients,
you need to be able to present to them.
You need to be able to,
be very organized with your files
so you're not constantly losing them.
And another thing I would highly recommend
is when you're sending work out to,
whether it's an agency client,
or a client that's not an agency firm,
- Yeah.
- I would highly recommend that you
go through that entire file
as if you were sending it for the final time,
'cause you don't know what they're gonna do with it,
you don't know if that's what they're gonna use.
And it's really important to like,
proofread your work, look it over,
and just make sure that you're really comfortable
with what you're sending out there.
- Alright well if anyone watching is
thinking about becoming a freelancer
I hope this video has been useful
and that you've learned a bit about
the skills you need to have to be a good freelancer
and some of the like day to day of
what the job is like.
If you've got any questions though,
leave them down below in the comments,
perhaps Nancy you can dive in and answer some as well.
- Yeah, yeah, I'd be happy to, yeah.
- Answer some questions down there.
Give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it
and make sure you subscribe
because there will be more coming in this design job series.
I've got, the agency one left to do in this series.
So, that will be coming eventually.
Thank you for being here Nancy.
- Oh thank you for having me.
- Where can people find you online
if they're interested in seeing your work
or just you know, hanging out with you on the internet?
- Www.nancypalm.com that's my website.
And my Instagram is Nancy_Palm.
- Perfect. - Yes.
- Alright well, thanks for being here,
thanks for watching.
Hope you have a good day, and I'll see you next time.
- Alright thanks. - Bye.
- Bye.
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