done it. Let’s see how it goes. Brave new world, seize the day, etc!
Ta

Best of luck.

Are you intending to work from home or on-site?

Good luck. Sounds like you did the right thing.

Good for you. I bet provided you put the effort in to find the work that in a years time you will look back and think ‘how the hell would I ever take a 9-5 job again’. Working for someone else for your whole career is a mugs game. You are now the master of your own destiny. Good luck.

Well done! It’s a big step to make, but it’s a good one.
I went freelance 3 years ago when we left London (bugger all design jobs in Carlisle at the time) and although the first 6 months were really tough and I doubted why I’d made the decision, I’m now on the verge of going into partnership with someone and forming our own design agency.
I’ve found the most satisfying work comes from selling myself as a designer working for my own clients, not freelancing for an agency. That way you get to build up relationships and work on much better projects.
Either way, good luck – if you can make it work when times are tough, you’ll be laughing when the economy picks up.

Probably working from the corner of my front room to start as I’ve only got a desktop. Looking into getting a laptop, but not sure about the initial investment and software. still looking for an update for my quark!
Cheers

Best of luck to you fella

From the sounds of your posts you’ve definitely done the right thing!

Keep us posted how its going!

Make the switch to Indesign ASAP – Quark is dead in the water!

I’ve got indesign cs5, just do some freelance already and the guy is on quark 8, I’ve only got 6.5!
so sometimes it looks dated

grueller

Best of luck. Things really aren’t great at the moment. I’ve had my own little graphic design business for the last 14 years and the last 2 years or so have been the worst in recent memory. I went through the last recession in the early 90’s and this is much worse for the media industry in general. Money in real terms is dropping and you are now expected to do much more for less. Most of the ‘easy’ money has or is drying up with clients purchasing more and more associated services themselves (such as print and photography whereby you could make a margin).
The industry in general is static. Clients aren’t spending new money and are more cost aware than ever. Small and large design businesses will tend to use freelancers they know and trust and aren’t, by and large, seeking new freelancers for their books – we’re pushing rates down as a direct result of our rates being squeezed. Likewise clients are doing much the same – stay with the agency you know who’s work you like and prices are good.
That said, there are opportunities to be had but there’s more designers and companies chasing those opportunities with ever increasing sharp pencils on prices. When pitching for work, you must keep your pencil very sharp and add in a lot of ‘added value’ to your pitch (account handling, response times, thinking of the client first before yourself etc). Also, just having a great portfolio is no longer enough, you’ll need to have a good understanding of marketing, branding and new media as well. Clients no longer see the designer as the slightly whacky person who’s a bit ‘up themselves’. Clients now demand you to fully understand their brand values and design accordingly. Design styles therefore are now more ‘safe’ than for a long time and really quite bland – client don’t want you to ‘play’ with their look and feel any more.

Here’s the good news!!!
I still wouldn’t go back to being employed by an agency. My lifestyle is great all things considered. I’m my own boss, to some degree work my own hours (remembering you now need to put your client first) and still pay my bills and mortgage etc. I definitely work less hours than a few years ago but the plus side is I get to ride more, see more of my family (something that was hard a few years back) and have most weekends free.

Go for it buddy but take it REALLY seriously – there’s a lot of competition out there!

think it
feel it
f***king do it…

best advice I ever had.

Also read this book… ignore the title, its just a great business book. http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=4+hour+work+week&tag=googhydr-21&index=aps&hvadid=12426031196&ref=pd_sl_9f5rg01gdy_e

But f*** me times are damned tough right now. really f***ing tough. Not a great time to kick off from a standing start. I am just lucky my business is established… if this was month one, I would close up, and get a paye job.

having said that working for yourself is the best… bloody brilliant. Make an effort, play smart, and taaa daaa there is a finacial reward almost instantly. PAYE… work hard all year, and get an insult of a bonus.

Good on you.

If it works out you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it 10 years ago.

Make sure you get in quick with an offer to freelance for your old firm. You know what they need, can probably work out how to do it cheaper/better for them from you new freelance position and you’ll be doing it on your terms.

f@ck me tell me now:)
If I didn’t do it I would be forever wondering. I’ve been here long enough to know all about ‘added value’
just need to apply it to me. Now I just need a website/url/business cards/cv…

Best advice I can give when looking for new business is approach companies and agencies who’s industry you know well (even if you don’t like it). For example, if you’ve been working mainly for the cycle industry, approach those companies. Being able to talk to them in their own language makes a huge difference, but I suspect you already know that. Also, keep it local – a lot of our work is from local companies, within a 20 mile radius. Despite this being the modern era of pdf’s, ftp sites and so on – people really still do like that face to face meeting and being presented their designs in person. Keep a good number of smaller clients rather than one or two larger clients. Don’t get too hung up on having the latest version of this software or that software – not as many agencies as you think are running the latest Mac OS and up-grading to the latest Quark or Adobe CS as you may think. Having a good reliable system is more important. Upgrade every couple of years.
We produce several magazines here so receive hundreds of adverts in from many agencies in any given year. Split is roughly 60% Quark (believe it or not) and 40% InDesign.
Sure you know all this already.

good luck mate!

what tallgavin says about working face-to-face is definitely true from the other side of the fence – I can get loads more achieved in a five minute chat in front of a designer’s mac than in a week’s worth of emails.

there’s no substitute for being able to say “no, I want that more like this” and point at bits – and then make sure you understand each other.

hmm. laptop may be more important then, bugger.
all good advice.
cheers

what tallgavin says about working face-to-face is definitely true from the other side of the fence – I can get loads more achieved in a five minute chat in front of a designer’s mac than in a week’s worth of emails.

i don’t doubt that this is true for most people, but in my case I work 99% of the time from home and have clients that I’ve not met in person at all. All ways of working can work if you put your mind to it.

i don’t doubt that this is true for most people, but in my case I work 99% of the time from home and have clients that I’ve not met in person at all. All ways of working can work if you put your mind to it.

I also have clients I’ve never met so agree to some extent but I wouldn’t base a business plan on it though.

I didn’t mean working in office together all the time, just that it’s really good to meet up when designer is presenting work, to give feedback in person.

Also I can happily work remotely with designers I already know and trust, but with new (or not-so-great) ones a face-to-face meeting really helps make sure that you “get” each other.

BTW – I hate using a laptop for my work (writing and web production) and always use desktop PC if poss. Must be much worse for doing design work on!!

WOULD RATHER NOT HAVE TO OUTLAY STRAIGHT AWAY. what’s peoples view on software, buy or inherit where possible?

I didn’t mean working in office together all the time, just that it’s really good to meet up when designer is presenting work, to give feedback in person.

^ Agreed.

On the laptop front i’d agree that it is a pain to work on by itself, but if finances only allow the provision of one computer then a laptop with external keyboard and secondary monitor makes for a pretty good platform to get you started.

Also on the hardware front, make sure you’ve got a good system in place for backing up your work. I remember quite clearly when we got burgled and the relief of finding out that my external drive hadn’t been taken. At the time, had it have been taken I would have been right royally screwed.

yeah, was going to get a terabyte external drive for backing up on.
Any advice on free project management tools on the mac as well, or is a wall planner good enough

On software, I bought what I needed from the outset, initial startup spend was about 4k. I took the view that it was my trade and if I expected other people to pay me for my work it was only fair that I paid others for theirs.

On top of the slightly morally high horsed approach I think it looks a bit mickey mouse if a client were to notice that you have unregistered/pirated software on your computer. I tend to upgrade to every other release so I went from CS3 to CS5.

I plan to update hardware every 2 years when possible.

Agree with muppetWrangler – MacBook Pro with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse and an elevated stand is what I found best. Option of an effing big cinema display when in the office

there’s no substitute for being able to say “no, I want that more like this” and point at bits

Have you ever been punched?

😉

My wife, who is a middle weight designer in London was recently made redundant. tbh she panicked like crazy for a week while she was still employed, but managed to get work every day circa 180-250 perday for 3 months before accepting a perm senior position of two she was offered.

The work is out there for sure.

Any advice on free project management tools on the mac as well, or is a wall planner good enough

I guess it depends how you work, how many projects you juggle at once, scale of projects etc.

For me, I don’t use anything more complicated than iCal for key deadlines and a physical notebook in which I write pretty much all my notes as a I go along, and even then the iCal rarely gets looked at as if I’m told something needs to be finished by a certain date I tend to remember it pretty well.

ericemel – Believe me, that’s exclusively a London thing. Seems that an even higher percentage of design jobs are migrating south. Agencies have been folding left, right and centre in Manchester. Mine included.

Anywhere outside the South East and its a struggle

Edit: If you need reminding when your deadlines are, you’ve clearly never worked freelance. Get used to the 10 o clock in the morning phone call “I NEED IT TO GO TO PRINT BY FOUR!!!!!”

That’s your new norm. Enjoy…. 😉

ericemel – Believe me, that’s exclusively a London thing. Seems that an even higher percentage of design jobs are migrating south. Agencies have been folding left, right and centre in Manchester. Mine included.

Absolutely, I’m working in and around London and it definitely operates within its own little bubble. Very fortunate in that respect.

Have you ever been punched?

The great thing about using freelance vs staff designers is that you never get lumbered with the angry, punchy one who nobody likes working with.

Came close a few times when I was on staff myself though I’m sure.

Designers – noted as they are for their open attitude to constructive criticism eh?

How many designers does it take to change a lightbulb…….?

😆

probably none because there all sat round designing a better one in red.
In the south east, so maybe a glimmer of light there. Hope to get odds bits and pieces from my old place as knowledge of the workings. I know it will be a slog, but what isn’t. I’m not looking to create an agency or my own studio just a living for now

None, because “I’M NOT CHANGING A ****ING THING!!!”

😆

Hahaha, very good.

client is king!

client is king!

Only to their face are they.

I shall remind you of that when you’re working all weekend because your client forgot about the marketing material he needed for his conference in Germany next week.

The one he booked 3 months ago. But the one he only phoned you up about at 5.30 on Friday. The one you’re now trying to pull favours from your print suppliers for

Then he’s not king. Then, he’s a ………

you waiting on a call binners?

grueller

I wouldn’t agree with comments above regarding the laptop etc. This is going to cause some disagreement I know but really you need two work stations. You’ll need two desktops (not laptops). Ask any Mac engineer and they’ll tell you that a) laptops break down more frequently and b) when they do, they’re harder to repair.
You’ll need one desktop for your main workstation and a spare one. You can use the spare as a print spooler. The spare needs to have a duplicate of all your applications and fonts etc. If your primary workstation breaks down, and it will at some point…inevitably, then you have a spare to use. This may sound over the top but if you’ve taken on a contract, with a deadline, you can’t miss it. If I were employing your services and i got a call to say “sorry, I’ve missed your deadline because my Mac is bust”, firstly, your not going to get paid and secondly, you may find your client asking for financial compensation. If the client needed that work for something very important, it’s not beyond possibility that they may hit you financially. This happened to a friend of mine a few years ago when a job missed the mailing house – he had to pay a couple of grand! Ideally have a third workstation as a file server. I understand finances are tight so in the very least, back up everything to a very good (expensive) external drive, daily.

I’m not looking to create an agency or my own studio just a living for now

I wasn’t either, but things have reached the stage where I’ve got too much on to cope with by myself, but not quite enough to employ someone else. Really excited about it actually – should be lots of fun, and having another designer with a similar work load will be good because hopefully their clients will be quiet when mine are busy and vice versa.

Got made redundant last year – started contracting and freelancing – have had the best years earnings ever so far, almost tripling my previous salary.

The work is out there – especially in the digital industry. Oh, I’m a developer though, not a designer.