Hi. I'm looking for some 'lifestyle' advice rather than business advice please.
I've been a freelance graphic designer for 8 years and really enjoy it - the earning potential, as much time off as I like, the variety etc. Currently it's about 70/30 split between freelancing at agencies and working for clients from home.
I'm considering relocating to another part of the country. It's really important to settle in and form a new social circle – so, is it better to work full time or remain freelance?
If anyone has relocated as a freelancer, how have you found it socially? It can be difficult to form proper friendships at work since you're working at different places all the time. That said, you do meet a lot more people when freelance...
Yes I agree, straight to the point and it shouldn't be apologetic. I have been charging new clients the higher rate for a couple of months so I can use that as a reason to bring in one flat rate for everyone – if that's relevant to you it could be worth mentioning?
I am a graphic designer with 12 years experience. I have been freelance for just over a year now and am thinking of increasing my fees. I mainly work direct to design agencies, there's about 20 companies who I work for currently (some very regularly, some just occasionally). I think my fees are slightly lower than average for my skillset and ability and I want to bring these inline by increasing them by about 15%.
I'm not sure how to word this to my clients. I guess I need to give them a reason, apart from "I think I can charge you a bit more than I do now"! If anyone has any advice or opinions on this I'd be really grateful.
I personally think £100 is way too low for a professionally designed logo. Surely time-wise you'd spend at the very least a day on it, probably more like 2 days with all the research, concepts, phone calls/emails and tweaks involved? So the price should reflect this. Once the client has paid for it I would consider it theirs to use as they wanted.
You'll definitely need to pay tax on your earnings (so you'll need to keep note of what you earn for this private work and any expenses related to it so you can knock that off your taxable income).
I think you'll need to register as self employed with HMRC, probably as a sole trader, even though you'll still have your permanent job. Not totally sure on that though. I would give HMRC a call and explain the situation, they will be able to advise you.
I recommend The Missing Manual for learning Dreamweaver. I've got the one for CS4 which is brilliant, I'm sure the one for CS5 is just as good. I found it really well written, it pretty much covers all of Dreamweaver's functions and it touches on CSS/HTML too. The author has quite a humorous style which is refreshing. The Missing Manual series has books on CSS, HTML (and most other software and coding languages really), so you could always check those out too. That said, I do google a lot of problems/questions too.
I'm a designer, not a developer, but I'm very conscious of the fact that designers need a basic knowledge of web development these days, which is why I gave DW a go. It was the obvious option for me as it felt less daunting than just looking at a window of line after line of code – plus the fact that I could get it as part of CS. I code by hand in split view, as this means I'm learning the coding side of it rather than just using DW as a layout app.
It's not so bad for me because only 1 piece of work had a Getty image on. So I've just taken it off my site. I can imagine this is a massive headache for freelancers who have used lots of Getty images though.
I wonder if iStock will start doing this too? I know they have the Legal Guarantee in their T&C saying they will protect you if you get sued for using one of their images (by themselves I assume!?) but as far as I can tell, this is only relevant if you own the license yourself.
I've read on the internet about Getty Images fining people for showing one of their images on a website without owning the licence for it.
My personal concern is this:
I have a portfolio site showing my design work, this work was produced for other design agencies (mainly from when I worked full-time for these companies). I asked my previous employers' permission to show this work on my freelance website and they gave it. On some of my work there are images purchased from Getty and iStock. I didn't personally purchase the images, they were purchased by the design agencies I worked for. Am I in breach of copyright?
Very worrying, so any knowledge would be gratefully received. Thanks.
