Epictetus said “wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants,” this speaks to many designers, their biggest possession is their work and with it comes a few wants, like money, or fame. Being a new designer and finding a job in a company is hard enough, but being a freelancer is even more stressful. Being a freelancer brings a new challenge, you’ve basically have to be a business person plus a designer. During last week class, we learned about a way to protect ourselves when we decide to freelance.

Before exploring the freelance world, you can try temp agencies. Some examples are creativecircle.com, vitapmintalent.com, etc. At temp jobs you can select a salary rate to be hourly or day rate. When signing up for day rate the company can use you for 6-12 hours without paying you more, now does that seem fair? Also being part a company can have restrictions, where you “belong” to them, meaning you can’t work for anyone else. Therefore, if you don’t want to “belong” to anyone you can do freelancing.

The importance when becoming a freelancer is having a proposal to make sure you get paid, attend networking events and making friends. Having a proposal to protect yourself is essential because some jobs fall apart and you cannot get paid for the work you’ve done so far. An example of how to make a proposal is on the AIGA website. Startup freelancers get paid 25$ an hour, but it is recommended to ask for 50$ to negotiate. A proposal can improve your relationship to your wealth and increasing your success.

The second part of class we went over presentations, and people showed their previous work. We got to see some beautiful designs. When presenting emotions and your nerves can get the best of you, but something to remember is to be confident of your work and a little preparation can go a long way. Something to remember is that when presenting to a client we have to assume they are deaf, dumb and blind. This will help us explain our content better and hopefully get the job. 

Overall, a very successful class. I learned about proposal which I wasn’t even thinking about. I also learned about other people’s work and saw some design ideas that I would like to try out. Here’s to another week of learning the fundamentals.