Getting Freelance Work
Dear Designer McDesignperson,I am a current senior majoring in design/illustration. I was wondering what I can do to promote myself and get freelance work?....[five paragraphs of life story]...any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!"
I am asked this question constantly (as are other designers and illustrators that are doing fairly well for themselves). Each time, I wish I had a precise and perfect answer to give to the sender, but I don’t—not because I forget what it's like to struggle for work, but because what works for one person does not necessarily work for all people. If you are a student or someone starting out in the field, here's a bit of advice I can give you for how to get work and promote yourself.
Don’t be a dick.
If you are friendly and enjoy talking to new people, you will hands-down have an easier time promoting yourself and getting work than folks that are not (sorry anti-socialites, but it is true). The truth is, it doesn’t matter how talented you are, if you are a total a-hole or incapable of talking to other human beings, it will be a massive struggle for you to get repeat clients or even to secure clients first time around. So much of the design and illustration industry is building relationships with people. It's a bit different for illustrators than designers, (illustrators tend to not meet most of their clients face to face nowadays), but nonetheless, if you are personable the chances that an art director will want to hire you / work with you are way higher than if you aren't. Imagine if you had to put together your own “dream office environment”. Who would you populate it with? At first you might think to take the most talented folks you know, stick them in a room together, and wait for the magic to happen, but you would ultimately be disappointed with the results. You need a good team dynamic, you need people that can keep their egos in check, and most importantly you need people that you generally want to be around if you're going to be spending 9 (16) hours a day with them.
Designers: You guys might have a harder time getting (paid) client work than illustrators. There aren't any direct venues for promoting yourself as a designer other than winning design competitions, and even then you are mostly promoting yourself to other people within the design industry or not far removed from it. Think about it. If you were a normal person in the process of opening your own restaurant, how would you go about hiring a designer? You certainly wouldn't think “hey, why don’t I go see what’s happening on Design Observer today” or “why don’t I spend the day browsing that obscure design magazine?”. You would ask your friends if they knew any designers. And those friends would ask their friends. So essentially, if you're not a few degrees away from that potential client, your chances of working with them are slim. But how do you promote yourself to people that don’t know they need design? This is the toughest question but one that has a few solutions:
Befriend other designers.
It seems so simple, but so many young designers see their peers as competition rather than the folks that will eventually be sending them all of their work. If that restaurant owner's friend is a bit savvy, she might have recommended a really great designer to her friend. That designer's pricing was far above what the restaurant owner could afford, so she recommends a designer friend that is slightly less expensive. That friend really wants to do it but is a little too busy at the time (and the budget is decent but too low to warrant several all-nighters). But wait! Didn't some really nice recent grad just send her a (VERY SHORT AND NICE) email with a link to a really great portfolio? Maybe that new designer would be willing to work within the budget? Problem solved. Restaurant owner gets a beautiful new logo, and fresh-out-of-school designer gets paid all by making use of her network of friends.
Have a website.
This might be a no-brainer, but a ton of young people looking for work don’t have a functioning website because they're still struggling to build some crazy flash bonanza themselves. STOP. Unless you want to do web work for a living, sites like cargo collective, indexhibit, and carbonmade are perfectly fine ways to make portfolio sites. Many professionals use them as they are easy to update, which you will learn is THE MOST important trait a portfolio website should have. Illustrators, this goes for you too.
Do work for friends.
The first point is more about networking with designers, by “work for friends” I mean actually do work for the people that you hang out with day to day that aren't designers. If you went to art school, you undoubtedly have a slew of friends that need design work, be it business cards, logos, websites, etc. Work something out with them where you can either be paid a friendly fee, or barter with them for something you need, even if it's a few extra hands the next time you move house. A lot of people will want free work, but if you've ever leant money to a friend, you know the chances you're going to be paid back are around 30/70. It's the same with your design skills, giving them away for free, even to friends, probably means no future return. If you have any doubt about whether or not you should do something for free, I made a handy flowchart.
Contact charities.
Charities are a great jumping point for getting freelance work. You won't necessarily be paid anything, but at least you can feel good about the free work that you're doing and hopefully garner some good portfolio pieces out of the experience. Also, people that work at charities know people that work at non-profits (paid work) and THEY usually know people that work at legitimate businesses (well-paid work).
Enter competitions.
They might not immediately get you client work, but having a few accolades under your belt will certainly make potential clients feel confident when they hire you, which can often times translate to less of a struggle to get things approved (if they trust you, they’ll be less likely to question every move you make). You can of course build up a rep without winning competitions, see “don’t be a dick”.
Pay attention to the industry.
You have to keep up with what’s happening with design, who's who, etc. You'll end up in a ton of professional social situations where you will feel like a total moron if you can't hold an intelligent discussion about a crazy famous person/campaign in the industry. At least work on your ability to fake knowledge about things. My favorite method is what I would call the “delayed reaction acknowledgement", where you look confused at first, ask for one more detail about the event, and then let a fake eureka moment flood over your face “Ohhhh THAT person, of course!”. Works every time.
Have realistic expectations.
Don’t expect that you'll get out of school and then be immediately inundated with freelance work. It takes most people years to build up enough client work to branch out on their own and work entirely freelance, so when you're fresh out of the gate, expect to have to have a day job of some sort to support you while you build up your client list. Designers have a leg up because they can have a design day job while doing design freelance at night. Having a day job is also helpful for more than just paying the bills when you start out, you learn SO MUCH about the industry from every job you have. Even seemingly crappy jobs can teach you a lot about production or at the very least help narrow down what you do and don’t want to to do with your life.
Actually meet with art directors.
This seems really old school, but it totally works. Again, if you're a people person, you'll have more luck with this, but never turn down an opportunity to meet with art directors. Art directors are content curators, even if they don’t have a job for you immediately, they may in the future, and if they feel a personal connection to you over someone that is doing similar work, they're more likely to hire you. This works best if you live in New York or Los Angeles or a city that a number of publications work out of, but really there is a magazine or newspaper in every town. Worse case scenario, meeting with people helps you hone your people skills.
Learn proper email etiquette.
Do not write novellas to art directors—if you're going to write an art director, keep it short and sweet. Don’t attach massive pdfs of your work, don’t pressure them to write back to you with criticisms. Chances are, they are very busy, and if you make them “work” for you, it will annoy them and most likely tarnish future working relationships.
Put portfolios up everywhere online.
When art directors are looking for illustrators, they consult portfolio databases along with annuals. Alt-pick is a good one, illustration mundo, and behance are also good. Deviant Art might work within some very specific circles, but for the most part (I believe) is not highly searched by editorial, publishing, or advertising art directors. Many of these places are free to sign up with, some require a low fee, but no matter what they will most likely be worth it in the beginning. See also Have a website above.
Enter competitions.
While designers might not immediately benefit freelance-wise from being featured in annuals, illustrators absolutely do. Art directors looking for illustrators definitely check annuals to see who's who in illustration and find artists for assignments and campaigns. In my personal experience, American Illustration and Communication Arts tend to have the most return, but both are very hard to get into. The Society of Illustrators Annual is very highly respected among the illustration community and is worth submitting to if only for glory within the industry. European annuals appeal to an entirely different market and I cannot speak extensively on them as for the most part I only enter the american annuals (which already add up to a lot in fees by the end of the year).
Buy lists from adbase or other similar services.
You can actually subscribe to services that give you thousands of contacts for art directors. This can be extremely useful for sending out promotional material or making connections. It can feel a bit “cold call"ish, but if you keep your emails light and friendly and non-spammy, this kind of contact can be very helpful.
Look into artist representatives.
Reps don’t work for everyone, but some people benefit greatly by having an artist rep. I was one of those people. My rep helped teach me about a lot of what’s listed above and put my work in front of a lot of faces within a short frame of time. One thing to keep in mind though, is you want to work with someone who is there for you and is not just in it to make a buck. They should be mindful of your mental health, not push you to do things you don’t want to do, and ultimately help make your life easier rather than harder or more annoying. Generally I think smaller rep groups are better, as you get a more hands-on experience. What reps do definitely help with, is price and contract negotiation, paperwork, and promoting you to the advertising field.
Make work.
One of the best things you can do for your career is to be productive. If you're not getting client work, do self-authored personal work. Most young people that are doing anything in the industry right now got there because of a personal project that propelled them into the public conscious. Not only will people probably feel more of a connection to this kind of work (because you poured your heart and soul into it) but it also shows future art directors that you CARE. That you love what you do and would be happier working for the rest of your life than sitting on the sofa procrastinating.
Send out promos.
They don’t have to be printed, they can be digital, but no matter what they should be memorable. From experience (and from judging competitions and whatnot), humor forever wins. If you're not exactly a comedian, make something that will make people think or just make something so glorious and beautiful that they can't help but show it around.
Illustrators and Letterers:You guys have it a bit easier because essentially you're trying to promote yourself to designers. As an illustrator, your initial bread and butter will most likely be editorial work (magazines, newspapers, or online publications). To promote yourself to art directors within the editorial world, there are a few things you can do:
So there you have it, a relatively short list of advice. I've only been doing this for a couple of years, but so far a number of these things have worked for me so they may work for you. Like I said above though, everyone is different. Use your strengths, be nice to people, and in time you'll come out on top.