When we started FreelanceSwitch back in April 2007, the site consisted of just a couple of blog posts and an about page. Over time we upgraded the design to v2, added forums, a job board, podcasts, resources like an hourly rates calculator, spun up a Twitter account and of course boosted the number of blog posts!

Today I’m very happy to unveil the latest iteration of FreelanceSwitch which introduces a bucketload of new features including a directory of freelancers complete with search facilities, profile pages for users, unified logins for the forums and the rest of the site, a resource directory and of course a fresh design for the whole site.

Accounts, Profiles and the Freelance Directory

The biggest change in version 3 is that we’re introducing a much more robust user account system. Previously we used to have forum accounts and job board accounts. We’ve now merged the two into a single FreelanceSwitch account system.

There are two types of accounts:

Free Accounts …

If you sign up to a free FreelanceSwitch account you’ll be able to:

• Chat on the forums
• Create a basic Profile page with contact details, description, external URL and a couple of skills tags
• Appear in the Freelancer Directory

Paid Accounts …

For $7 a month you get to:

• Apply for jobs on the job board
• Additional Profile features including extra URLs, extra tags, testimonials and work samples
• Appear at the top of any searches of the Freelancer Directory and have more details shown with a larger profile image

What the Profile Pages look like

You can see a sample profile page that I’ve made for myself:

The New Design

The new design is an evolution of the previous look and retains many of the same elements, just repackaged with a bit of freshness.

Some things you might be interested to note are:

• The whole site from forums to job board to blog has the same unified design now
• We’re pulling in fresh jobs into the sidebar
• We’ve got a fairly unorthodox comment layout which emphasizes big text for readability
• We’re using sIFR to render out the FreelanceSwitch font in our headings. It means a slight lag in page loads, but it just looks so damn neat!
• We’ve added a welcome panel to the homepage to help clients use the site
• The site is designed so it looks like the old site … but newer!

Here’s a little look at how FreelanceSwitch has evolved over the years:

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Over the last week Psdtuts+ and Vectortuts+ have been running a special event called Graphic Design Week that consisted of no less than 28 posts including tutorials, articles and giveaways. More than a few will be useful to freelance designers, including:

• Preparing and Talking About Your Graphic Design Portfolio
• Design and Print Bold Promo Cards in 60 Minutes
• Make a Quick’n’Dirty Letterhead in … MS Word!
• Make Your Design Work Look Awesome with a Product Mockup
• Win $3500 to Spend on the ULTIMATE Graphic Design Setup!
• And for readers just getting into design: Teach Yourself Graphic Design: A Self-Study Course Outline

So be sure to stop in at our Graphic Design Week Wrap-up post and browse around the great selection of articles.

The web can be a great source for inspiration and in the last couple of years we’ve seen a heap of great galleries for website design in particular. But there’s so much more stuff to be inspired by, that’s why today we’re launching Creattica.com a gallery of great design and inspirational imagery that includes not just websites, but logos, business cards, posters and Photoshop art!

The new Creattica site is in fact a redesign and repurposing of our venerable FaveUp gallery that was in need of a bit of love and attention. So we’ve ported all the old content over to give the new site a flying start in its new super suit of Creattica awesomeness!

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For many of you freelancing is an end in itself, a way to escape the confines of a regular job and work for yourself. If you’re like me, freelancing is a stepping stone to still other types of business. Freelancing makes a good springboard because having your own hours gives you the flexibility to work on a startup business. It also provides you with an income source to help sustain those early days when your new business idea isn’t much more than just a pie in the sky.

Personally, my wife Cyan and I used freelancing as a way to set up Envato and FreelanceSwitch. I won’t lie, it kinda sucked doing client jobs all day, then working on the new business into the night – usually interspersed with even more client work. But it sure beat taking a loan from a bank and having repayments hanging over our new enterprise.

The Netsetter

In the last few weeks I’ve been starting a new blog about my experiences in startups and web business, it’s called TheNetsetter and I thought there might be some freelancers here who’d be interested in coming on over! A few of my favourite posts so far:

1. It Won’t Happen Overnight But It Will Happen!
2. Doing Things Yourself Will Only Get You So Far
3. Guerrilla Marketing for Startups
4. Strategy Games and How They Can Help Your Business

Posting is a little less frequent than here on FreelanceSwitch, but we’ll be ramping up over time. So head over to TheNetsetter and say hello!

Twitter Illustration by ProductiveDreams

As you probably know we’ve had the FreelanceSwitch feed available via Twitter for some time (setup kindly by @moep), and it was getting so popular that we decided it’s time to do a little more with Twitter.

You can now find our new Twitter account @Freelancesw with daily updates not just from the blog, but also interesting freelance links from around the web, news and chatter.

Roger that!

If you’re wondering who the man behind the account is, it’s the super Roger Byrne – who you might know better as @styletime. Roger also runs our popular design news, tips and chatter feed @creattica.

If you have something you’d like shared, just DM Roger @freelancesw and let him know!

Without doubt my favourite freelancing site after FreelanceSwitch has to be the awesome FreelanceFolder – another good source of news and advice. And I’m happy to announce that as of today we’ve partnered with them to pipe through our latest jobs to their site.

If you haven’t been to FreelanceFolder before, let me recommend two great posts of theirs to get you started:

1. Why Freelancing Is Freakin’ Hard
2. Top 5 Web App Combos for Running an Online Business

Of course there are plenty more, so head over and subscribe! In the meantime, thanks to Mason Hipp and his crew for having our jobs over at their site!

Arguably there are few more vital sales vehicles than a web portfolio yet too often they are aimed more at other people in the industry than at clients. If you’re a photographer, you’re in luck because PhotoShelter – a company that provides a variety of services for photographers including portfolios – has put together a detailed survey and report asking clients what they want out of a portfolio.

The survey was of 550 image buyers, everyone from creative directors to photo editors, and asks them questions about what formats they prefer, how they react to Flash and what they are looking for in a portfolio, even whether they prefer a background to a plain look. The results are illuminating and very worth reading. Continue Reading

Today I’m very excited to announce that we’re taking the lid off our newest Envato Marketplace: GraphicRiver, a marketplace for premium design components like Layered Photoshop Graphics, Vector Illustrations, Icons, and Adobe Add-ons like Brushes, Patterns and Textures at very affordable prices. You could almost say it’s like having a graphic art department at your fingertips!

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If you’re a Mac based freelancer, you’ll be interested to head over to our sister blog Mac.AppStorm where David’s run up a list of 12 Mac Apps for Running a Freelance Business:

Running a freelance business requires you to be an expert at everything – from communicating with clients to meticulously tracking your time and expenses. Doing all this manually can be dramatically time consuming, and it’s easy to make mistakes – nobody is perfect. Fortunately there are a range of Mac applications which can lend a hand and assist in the day to day running and organizing of your business.

Continue Reading at Mac.AppStorm

Also on the same subject, be sure to check out Noupe’s list of 15+ Useful Mac Apps for Freelancing Web Designers. Between those two lists, you’ll have a plethora of apps to help you with your freelancing!

Way back in 2007 we published a super popular article here on FreelanceSwitch titled 35 Absolutely Essential Mac Apps. It must have hit a chord because to this day it’s in the top 5 most viewed articles on the site every single month. It’s so popular … we decided to build an entire blog on the subject!

And so I’m happy to introduce you to Envato’s newest member of the family – AppStorm – the Mac Apps Blog! The site runs daily reviews, roundups and how-tos for getting more out of your favourite Mac apps. Continue Reading

Looking back on last year, Envato had a pretty big 2008 by any measure. We jumped from 4 sites to 13, a million monthly visitors to 5 million, and while our team began the year numbering 12, we ended it totalling 55 talented reviewers, editors, managers, developers, writers and support staff. With such a crazy year in the rearview mirror, it is with no small excitement that I can say that 2009 is going to make 2008 pale in comparison. And today I’m here to make a huge announcement for all the authors of our marketplaces, give beta invites for a major new site, and give sneak previews for some of our Envato plans!

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In the last few years WordPress has been growing as an essential tool in the web designer toolkit. Between regular blog themes and the increasing number of themes that turn WordPress into anything from a portfolio site to a shop, its use as a general purpose CMS has made it a staple of web design tutorials and galleries.

So I’m very happy to announce that after many months of work, our latest Rockable Press book is on sale – How to Be a Rockstar WordPress Designer, co-authored by myself and Harley Alexander – a WP up and comer from my hometown of Sydney!

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