Freelance Flash on the Web
Web developer Roger Obando signed the mortgage papers for his new house, then walked into his boss’ office at to give notice that he was quitting to work freelance.
Sounds crazy, but his employer (Blitz Digital Studios, a leading Flash development firm) understood and even became his first client. Since then, he’s done web development for some huge clients including Fox, Yahoo, CBS and Sony. In fact, his work on Sony’s site scored him a Webby award for Best Home/Welcome Page.
In this interview, we talk about networking to score clients good uses for Flash on web sites (and obscene uses…) along with the many ups and downs of freelancing.
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The Freelance Writer
With a flair for words and a can-do attitude, Kristen King made her freelance writing dreams come true. The Virginia resident is currently completing her Master’s degree in publishing and balances book editing with business copywriting—and that’s just to start. Her blog is a hotspot for aspiring freelance writers and she’s become an industry mentor for many aspiring writers. Oh, and she’s just 25.
I caught up with this inspiring freelance writer to find out how she does it all, and what’s next for her multi-faceted career endeavors.
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The Freelance Photography Student
Interviewed by Robert Janelle
Getting an education is expensive. Tuition fees keep rising while government loans rack up interest along with limited time to work due to classes and assignments.
Tuan Nguyen, a 24-year-old senior studying photography at Savannah College of Art and Design, found freedom by shooting freelance.
Involved in arts since childhood, Nguyen started off painting but eventually became tired of the medium and moved onto photography.
After posting his availability on his school’s job board (possibly the most underused job search tool by freelancers) some work started coming in, including a gig shooting the cover and fashion spread for Key West Magazine.
Along with fashion photography, Nguyen does a variety of other work, including art projects, photographing 10,000 year old relics for an antiques dealer and helping aspiring models build their portfolios (along with his own.)
In the following e-mail conversation, Nguyen and I discuss word-of-mouth advertising, portfolio building and fair bit of photo-geek talk.
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Punk Rock Public Relations
Jennifer Mattern knows a thing or two about online promotion, particularly in the niche markets.
She promotes her solo public relations business by blogging on that very topic at NakedPR, then shows off some business writing on BizAmmo. She rants on Fad Marketing, runs technology and music blogs, a writing community, podcasts and well…put simply, this woman has a LOT of web sites.
Along with all the sites, she somehow finds time to do promotion work for clients as varied as indie and punk musicians to a former NFL offensive lineman.
What follows is an interview where we discuss going solo, learning the ropes of the interwebs and of course, a lot of personal branding, promotion and marketing ideas.
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Coffee Shop Websites
Nathan Swartz, a freelance web designer in Pittsburgh PA, is a lucky fellow.
Straight out of school, he landed himself a graphic design job at a small Public Broadcasting Station, getting to live a geek’s dream of being paid to play with Photoshop all day.
However, when commuting, meetings and wearing a tie became too much, he then succeeded in ditching the corporate world to work for himself. The 28-year-old now designs websites for a variety of clients from a medical software company to a whisky maker, all from the comfort of local coffee shops.
In this interview, we discuss the joys and downsides of freelancing, outsourcing tasks and web design issues, like content management systems and using Dreamweaver as a glorified text editor.
RJ: I guess my first question would be, why work freelance? Do you prefer it to say, working for a design firm or as an in-house web designer for a company?
NS: Well, fresh out of school and looking to amass my fortunes, I landed a job as an in-house designer for an itsy bitsy little PBS station in Erie, PA and good times ensued for the next several years. As they were such a small station, I was simultaneously in charge of their print, web design and all of their on air graphics and animations, so the experience of it all was quite definitely the bees knees, and I smiled all the way in to work on a fairly regular basis. It’s great after years spent pumping gas, digging ditches, pushing coffee, etc – how pristine a job playing around in Photoshop all day seems.
But even as glamorous a life as a small town graphic designer is afforded, I still disliked having to play along with all of the absurdities of the modern day business world. The contradictions of the old world business model just quit making sense to me – why was I waking up at 7:30 just so I could make it into work by 9am, when I could have easily have rolled out of bed at 8:30 and got on a machine at home? Why did I need to sit in hour long meetings about the latest fund raiser when all they wanted from me was to order another crate of envelopes from the printer? And what about wearing a tie was it again that somehow made my animations more interesting? So one day I decided to quit my job, start my own freelancing career and change the world of business forever.
Just kidding about that last bit. Actually, I fell in love with this girl in England, flew over there and couldn’t find a job, so I increased my “side jobs” until I realized I was wasting valuable time going out on interviews that I could’ve been spending building websites. So I just decided to go full time on the freelance scene.
And now I work 4 days a week, about 6 hours a day, and find myself smiling a lot more often. I make just enough money to keep the bartender in tips and can run my son to the doctor at 2:30 on a Wednesday afternoon if he suddenly breaks down with scurvy, without having to give up any precious sick days or vacation time or whatever they’re calling it these days.
RJ: Those are the perks of freelancing, but what are the downsides for you?
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A Hilarious and Fascinating Interview With Laith Bahrani
Laith Bahrani is author of the unbelievably popular Low Morale series, a talented and Hercules-esque freelancer, and all round alpha male. FreelanceSwitch had a chat with him about what it’s like to have Sony and MTV knocking at your door, and the perks and pitfalls of freelancing…
FreelanceSwitch: Hi Laith, thanks for joining us. How did Low Morale come about?
Laith: Before I quit the rat race and flung my liberated carcass into the abyss of madness that is freelance artistry I occupied a respectable job as Creative Director in a large multimedia agency in Reading, England. Despite the decent wage and comfort of an established job, 3 years of pandering to the dollar-driven depraved demands of degenerate sales teams and clueless clients had taken its toll on my soul.
