Benjamin J. Mace, Flash developer extraordinaire, first encountered Flash after graduating college. He lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA with his wife and children, and freelances with a variety of companies throughout the nation. Since March, he’s been a full-time freelancer. Check out some of his excellent work in the post here as well as his studio at http://www.bmace.com.

John Brougher: How did you come to choose Flash as your platform of choice? Does print design or web design (apart from Flash) ever tempt you?

Benjamin J. Mace: Right after I got my second job out of college, my new boss came by my desk and said “Hey we’re going up to Apple in Reston, VA for a Macromedia demo. They have a new suite coming out that sounds pretty cool.” I remember sitting down in a small room with a bunch of people as the speaker started to talk about the future of the Internet and how their new software was going to help change it. I hardly knew anything about the web at the time.

He brought up Flash 3 and Dreamweaver and showed this cartoon of a snowboarder and clicked around on an animated menu. I went from “Sweet… I’m not in my cube today” to “Holy crap, my life is about to change.” He showed the timeline, some keyframes, a few simple commands and how he could make a website with transitions and such. It was all there… everything… design… movement… sound… I was 110% sold. I spent literally ever free minute I had after that learning about Flash and Dreamweaver for the next 2 years.

Print and “Web” design both interest me… Flash, CSS, Pantone chips and markers are all just tools. It’s solving the problems that interests me. I’m a designer by nature and I notice lots of things from the texture of a coffee pot handle to the shape of a car fender. I love everything that has to do with design whether it’s measured in decibels, inches or frames per second. At the end of the day we all have specialties… I’m good at Flash and clients come to me for that. If GM asked me to help design a logotype for a new car, I’d love to work on that just the same.

JB: How did you find your first clients? Where do you go to find your next clients now?

BM: The first few years out of school I had a day job and didn’t really seek work… a friend would mention me in passing and I would moonlight on occasion. As the Internet grew I was heavily involved in forums and the Flash community. Right before the dot bomb people were dying to get intros done and find anyone who knew anything about Flash. Just posting in forums was enough advertising alone back then.

I went freelance for the second time this March (2007) after being in and out of the corporate world for the last 10 years. Having tried and failed at full time freelance before, I made a good two part plan about four months before leaving my day job this time around.

Part 1 was to line up as much work as I could at night and I made sure to meet as many people as possible. I contacted dozens of agencies and studios in NYC either through job postings, forums, friends or by cold calling my favorites. The plan was to fly up to NYC where tons of great agencies are around the block from each other and meet as many people as I could face to face. I wanted to work from VA and email will only get you so far.

Part 2 was to get as much promotion and administrative type prep work done before I left my job. I redid my website in a simple HTML format and made use of all the SEO knowledge I gained at AOL to help people find me. I gathered all my work from the last 10 years and searched for contracts, fax forms and what software would help me. The trip paid off big time and that Monday after returning from New York I had work lined up and I was really prepared for it.

Work is finding me now. I get 1-2 emails a day from random people searching for a freelance Flash developer/designer (thanks to Google) to help with a widget or some script problem. I took a few of those jobs in the first month and quickly found out that wasn’t going to cut it. The deadlines were ridiculous and the clients were stressed. After about three months I was getting calls from Creative and Technical Directors who got my name through word of mouth. With each project now comes a better one and the goal is to keep that flow going. Please the client and the work will return.

JB: As a Flash developer, what kind of marketing do you find yourself doing? Is there anything off-the-wall or unique that you’ve done to reach out to potential clients?

BM: I’m getting my work mostly through word of mouth. One of my biggest strengths is my personality in that I can get along with just about anyone and I make a huge effort to network. By that I don’t mean I’m the car salesman type but I’m honest and straight forward with people. That counts a lot and networking is what this industry is all about. Everyone knows someone else and if I’m impressing or pleasing someone, then I’m making my way to the next person. People would much rather work with someone that a friend or trusted colleague referred them to, than someone they found doing a search. I haven’t done anything off the wall yet…. just traditional build it and they will come type stuff. If you do good work someone will eventually take notice.

JB: Do you find any challenges juggling a family with full-time freelancing?

BM: DAILY… It’s my biggest struggle right now. My wife works full time and I’m playing Mr. Mom with her. I’m up before 7am helping her get everyone out the door… brushing up, the dog, breakfast and diapers. I’m on the computer at 8am and at 2pm I’m running to get my son at daycare and flying back home to get my daughter from the bus stop. Then I’m back on the computer until it’s time to get dinner ready. We have softball and homework and maybe a hour of TV before I’m back on the computer from 10pm-1am or so. Wash and repeat. The weekends are just as crazy. I usually work Saturday and Sunday nights giving myself little time to relax. I’m hoping in the next few months I’ll have everything down to a science and be much more streamlined. The ultimate goal of course is to do less work for more money you know? That comes with proven solutions to design problems.

JB: You mentioned that you’re located in an area relatively far away from the tech industry—do clients blanche at your location, or do you mostly work remotely?

BM: I live in my hometown of Virginia Beach, VA where our entire family is now. I don’t do any local work. Everything I do is mostly out of New York or California and my clients are agencies and studios. Everyone wants someone on-site and I would as well if the roles were reversed, so it’s harder to land work for sure. Most agencies don’t care that I’m remote because of my experience. They know where I have worked and what I can do and totally trust my abilities. 90% of the work I have right now has the creative flushed out. I’m given specific instructions of how something should work and I run with it. I’m basically a production house right now but that will change over time. I’ll be working more directly with agencies next year and be able to art direct out of my studio if things keep going as they are.

JB: Do you find that your clients tend to be informed about Flash and web technologies, or is there some amount of “client education” that you have to perform?

BM: So far everyone is on the up and up. I’ve actually been schooled this summer by a few clients. It’s impossible to know everything. But again, I’m not working directly with clients the majority of the time. My clients are agencies and studios who do this stuff daily. I converse with Creative and Technical Directors who have been doing interactive as long as I have. I did however do a site with a photographer this summer and both her and her staff did need a lot of mentoring and advice on how things should work. I’d say it’s a mixed bag.

JB: What do you suggest for people wanting to learn or improve their skills in Flash?

BM: Be content with knowing you can’t do it all. Building an interactive experience is similar to building a house. There you have framing, roofing, electrical and plumbing. Flash has just as many avenues of specialties. There’s web service integration, dynamic motion design, traditional animation, sound and video. If you really pay attention to the people who are using Flash you’ll know they aren’t doing it all. I’ve grown with Flash over the years so I’ve been able to digest features as they come with new versions. With all the things I know, there are still lots of things like Flex or 3D that I know nothing about. If you want to get into interactive you have to focus on one thing at the start or you’ll drown. As you attempt to learn, eventually you’ll have to explore another facet to complete something and that’s when you start growing.

JB: What advice would you give to your fellow Flash developers and other freelancers?

BM: Make sure that you know one aspect of Flash inside and out. You have to be an expert at something to stick out of the crowd. Then learn as much outside that aspect as you can, just make sure that everything supports that one thing. If you start learning random things that don’t work together, you can’t build upon what you know or make use of it. For example, animators should learn tweening and then dive into programmatic movement and then say importing dynamic assets. You can then animate those dynamic elements in multiple ways. Learning to load record sets from ColdFusion won’t help you become a better motion designer.

As for freelancing in general, make sure that you never burn a bridge or screw someone over on a deadline, money or on a scope of work. The industry is way to connected now with things like email, instant messenger and sites like LinkedIn. Plus, people carry their experiences from job to job way to often now so more and more people will know about that sour experience. It only takes one bad project to domino on your name. You have to believe that if you do good by people, people will do good by you.