… well, no promises (you can’t always expect straight talk from a cartoonist). We’re coming up on Freelance Freedom #100 and we have some cool stuff planned to celebrate, none of which you get to hear about until we actually publish Freelance Freedom #100. Except, that is, for the chance for our readership to collectively interview N.C. Winters about any unshakable questions you’ve had regarding the strip, N.C.’s art, process, or even first name. (No, I don’t know what it is.)

Pose your question in the comments below. Depending on volume, we may not be able to answer everyone, but it can’t hurt to pitch yours in.

Photo by piccadillywilson.

Among other things, I’m a ghostwriter. Not the sexy kind that sits down with Sarah Palin or Oprah or that guy who killed his wife and married his daughter (I’m sure there is one!) and writes their story, getting an “as told to” or even “with” credit on the front cover. No, I write articles that appear in publications large and small under someone else’s name.

My reasons for doing this are plentiful, and not worth getting into in depth here – what it boils down to is that the money is good, the work is easy, and it saves me the time I’d normally spend querying editors and thinking of ideas. Since I teach a full-time schedule, that time saving is important.

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There are times when creating a logo can seem overwhelming. But in an industry where efficiency is key, I’ve learned a few tricks that help me to create logos that are effective, meet my clients’ objectives, and are portfolio pieces that I feel proud of.

Today I’m going to walk you through my logo design creation process, and what better way to walk you through it than by using a client case study?

Meet The Modern Woman’s Divorce Guide, a web-based divorce how-to that also empowers women.

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Photo by gaetan lee.

In a previous article, Managing Multiple Freelance Gigs With Mind Maps, I covered how to use a grid/ mind map to track your freelancing projects and tasks. In this post, there’s a bit more detail about actually working on tasks, not just tracking them. ( See bottom of article for a free MindJet MindManager 8/Pro 7 map template of my work grid, as per some requests in the comments of the last article.)

The freelance task management process is best demonstrated by an example. Since my work is mostly freelance writing, that’s what I’m using here, though you can extrapolate for other types of work.  Assume that you have a big writing project and several smaller ones for a given week – possibly with some of the larger projects spanning several weeks. Here’s what you do to manage and work on your tasks.

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Armed with a college degree in physics, Nik Ainley has become a well-recognized and talented designer with an impressive roster of clients. I talked to this UK-based designer about the challenges of freelancing full-time, using a technical application as a niche and how to leverage the press to boost your business.

Tell us how you got into design?

I’m a pretty late starter, only really getting into art and design at the age of about 20 or 21. I was at university at the time studying for a completely unrelated scientific degree when for some reason or another I obtained a copy of Photoshop (version 5.5 I think). I fell in love with it immediately and soon was devoting way too much of my spare time to playing around, learning new stuff and getting into design in a more general way.

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Photo by Lady Orlando.

It was one of the most brilliant article ideas you’ve ever had. You sat down and wrote up a beautiful query letter, tailored it perfectly to the publication you were targeting and sent it off. Now to sit and wait to receive the assignment from the editor.

The reply comes faster than usual but instead of containing a word count and a deadline it’s…the form rejection letter.

It wouldn’t normally be a big deal except the article was about a niche topic and this was the perfect magazine to publish it.

Time to toss the idea and move on, right? Wrong. It’s merely time to re-examine it and consider other ways it could be written.

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Photo by danie;.

Ever have one of those days when you can’t seem to write anything?

This is especially disheartening to the freelancer, since no work done means no billable hours. Here’s a personal account of an approach that I started using about seven years ago that really helped with my writing productivity — though it’s adaptable to other types of cerebral freelance work.

It started in Jan 2002, after an offline contract ended. I took a vacation to pursue personal short fiction writing projects. My intent was to make the best of three months, before going out to look for more offline work. (Which didn’t actually happen, as I landed a non-fiction book contract, and then life happened and diverted all my plans.) The net result of three months of productivity was the outlining of 100 short stories and novelettes outlined and sixty completed — or about twenty per month. Continue Reading

As the gap between analog and digital realms continue to merge, we are constantly on the lookout for ways to increase our efficiency while maintaining the sense and idea of the dreams that we are trying to bring to life. Wacom, a well known contender in this field, with product lines from the Bamboo to the Intous (among others), are hoping to continue the momentum of their past 25 years with the release of the Cintiq 12WX.

A pen tablet with a 12.1″ LCD display that is targeted at not only the professionals who have been able to resist the Cintiq line thus far, but also amateur artists and photographers who are interested in keeping a natural feel in their digital workflow. Can a small screen with a big history provide the tools to bring the analog world even closer to the digital universe? We took a few weeks to take a closer look at this hybrid display, and now present our results. Continue Reading