With over 200 entries from a very talented group of individuals, it was mighty hard to pick two winners of the GoMedia Arsenal Calling Card Competition! Jeff Finley from GoMedia and Cyan Ta’eed from Eden were the judges, and they unanimously chose these two winners:

Jairo Cabriga

Jairo Cabriga lives in Tayabas City in the Philippines and is currently studying at college.

Ben Orr

Ben is the Director of Creative Media for the Southern California Seahorses Los Angeles office, a freelance designer and an ex-pro baseball player!

Congratulations to Hyro and Ben who have both won a Go Media Vector Arsenal prize pack with every one of their amazing vector packs. That’s almost US$370 worth of royalty free vector art – and well over 1000 complex vector illustrations.

And our runners up were (in no particular order):

Dennis Lee

Jørgen Nystad

William Knechtel

Amy Watson

Justin Essenpreis

Gary Napolitano

Benjamin Schulz

David Alvarez

Dinu

Ahmed Tawfeek

There were many more great calling card designs, so thanks to everyone who entered!

With the start of the New Year upon us, the likelihood of you deciding to head off into Freelancing full-time may be tickling your senses. We understand your passion to make it on your own, and present our Top 10 Freelance Resolutions for this coming year. Already freelancing? Hopefully some of these concepts will help you recommit to your endeavor, and subsequently bring you success in the years to come. Continue Reading

Seldom do you meet a veteran graphic designer that’s done more than create stunning visuals. But Jeff Fisher has managed to maintain a highly successful career while positioning himself as an industry expert—and author.

Hailing from Oregon, this savvy designer has a knack for business development, promotion—and Friday’s off. Read on to find out the secrets to Jeff’s continuing achievements.
Continue Reading

I first heard about Virtual Assistants from the Timothy Ferris bestseller – The Four Hour Work Week. Although I haven’t been lucky enough to actually have one, I often think it would be pretty neat. Today I found out that Elance – the huge job portal – is giving away $5,000 to be spent on hiring a Virtual Assistant in 2008.

The competition is pretty simple to enter and you have just over three weeks to send in an entry. So if you feel like making 2008 the year you became a high flying executive freelancer with their own personal assistant, head over to Elance’s Competition Page and enter.

And if you do win, make sure to write an article about how Virtual Assistants can help freelancers and email it to us!

How much time do you spend worrying about your competition? How often do you do things because you think your competitors are doing them and you need to keep up? Do the words “they stole my client” ever creep into your mind?

As a solo freelancer, bigger competitors in particular can seem rough and scary. Recently however a couple somethings happened to me that changed my viewpoint. I worry a lot less now about what my writer/designer neighbors are doing and pay a little more attention to monetizing the situation. Here’s what I’ve realised about those bigger competitors:

• The hiring process takes time and money
• There may be new-employee benefits and insurance to worry about
• They need physical space and raw equipment resources
• If they hit a slump they’ll have another person to fire (yes, HR personnel worry a great deal about this)

Regardless of how big or small your competition is though, here are five good reasons not to break into a cold sweat think about them.

1. Your Competition Isn’t As Good As You Are

Think about it.

Someone somewhere is the worst graphic designer in the universe.

Somewhere else is the worst writer ever.

Somewhere there’s an accountant who’s probably worse at math than me.

We all the know the old parable where two buddies are out hiking and they come across a bear. One of the guys takes off his backpack and gets ready to run. His buddy says, “It’s no use. You can’t outrun a bear.” The other guy responds, “I don’t have to outrun the bear. I only have to outrun you.”

Fortunately it’s the same for freelancers. We don’t have to be the best in the world. We just can’t suck worse than everyone else. If you simply show your potential customers that you’re not that guy, you’re bound to get work.
Continue Reading

Thanks to everyone who entered the Moo postcard competition. We had many brilliant entries, and it made it very hard for us to pick two winners! In fact it was so hard that we could only narrow it down to four

So we’re pitching in to get postcards for two entries as well.

If you weren’t lucky enough to win, now is the time to get your Moo Postcards, with free shipping (in the US) for a limited time. So that means that you can get 20 individually designed postcards for US$20 – which is darn cheap considering I for one used to pay hundreds of dollars when printing postcards (and that’s with only one design).

So here are the ideas that won, but check out the comments on the original post for more – there were lots of great ones…

Suzanne had a very innovative idea to source new local clients:
What would I do with some free postcards? Why, I’d put my contact details on them along with teaser images of my web design work.
Next up, I’d pay a visit to the nearby libraries and head to the sections containing info on business start-up/management. I’d identify the books that are checked out regularly & pop a postcard inside. Everyone needs a bookmark… hopefully the next wannabe entrepreneur to open a book that I’ve stuffed is looking for a website too.

Image by Ozan Caglargil

Ozan Caglargil had a fantastic idea for an office mural:
Maybe I can create a wall decoration from postcards just like this… (he originally provided a link but I’ve posted it to the right)

Russ shared a fabulous promotion idea:
I’m wanting to send out postcards to various large company marketing managers, to get them interested in my company’s new motto of being their best friend (in an agency sense). It would feature shots of everything a best friend does, from holding back your hair after a long night, helping you move, loaning you a few bucks, and more.
This would be combined with a scant bit of clever copy, and the tag, “come meet your best friend on November 6th”, the date our website relaunches (and hopefully get lots more clients!)

And Luyza had the nicest idea ever – your mum is one lucky lady (and as an aside, it’s nice to have some backup on the Cornetto issue ):
I would write small reasons why I love my mom on each postcard, and send her one every week. We haven’t seen each other for a year and a half and it’s difficult for both of us, and since I’m usually pretty busy, we don’t get to phone often.

So thanks to all that entered, and thanks to Moo for the great prizes!

Editor’s note: This competition has now closed. Thanks to those that entered

Everyone has a business card, but how many of you have a calling card? In ye olden days, before telephones, text messaging, email, or Skype were invented, if you wanted to talk to someone you just went over to their house. If they weren’t there, you’d leave your calling card so they knew that you’d been by and they could go visit you later. Continue Reading

Thanks to all that entered the FreelanceSwitch Global Freelancer Survey!! The survey is now closed, with almost 5000 people taking part.

We’ve already learned some amazing things about our readers, which will help us cater our content to you. The results will be collated and will be sent to all participants on October 5th 2007. We think the results will help all of us get a greater insight into our industries and the freelancing community as a whole.

We’ve just emailed the winner, so if your name happens to be Adrian and you’re from Sydney (we swear it was a coincidence!) check your email right now! Thank you to all that took part, and stay tuned for the results in your inbox!

And now the winners of Von’s keyboard characters!

Last week we asked you to go to the Keyboard Characters website, pick your favourite character and tell us why you love it. Now, two lucky winners will receive a set of Keyboard Characters to spruce up their workspace. So without further ado, the winners are:

Shanna:
I Love Fish Bowl for many reasons: I am a Pisces, my first name rhymes with Piranha (not Vanna), and the skull in the tank keeps me in touch with my punk rock past! Hooray for that!

Clara:
I have a hard time picking between Snilbog and Fish Bowl, but I’m gonna say Snilbog. I like him the best for the same reason that I love Pugs. So slobbery and ugly and lovable, how could you not?

Thanks to everyone who entered, and stay tuned for the next FSw giveaway!

Last week we launched the forums which have been a great success! We also asked you to answer the question “What’s The Most Important Lesson You’ve Learned About Freelancing?”, and we got dozens of great entries. I was meant to cull it down to four winners, but in the end I just had to have five winners. Each winner gets The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss.
The winners were:

Unnikrishna
Whether it is a small job or a big project, before i start working on it i realised i have to get a written creative brief approved (bullet points will do). If the client does not know how to brief me then after the first meeting, i myself write a creative brief and ask the client to agree on it. If you start with out a creative brief approved then you are shooting in the dark!

Penny
Freelancing (or working for yourself) is the only career where you have the ability to say “No.” In every other job, you may be able to say “yes” to many things, at many levels, but you can’t say “No, we should not do that.” There is always someone – a boss, a board of directors, stock holders or investors who can overrule you.

Saying, “No,” to a client, project or request, when you know it is the right decision or when your gut tells you something is not right, is an important skill. Learning to say it in a way that does not harm relationships is one key to freelance success.
Continue Reading

And now, for the winners of the Light Product Review and Giveaway!

We couldn’t go past Drury Bynum as our pick for originality:

With the extra money generated from using Light, I would invest in efforts to learn to better communicate with animals. My office surrounded by trees and birds and every time I go outside they are chattering away. I know their language is complex and specific, like alerting one another when I’m around, “Brown Cap Man! Brown Cap Man.” Heck, they probably even make jokes about me, “Ugly shoes, bad choice, Ugly shoes, I’d go with purple”. Purple, I know, but birds like different colors than we do, that’s one thing I’ve learned.
Continue Reading

Image from iStockPhoto

The FSw Get Yourself Fired competition yielded many fantastic entries. In no particular order, here are the highlights:

Joao suggests:
Keep looking over your shoulder in a paranoid way, like you’re seeing things. When anyone asks if you want a cup of coffee, refuse politely saying coffee doesn’t mix well with amphetamines.

Taka suggests:
Show up to work hours late — when your boss asks why you’re late, reach into your pocket and pull out a forged note from his “mom” asking to please excuse you because you were spending quality time with her, then tell him that your mom is quite the woman and amazingly is still good in bed with 100% sincerity.

Kenny suggests:
As you are sitting at your desk, working diligently, suddenly stand up at attention, while saluting and scream: “Yes sir! Sh*t, ass, b*tch, sh*t, b*tch, damn!” then do 25 push-ups, then sit back down as if nothing happened. When someone approaches you about it, just say: “Oh that? When I was in Vietnam I acquired a case of turrets syndrome,” even though you’re only in your 20s.

Jason suggests:
Especially if you work in an IT company…the WiFiphobe…walk around with a tin foil hat screaming “the WiFi is coming! The WiFi is coming!” Extra points if you have an ET-esque voice and can say “ET connect home via BlueTooth…”
Continue Reading