How to Get Stuck Words to Flow Again
Your fingers hover above the keyboard as you stare blankly at your empty document. You have an assignment, a topic, a project that you need to work on.
And you have no idea where to go from where you are.
It isn’t burnout. You aren’t exhausted, or sick of writing and wishing everyone who wants you to write something would just go away for a week
What you are is stuck. You know what you want to do, but you just can’t seem to get anything out to work on. Continue Reading
Dissecting the Logo Design Creation Process
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?
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Gaining an Edge in Tough Economic Times
With economic conditions rather on the grim side, it makes sense to look for ways to distinguish yourself from the competition, to strengthen your appeal to existing and potential clients. This goes beyond just a general increase in marketing activity. It is a matter of enhancing your value to your customers, of showing them how doing business with you can stretch their tight budgets a little farther.
Most freelancers can add value to the services they offer by tapping an area of expertise they may not realize they have. The fact is that as you work with clients and complete projects, you become more and more knowledgeable about the world your client contacts live in: their constraints, their needs, their preferences, their goals, their habits, their procedures, their biases and assumptions about working with people just like you.
Ubiquitous Capture: How to Keep Your Cashflow During a Creative Block
Most freelancers—I’d say at least 80%—work in a creative field. And most freelancers—I’d say at least 100% (even those whose jobs aren’t really “creative”)—eventually run into some kind of creative block, whether it comes from burnout, or just getting bored of doing the same kind of work day after day.
Usually, this doesn’t mean that the designer or writer in question is no longer capable of doing their job: it just means they are having a damn near impossible time coming up with new, exciting ideas to feed their clients with.
If these blocks meant the inability to turn an idea into a product, most freelancers would be out of business once a year (or so, or less). But fortunately, that’s usually not the case, and so big disasters can be prevented with a little foresight and a little discipline.
Reslanting and Reselling for Writers
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.
Why You Should Start a Sparring Circle
Many freelancers I’ve talked to can list a whole lot of positives to going solo. When asked about the downsides, however, I’ve found many people say that they miss the opportunity to talk about work with their co-workers. You know, not just telling your spouse that today’s client was a pain in the butt: real talk about your marketing, business strategies, changes in the market and the opportunity to bounce new ideas off people.
One solution for this missing-link is to start a sparring circle of freelancers. You can do this either online or live, for example, at a coffee shop (this has the added bonus of getting out of the four walls). The idea is to find a small group of likeminded people who have the same needs. That is, to talk about their business with others who’re interested and able to give feedback.
Here’s what we’ve found works for us in our small sparring circle:
1. Do the basics
Start by answering the basic questions in writing: Who are you? What do you want to do? Who are your clients? How will you reach them? What do you charge? Even the more experienced people in the circle should do this as circumstances have often changed since the last time they took the time out to think about these things. The answers to these questions put everything that follows into perspective. Continue Reading
