Freelance designers have a number of different methods for finding work. In many cases, simply getting your profile and your work exposed to more people can lead to an increase in work. There are a number of sites that provide excellent opportunities for designers to show-off their work and send visitors back to their own portfolio site.

Some of the sites on this list require more of an ongoing effort in order to truly produce results. I don’t suggest trying to use all of these sites. For the best results, choose a few that you think will work best for you, and become an active user.

1. Behance Network

Behance Network is a huge, “free platform for the world’s leading creative professionals.” You can set up a profile, share some of your work, network with other designers and professionals, and even look for work.

2. Flickr

While flickr is primarily a place for users to store their personal photos, it’s also used by a growing number of designers to display and share their work. Users can set up their own accounts and profiles, and they can also join groups, such as the PSDTUTS group.

3. Virb

A good percentage of Virb users are in the music industry, but it is a home to all things creative, and many designers are setting up profiles. The pages can be completely customized to show off your creativity if you’re ambitious. Continue Reading

Photo by Guylaine2007.

I was updating my LinkedIn profile the other day and couldn’t help but notice that under the “Independent Professional” heading was the time stamp: 2 years.

Has it really been that long? It sure doesn’t feel like it, but it gave me pause to sit back and think about my career so far and what lessons I’ve learned that can be passed on to others.

Like most people fresh out of college, I focused all my energy on finding the 9-5 staff job. Problem was, returning home from a unpaid newspaper internship in another city, I barely had enough money to put postage on resumes, let alone gas to drive to job interviews.

It was a few days after my return that I woke up to my phone ringing. It was my editor from the out-of-town paper. Something related to their coverage area was happening near me and… could I cover it? Continue Reading

Photo by notsogoodphotography.

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

Image by m-louis.

One of the biggest challenges involved in freelance work is reaching and maintaining a steady workload. For many freelancers finding new clients can be a time-consuming process, which leaves less time for income-producing work. What if this effort could be reduced or eliminated? You could more completely dedicate your focus to earning money and doing a great job.

Increasing the amount of referral business you receive can be one of the most effective ways to reduce the amount of time that is spent on no-income producing activities. Actively working to increase referrals from clients, friends, and family is often not a priority, as many freelancers feel that is not in their control. Instead, they just wait — and hope — that someone sends them a referral. Continue Reading

Image by ^Riza^.

I spent last week freelancing for a client of mine, but for a change, I didn’t work remotely. Nor did I work from the client’s office. Instead, I invited my client to spent the week working from my apartment near the beach in Sydney, Australia.

Despite the fact that my apartment is far from equipped as a home office, the week was a roaring success and concluded with a message from the client the following weekend saying how enjoyable the week was, and that it was “probably the most fun and best quality work” he’d been exposed to.

Like any professional relationship, relationships between freelancers and clients are built on trust. Even more trust exists between a freelancer and their friends. How much time do you spend working on those small, unpaid ‘favors’ for your friends? Probably more than you should. But they’re your friends, and you want to get it right. Imagine a friend who also paid you well — you treat every project like it’s your own and obsess over the smallest of details to make sure it’s perfect, then get paid what you deserve. It’s a best-case scenario for everyone. Continue Reading

On my way home from a conference recently, I sat next to a blonde woman in her mid-40’s wearing matching Prada shoes and bag. From the looks of her, a successful businesswoman.

I couldn’t help peeking over her shoulder and saw that she was composing email messages in Outlook. I assumed she had just attended a meeting and was diligently doing her follow up. The problem was that every single message she wrote was the same — and really boring, in my opinion.

“Dear Blank, it was a pleasure to meet you at the meeting this weekend and I hope we can meet again soon.”

That was it. No reference to who she is or what they talked about or what ideas she has had since they met or what they could do together in the future.

Anyone who knows me (or has heard my networking presentations) knows that I am a follow up freak. But I’d say it’s better not to follow up than to write the type of generic follow up messages this woman was about to send out.
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A good business card design is an essential tool in any freelancer’s arsenal. When you’re at a function networking, meeting new clients, or your work comes up in a conversation, your card is the anchor to make sure the discussion doesn’t come to nothing.

It’s important to think about what your business card says about you, as well as what to put on your business card, and whether it passes the business card trash test. But of course as any designer knows, the most important thing is to make sure your business card looks smokin’ hot!

So courtesy of our inspiration gallery FaveUp, which has just passed 1000 items of inspiration, here are 18 smokin’ hot business card designs:


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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.
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Everywhere you go, people tell you the secret to packing your client list is networking. Schmooze like there’s no tomorrow, befriend everyone, hand out your cards, trade e-mails, IMs, IDs and CVs. Go to conferences, buy everyone within a 100-foot radius a beer (or non-alcoholic organic vegan hemp-nut smoothie).

For sure, the fastest way to grow your business is cultivating relationships. Problem is…there’s only one of you and infinite opportunities for you to spend time, energy and money connecting with a whole lot of people, only a few of whom will ever really throw any significant business your way. Which leaves us which a question. How do you choose who to be-friend?

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In case you’ve never seen it before, Linkedin is the web 2.0 equivalent of networking. Where other social networks like Facebook are focused around your personal life, Linkedin is all about your professional life. It’s a great concept and one that has attracted more than 16 million users.

Back in January Guy Kawasaki took a poll of 10,000 people and 70% reported finding Linkedin “Useful”. For freelancers and for job seekers, the service is a great way to find work.

As with any type of networking it’s all about having a wide circle of contacts, people recommending you and then making sure your network knows your available. Let’s take a look at some things you can do to help you find work through Linkedin.

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A few weeks back, I posted a roundtable article on my blog that shared some marketing advice from 15 top-bloggers. In it, I asked each person:

If you had 2-hours a day to devote to no-cost, off-blog (even off-line) marketing for your blog, what would you do?

The article was extremely well received, vaulting to the front page on Digg, del.icio.us and Sphinn at the same time, generating a ton of feedback, over 750 diggs and crashing my servers big-time (that’s a story for a different article).

I felt great not only about the attention the article was getting, but the fact that something I helped create might help so many others get closer to their goals. The feedback, both through e-mail and in the comments was overwhelmingly positive. And, then it happened…

I got blasted, royally slammed by another blogger. I believe the term he used to describe the collective advice of me and these bloggers was “starfu*king.” And, his community piled on from there, picking away at the bastardization of networking and blogging as a tool for marketing, rather than unadultered community-building and the downfall of society through the transformation of conversation into dollar-driven corporate-speak.

All pretty funny, considering the content being attacked came largely from a guy who wears pajamas most of the day, teaches yoga, does more anonymous favors than you could shake a stick at and uses the word “dude” as a comma. So, I took it in stride and, in the comments, replied:
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You can’t imagine how surprised I was to discover an incredible freelance marketing lesson while picking pumpkins with my daughter at a family farm in Pennsylvania last weekend. And, the story behind it is the key to building a giant client-base for your business in no time at all, without spending any money, placing any ads, hard-selling any people or working any connections.

So, for those without kids, here’s the deal…pumpkin picking season is big news for families in the Northeastern U.S. For four weekends in October, hordes of families with young kids swarm down upon farms for a day of pumpkin-picking, pony-rides, hay-rides, apple-cinnamon donuts, hot-cider and more.

Last weekend, we’re walking into the patch to search for the perfect pumpkin when I realize this experience is just made to be captured on film (yeah, I said film, and I still call my mp3s albums). But the only camera I have on me is the one on my friend’s cell-phone. So, I start shooting lame, washed out shots, when, over my shoulder, I hear, “hey, why don’t you go over with your daughter and I’ll take a picture and just e-mail it to you.”
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