#Freelance graphic design studio how to

Your main focus should be on getting really specific about the types of clients you want to be working with. You might start with a side-hustle, work late nights trying to get those projects done, or jump into the freelance world with two feet.

#Freelance graphic design studio how to

(Don’t worry, I’ll cover how to work these out below!) The FreelancerĪs you start to gain real-world experience and build your portfolio you might be ready to branch out on your own. When it comes to pricing you can start out charging hourly then move into per project quotes as you gain more experience. If you went to school for design, you learned a lot but you might have graduated realizing there’s a lot still to learn! Continuing your education with online courses is important, the more you narrow in on your design style, specialty and niche you’ll be able to find online courses specifically for your needs. You might even score an in-house position at a studio or company. The main focus of your efforts should be put into gaining experience, building your portfolio, and networking with fellow designers. Whether you’re a new graduate or a self-taught designer, if you have less than a year of real-world design experience you’d be considered a newb. For the sake of this article let’s break the phases into 3. Where to start pricing your design services?Ī good place to start when figuring out how much to charge as a freelancer is determining the phase of your design career you’re in. When you freelance you have to pay for your own computer, Adobe subscriptions, insurance, CRM tools, website hosting, the list goes on and the expenses add up quickly! When you first start freelancing you can use in-house salaries as a marker but there are many other factors to consider when pricing a design project.

Looking at how much a designer in a similar job title and experience level to you makes can be helpful to see where you stand, but if you’re a freelance designer you need to charge more than what an in-house designer makes. If you comb through the e ntries you can see there’s a very wide range. They created an anonymous survey that has almost 3,000 entries of people sharing their years of experience, company size, race, gender, and salary. I believe the more we talk about money and are transparent about how much we make in our design businesses the more it benefits the design community as a whole.Ī recent article by AIGA titled ‘ It’s Time for Graphic Design to Embrace the Radical Potential of Salary Transparency’ talks about the importance of transparency in the design community when it comes to graphic industry salaries. Personally, I enjoy talking about money but I also understand that not everyone feels that way. I come from a white, middle-class family (aka lots of privilege), and growing up my family always talked openly about money. Pricing can be very tricky because it comes with a lot of existing negative feelings making it difficult to talk openly about. The underlying idea is that graduates should be able to function on a strategic level where they can act as equal discussion partners of clients and thus take responsibility for a design from its strategy and concept development up to its execution.After making a TikTok post about how much I charge for my branding projects blew up, I received a lot of questions about pricing and it got me thinking about how many designers struggle with it, I know I certainly did! The Master course Graphic Design at AKV|St.Joost aims at teaching a design method, independent of medium or trends. I worked for several small cultural initiatives and non-profit organisations. Etienne about repetition.Īmsterdam, Netherlands | Mar 2005 - Aug 2005Īt this company I started my working life as a graphic designer.

I worked here on the visual essay for the Kashf foundation with Evert Ypma, and worked on the exhibition of Ruedi Baur in St. Zürich, Switzerland | Jun 2006 - Sep 2006 Antonius, van Lanschot bankiers and some more. I worked here in teams on the rebranding of : ASR, Music Mayday, IMC, Whole Earth, St. Mountain design is a strategic design agency. The Hague, Netherlands | Oct 2007 - Jul 2009 I worked on the rebranding of St Antonius, GGZ Friesland, Blanxx, Connexxion, and worked on smaller assignments for Honda, Essent, Pickwick, and Kips. Hilversum, The Netherlands | Aug 2009 - Jan 2011īR-ND is a strategic design agency.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands | Jan 2011 - Jan 2012Īs a freelancer for Goulash I worked on the rebranding of : van Diermen masterbakers,Īnd the making of these brands : Dolce della Nonna, de Coppel.īut also worked at the Veldhoven group for the brand NONO, and for a digital agency DLVR.