My Experiences as a Freelance Web Designer

I answered these questions for Sam Kirk, a fellow Multimedia student, to help her with her personal research project. Her research topic question - What does it mean to create a portfolio and what are the circumstances that necessitate their creation?

I though my answers were good enough to share so here they are.

As a freelance designer, can you please share with me your experiences of acquiring work through online media?

I am a fond user of Twitter as a means of getting work from myself as a freelance web designer. I currently have custom searches set up to notify me with certain tweets which include keywords such as hire, need, web and designer. I then selectively choose to reply to certain tweets that interested me. These tweets are mainly UK based however I have contacted a few potential client that were outside the UK. With all types of job hunting you get turned down but when someone you reply to is actually interested in your work and want you to work on their project it can be very rewarding. One example of this was with my client The Dessert Deli from Clapham Junction
in London. She tweeted she wanted a web designer and within a few hours I had replied to her with a link of my online portfolio, which she liked, then she replied back to me via email. We then started the process of designing her a fully functional e-commerce site build in WordPress. She also invited me down for a day to add finished touches to the site as a bit of face-to-face completion time on the site was needed. This process of using Twitter to directly contact potential client has proven useful for myself and I will hopefully continue to use this method in the future.

With regards to contacting a client indirectly, for example, a member of that company seeing that you've included something of interest or mentioned that company in one of your blog posts, tagging blog posts with keyword can help provoke interest in your work. In doing this your blog posts become search engine optimised and that when a particular company inputs their company name into a search engine your blog posts may become apparent to them. One personal example of this happening was when I was designing a website for Saltwater as par of my second year project. What was interesting with this was while researching possible clients, before actually selecting Saltwater, I had added a little comment about Pulp, an alternative clothing shop in Nottingham. In doing this I received an email one day from a gentleman at their head office asking me whether I would like to help out with some website design. I promptly replied expressing interest in his offer, but unfortunately haven't heard back since. This however highlights the possibility of getting work through potential research you may be doing through your blog.

Finally online competitions are always a good place to find work. I don't necessarily mean big world wide projects in which you use a biding systems to bid on a project, but smaller competitions which don't always have prizes if you end up winning. A few examples for me was logo/poster/t-shirt design competitions. I managed to work for the Welsh Hockey Union after wining one of their logo competitions, which in turn brought me other projects from than, I also designed a logo for a themed night out called 'Paint it Blue' in which my design was printed on their t-shirts. I've also designed an education campaign poster for Nottingham Trent University and finally a hoody design for the Nottingham Trent Christian Union. All these projects were found through online competitions in which some I got paid and other just completed for the experience of doing so.

Please tell me about the methods used to promote you and your work online, any specialist media websites you might have used.

I'm a massive blogging geek that likes to tweet like there's no tomorrow. I've also recently decided to start video blogging as a reflective process and to share more of my personality when blogging and producing work. I currently have my own domain name in which I host my online portfolio and I also link it to my blog currently powered by Posterous. In updating my blog a few times a week with articles of interest, work updates or my video blog, I'm creating and shaping my online presence. I also use the Posterous auto post functionality to post my articles to my alternative Blogspot and WordPress blogs. It's also very helpful in auto-tweeting links to these newly uploaded articles. In using a mixture of media types when blogging I find I can tailor to a wider audience, which ultimately could consist of new clients.

How have you used the internet to attain work in the past?

Before Twitter came about, I used to promote my work just by word of mouth. Conversing with people can sometime bring up potential routes of find work and possible logo or website projects. You then direct them to your online portfolio and tell them that if they like what they see to contact you. In being able to direct a potential client to a collection of your previous work helps them get a better idea of your ability and skill in a certain area. Being selective about the work you show can increase the chances of securing a client or not.

Which method has proved to be the most successful for you?

Directly contacting clients through Twitter.

Posted via email from City&Wool's Posterous

Design Evolution - Theory Into Practice - Notes

All graphic design - all image making, regardless of medium or intent - centres on manipulating form. 'Form' is stuff: shapes, lines, textures, words and pictures.

Project Case Studies -
Lunar Productions Identity by Tactical Magic
'We create a war room and cover the walls with our strategy, audiences, competition, benchmarks, reference material, and most of all - concept, concepts, concepts. Our clients are involved early in the process. They see the war room in process. They see our strategy become concepts - good and bad - and collaborate with us to contribute ideas and narrow the field' - Ben Johnson

Having a war room, first sounds awesome, but secondly is a better way to layout ideas and concepts. Seeing the masses of designs on their walls makes me realise how little I put in to design things. In adopting this design process I hope to develop my creativity and get more variation into my designs and concepts. It's an easy trap to fall into: drawing 2 or 3 quick designs then sticking with the best one. I think I need to change this and extend my process in designing more concepts.

Attached are just a few of the projects that were interesting.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from City&Wool's Posterous

The Kick Awesome Show

via kickawesome.tv

Episode 14 is chock full of goodness! Join us as we talk about a missionary's flying car, a wooden iPod amplification dock, questions about @font-face, a solution to CSS3 background images and our picks from DesignersMusic.

Check out their site http://kickawesome.tv/ for more episodes

Posted via email from interactive media's blog

Moment in Time. A James F Robertson Portfolio Piece

via jfrobertson.com

I like how the drawings are brought together in pieces, the development of the camera shaking and the subtle use of colour. Brilliant.

Details & Credits - Moment in Time

Bringing a comic book to life.

Credits:

Drawings - 'Mike Nelson Story', Battle Picture Weekly Annual 1980: Pat Wright & Barrie Mitchell

Music - Only The Beginning Of The Adventure, Narnia Soundtrack: Harry Gregson-Williams

Speech - Declaration of War on Germany Radio Broadcast - 3 September 1939: Neville Chamberlain

Director, Producer, Editor, Sound Mixer & Everything Else: James F Robertson

Posted via email from City&Wool's Posterous

A New Style For The Kitty&Wool

A new style for the Kitty&Wool blog has been applied. This notebook/scrapbook style has been designed by RayCreations.net. For more free blogspot themes have a look at the link below -

http://www.raycreationsindia.com/free-blogspot-templates.aspx

Assignment 002

Think about what goes on in your head when you buy something new, take a photo of your favourite designed object and answer the following questions:

• Why is it that we want our belongings to do more for us than to function well?

• Why are we willing, as soon as we can afford it, to pay extra for things with appealing forms?

When buying something new, the first thing that comes to mind is how good it looks. But the question is – ‘How do designers make objects look good?’ Let’s take Apple’s iPod as an example. Why is it so successful and why do we like them? Personally, I think the reason we like iPods is because their shiny! The objects we find pleasing are the objects that reflect light well. It doesn’t matter what shape or material it is, as long as it reflects light, we love it! A good example of this theory in action is diamonds. Diamonds are rocks that reflect the light well. If diamonds didn’t reflect light well it wouldn’t be as appealing therefore you wouldn’t buy it. However, there are other reasons that we want our belongings to do more than just function well.

If you’re buying anything from the latest mp3 player to a new pair of shoes, we can look at how it could improve our appearance, our social status or how it could make us more appealing to others. These are all factors that play a part in buying something new. A good example of this would be label or logo recognition. With many young people today, labels play a big part in their social status and the way the make themselves more appealing to others. Occasionally when buying a new object we are ashamed to own something which could be considered ugly or unattractive by the people we respect the most. Objects that have labels or logos on them can be expensive and there could be a cheaper alternative but, with the fact that ‘fitting in’ plays a part in our decision making many people would buy the more expensive object.

We are willing to pay extra for things with appealing forms because of two reasons. The first reason is lasting appeal. We all like to buy new object and know that in a few months, if not years time be able to say that the object still appeals to you. The second reason for paying extra for thing is lasting value. Why should people buy a cheap old iPod that only has 1GB of memory when you could buy newer iPod with 16GB of memory? People should be buying the ‘best of the best’ when it comes to certain objects because then it will last longer and you will be able to get more use out of it.