Thinking of striking out on your own as a freelance graphic designer? This is a hugely exciting prospect, allowing you to set your own schedule and choose which kinds of creative projects you work on.
But just like starting any new business, it’s not always easy to know what to do first. We’ve put together a useful guide that can help walk you through the different steps involved.
It takes time, hard work and patience to get a new business off the ground.
For graphic designers, it all starts with honing your design skills and putting them to work on real-life projects. You’ll need to get all the admin and paperwork sorted, and come up with a business plan. The next step is to market your services and start finding your first clients.
Let’s take a look at each of these key steps in a little more detail.
Graphic designers need strong creative and visual skills, including attention to detail, colour and spatial awareness. But to work as a professional and secure the clients you want, it’s important to develop your technical skills too.
An online graphic design and desktop publishing course is the perfect way to learn or improve these fundamental skills. You’ll deepen your knowledge of colour theory, design software, printing, digital illustration, typography, typesetting, web design and much more. This will give you a solid foundation with which to start your business.
Choose the right course, and you’ll be able to learn about all the different areas of design. This is ideal preparation for starting your new business.
With a graphic design qualification under your belt, you’ll be more confident in looking for work. You might want to start out working at an agency in order to gain experience, or take on voluntary work while you practise your skills on real-life clients.
As a fledgling graphic design business, you’re likely to be facing tough competition from bigger, more established companies. To help you stand out, you’ll need to have some unique selling points.
During your training and work experience, you’ll discover your strengths as a designer. There may be areas that interest you more, or types of work that are a natural fit for your talents. These strengths can become specialisms, where you carve out a niche as an expert in a particular type of design work.
Examples of niches you can focus on include:
You could even become known for your work with particular kinds of businesses. For example, working with charities or social enterprises.
Now it’s time to get some of the formalities out of the way. Starting a new business usually involves paperwork, planning and dealing with finances.
A good place to start is with a business plan. This will set out how your business will be run, including its structure, goals and how it will be financed. It can also include details of competitors, your target clients, market trends and strategies for growth.
Think about how you’ll price your work and your processes for taking on new clients. Do you want to build a team, or work alone? Will you need business premises, or will you be working from home? These are all key decisions you’ll need to make, or at least start thinking about.
The next step is to register your business with the relevant agency, and complete any necessary paperwork. It’s also a smart idea to read up on your tax, legal and insurance obligations. You might want to speak to either a lawyer or an accountant, or both.
At this point, you’ll need to start thinking about promoting your skills and talents to potential clients. In order to do that effectively, you’ll need a portfolio.
It’s not enough to tell clients all about your fantastic graphic design skills. You need to be able to show them. No client would hire a designer unless they can see examples of their past work, so they know exactly what they’ll be getting.
So, you need to choose some of your favourite previous projects to showcase. Aim for work that highlights your talents in your chosen niche. If you’re not aiming to specialise just yet, select projects which demonstrate a broad range of your talents.
An online portfolio is a good starting point, either using an online portfolio tool or by creating your own website. But if you want to do print work, it can also be useful to have a print design portfolio ready to show clients in face-to-face meetings.
With all the groundwork laid for your new business, it’s time to start finding some clients. You’ll need a great website which showcases your work and reflects the ethos of your business. It’s also a good idea to set up social media profiles, including on professional networks such as LinkedIn or more design-focused online communities.
Finding your first clients can sometimes be difficult. You can try using freelancer platforms such as Upwork, 99Designs, Flexjobs or People Per Hour. Attending design community events and entering design contests could also put you on the radar of potential clients.
The important thing is to land those first few jobs. After that, your work should speak for itself. You can start extending your network of contacts and more work will follow through word of mouth.
Marketing and promoting yourself can be one of the toughest parts of starting a new business, but stick at it.
And once the work starts coming in, you may even want to think about expanding. You might want to take on another designer or rent office space, which will all help with improving your credibility in the eyes of prospective clients. Knowing when to scale up is the difficult part, which makes planning for the future all the more important.
Gladys Mae serves as the General Manager and Head of Student Services at the International Career Institute. Gladys holds a degree in Mass Communication - Broadcast Media from the University of San Jose-Recoletos. She joined ICI in 2010 and has over the past 12 years been instrumental in providing leadership and guidance to staff and students alike. Prior to joining ICI Gladys led a multifaceted career with key roles in the banking and business process outsourcing industries.
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