Just wondering if any freelance graphic designer would share some pointers for me (n00b) as a freelancer. I need information on "how, where, when, what" to get more clients

me too wan to know... until now most of thm email me for fun... haih....

Me three.

some may get their business frm their frenz 1st.or bring ur portfolio go 'shopping'....
some may find their clients frm newspaper ads too

I did get a client from here lowyat.net hehe

There is one dirty way to do it. Get employed in any design or printing company, then get all the client contacts. But you gotta have a strong portfolio and reliable to be a freelancer.

This is not dirty mar, this is called smart.

Last time I used to work at this architecture firm, they have this contacts and logs in Excel. All the companies, directors, managers, names, contacts, logs are all inside there.

You need this to build network.

Oh yea, not really curi copy, because that was part of my job at that time, so I kira untung lare.

Wah -.- I felt like I wanna work at some huge company as penyapu lantai and then ninja in their files/folders for contact . So what you mean by bringing your port folio then go shopping? Go in a store then anyhow show ?

mee too

'shopping' means always prepare ur portfolio wit you..then mayb you'll 'terserempak' wit some companies who wanted to find freelancer while u'r at outside.so the opportunity to get the job is higher..

all above are my opinion only....

dang tahts helluva smart plan

maybe gonna go work part time as receptionist or clerk then steal all contact and runs...

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Added on June 18, 2008, 1:56 pmbut anyone tried forwarding email to companies listed on those directory magazine thing?
it's sorta like yellow pages except it listed all the contacts of company related to a certain kind of jobs (ie, sport and fitness directories)

Someone is watching...

But some positions, dont let you touch the contacts.
May be when designing, make the rationale so hard till the boss or the marketing people cannot understand, and send you up front.

Who sia?



And even though you've got a list of company names, add, number, email but what would you do to them? Is it write an email with your resume attached then send to all of their email?

If you need some simple 3D model to create, just give me a call... I am available anytime but subject to my schedule.. hehe

agreed!!

I wanna ask, after i got the freelance job, when i'm showing my client the samples for them to choose...lets say a webpage or a pakaging design, do i show them the sketches? or straight away in digital formet?

So far I nvr show sketches I'm not sure myself but I nvr show sketches.

no time for sketches, but initial ideas on the spot may land you the job you're seeking haha. sketches is when you got the job already, or if it's being requested by your paymaster.

er....
okays so lets say u already got the people from the company... those contacts and stuff

mostly u direct make a call???
or email your resume????

how??? what u do with those contacts??? mind to share pls?

Core, on normal occasion, no resume is needed for freelance jobs. you may need your portfolio during the first meeting with your potential clients. may i ask, what do you mean by 'direct make a call?'?

I think direct make a call means get the company's info straight away call them ask whether or not they need our service.

Usually the sales people use this term as ' making cold calls ".

Do you Freelance Designers out there would do a POS design (leaflet or poster) for rm250?

leaflet design for RM250? that sounds not too bad haha. you looking or you offering?

sorry for late reply... kinda busy lately...
anyway....


yea. i know freelance mainly need portfolio and not resume...
anyway, what i meant by direct make a call means...

well... lets make example like now i working in AAA art studio... then so happen i saw some of my company clients contacts... like the reply from zeist that i quote in my previous post...
i got the clients company name, directors, managers, names, contacts...
so... okays. now i got those client contacts... but the thing is they dont know us... so how do i get freelance job from them???
this is where the moment im asking... how do you gets freelance from someone u dont know him and u just got his contact. where he dont even know your existance.
example... direct make a call? call the director and tell him who are u and what u work and ask if he need ur service??? personally i felt sounds kinda rude though... especially when he ask how u get his contacts... how u gonna reply? especially those small company without website... how u gonna reply??
if not making a direct call and let them know ur existance and ur service existance... any alternative way??? email them??? mostly they might treat it as junk mail. coz some company mail keep kena spam and they wont really read 1 by 1 mails....

so im just curious how people get jobs from those contact on their hand that they don even know who are them... any experience freelancer here mind to enlight me??? what do u do with those contacts when u got them? hmm...

hope can get some tips here.



hmm... whats that means? @.@
good or bad?

No la we're not actually asking them to buy stuff from us. Usually I would try to email>sms> lastly call if the previous steps don't work.

Core-

I don't have much exp, I'm a fresh graduate and what I do all the time was, SCOUT. Everyday after waking up, shower, toilet then the next thing I would do while eating breakfast is check my mail. Then hold ALT+Click lowyat.net lol. Check for job enlistment area for potential clients. Then scout for local sites design companies and so on and forward my resume to every potential client/boss I saw. And miraculously 1 or 2 would response. That's what I do to get clients + exposure ( I hope) as a noobie I need to work hard to find clients but in the end I'll get my resume beefed up and that's when i`ll sit infront of my computer and play online games while my email getting spammed by clients

stay in contact with everyone. ur namecard is ur BEST portfolio.
hand it out like there's no tomorrow. ( of coz not to ur auntie uncle mother father).
no company's too small, no company's too bad.
as long as ur good at branding and making urself marketable, i don't see it a problem getting jobs.
but of coz, don't go and do those im charging u only rm50 for an a4 ad.
or rm100 websites.
it spoils the market for u.

hmm... thanks for the tips... hehe.. learn something from u
thanks
maybe can giv a try.

All my clients also frm my friends intro

Ask your friend intro some for me la

in that case, i also want la haha. the market is pretty slow at the moment hehe.

Yea, but actually there alot of people looking for graphic designer. They just dont know where to look, because of quality. They dont want to take risk. Neither do anyone of us, right?

I have always wanted to make more contacts with these type of people, but by words of mouth. It simply is not sustainable in the long run.

Perhaps, someone has a better idea?

Well for me I would go and get a job 1st in the designing field, beef up the port-folio and leave as a freelancer once you felt confident.

I'm stucked as a freelance designer as my area doesn't have any job in this field.

gamerfreak, mind telling me which area you're at now? hehe. but what you said is true, beef up on the portfolio and leave when you have enuff confident. and err while you're at it, please build your network as well.

I'm from Seremban and I'm surrounded by terrible designs -.- but they're bought and used by some companies .......

Too bad I'm not well known, experienced enough, know much people in this field within my area and more... so thats why I'm stucked here.

People in my area doesn't care much about dsign. They go to the advertising shop say they wanna have their shop bill board done and after that they ask for the price. That's all..... they ask nothing of design, color, fonts and nth more...

I've seen a hair saloon named " Easy Band" blue board color with red text... can u imagine the color combination used? And what's the point of naming a hair saloon EASY BAND? At first I thought it's a music band related shop and when i go in..... it's a saloon..........

hmm...funny...your place sounds alot like my place...

yeah.......riiiiiggghht.

actually la, KL also got plenty of companies that don't care about designs. maybe they're from Seremban - i donno - but they are.

If you work in KL,also bad news for you...because they are a lot of competitors. Most important is your exposure.

Yeah ... the thing is i need to work in order to get my port-folio filled up... there are lotsa companies hiring fresh graduates... but with the recent fuel hike -.- i dare not say that I'm heading to KL to work.... I'll be worrying whether or not can I survive there...

for those who are doing freelancing, do you ask for some money upfront? For example if a company comes up to you asking for 3 mockup designs for their company brochure do you ask for some money upfront? What if they dont like your designs and reject it? wont that be a waste of money?

Coz it happened to me once - not graphic design but website design - and after designing the site, the client said its not what they wanted and just stop contacting me

I'd meet with the client once and state the rules before starting. And if it's a large scale project, then isn't it advisable to do something contract base?

So far i've been doing mock ups and stuffs without asking money 1st coz what i wanted is something to fill in my port-folio so i won't hesitate so start

Hey.. I'm from seremban too.. And I agree that the people here are not much interested on design. But I am expanding to have a market here slowly.. I've just started to find clients in seremban this month.

How do I find clients?

- Mostly are from words of mouth from friends who refer to their friends/relatives/boss/clients and such.

- Strong self-marketing. I always join gatherings, competitions, meetings where there are lots of people around. Potentials clients are always around here and this is the time to promote yourself. Give out you business cards with a unique so it can attract people and make yourself memorable.

So far I have no problem stumbling upon clients..

Cool. But you have something that I don't exposure and knowing the people in this field. I'm the only one doing this among my friends.

Hey can you give me ur msn. I'm making a list of graphic designers in my list.

wahhh gamerfreak, you never asked me for my MSN or YM hehe. pinkyD punya you mintak haha. i'm a designer myself, and i should be in your list as well haha. hehe kidding bro.

No la since she/he is from Seremban mar .. and it's rare la ... Never I heard the word graphic design in Seremban..

add me if you could fr3ak1986@hotmail.com

Haha...

Not enough portfolio. Then do your own self promotion portfolios. U can get lots of ideas from graphic books to start off with.

Normally I'll ask them to pay 30%-50% for the upfront,then only I'll give them to see the mock ups.Last time i kena tipu by someone, design logo for them but no news already. How stupid I am...haha
Do you mean the company wasting money to pay the upfront after reject your works?

haha yeah i feel you bro hehe. i reckon we all learnt the hard way. to trust some people but then got stabbed from the back. i learnt the hard way, back in year 2001, i had a 3D job, and interior walk thru animation. done almost 70% and when it's time for me to ask for the 50%, the paymaster delayed and all kinda excuses. in the end, i fecking scrapped the job because they said they will pay only when it's 100%. and guess what? they didn't pay me a single cent, and they didn't get the job because the deadline was over haha. so in the end, i lost and he lost too. well bummer, that project would've bagged me around RM18k then hehe. oh yah, a few months later their office closed down because i think i cursed them too much that the curse came thru haha.