My friend who is a graphic designer is resigning from her current job to join a different company. While waiting for her new job to start, she wants to put some of her time to good use as a freelancer. Her skills are quite amazing as she has design packagings for products of XXXX, YYYY and others but she is new to freelancing.

My friend is a designer, I am a hobbyist programmer. We thought that it might be a good idea for us to work together and have decided to get together to start our own freelancing team to earn some extra pocket money. She do the design, I do the programming. However, we have no idea where to start. Any advise?

Her services
- Logo design
- Letterhead design
- Newsletter design
- Desktop Publishing
- Web Designing

My services
- Web Programming

Her design skills
- Flash & Actionscript
- Illustrator
- Photoshop
- Dreamweaver
- Fireworks
- InDesign
- Premiere (yes, I know this is video editting)
- QuarkXPress
- After Effects
- The rest I dunno..

My programming skills
- C#
- ASP.NET
- SQL
- ADO.NET
- Crystal Reports


1. How should we start out as a freelancer? Would it be a good choice to start out bidding for projects at twogateways.com, rentacoder.com, etc?

2. How do people usually charge for a static HTML website?

3. How do people usually charge for a dynamic website?

P/s: Sorry if this is on the wrong section. I am hoping some pros like etsuko and others to come in and help give some advises / comments.

2 cents

1. started out as a freelancer by having ur website up.. and by hving some of the portfolios shown. it will greatly help the clients to evaluate u by the established portfolios. bidding projects will help also.

2. about the pricing.. i prefer etsuko explain. as price might differ for each level of education or expertise.

Yea where to go looking for clients?

the twogateways that u mention. i oso join it but since i'm still a student so i just see the project goes by.. haha

Ok, well that's one option but I would like to hear some other recommendations on how to meet clients or how to look for one.

go to various conference, seminars, events, any place where u think they meet up..like galleriizu, KLPAC, or the adobe conference idn conference what so ( altough i rarely go to that event coz of money ) usually go there and show off ur works and what u can do. give the name cards. and it's good if they can see ur portfolios on the spot like say using laptops or any devices.

but the most best ways is having ur friend or ur previous clients to promote u.

the client will come to find you when u got your good portfolio,

as what momochi and the other lyners mentioned, you need more exposure to get spotted, not only joining seminars or conference will help,

but besides that, free lunch and opportunity doesn't come without any effort, on your side, have to really work out continously building better work everytime, not to say spoil market, but at least to live to people's expectation so it will always end up people finding you than you find people.

it's a round-the-circle process, you'll start out fresh and seek out potential employer, look and ask (always dare to take the initiative) if they're needing your service as a freelancer.

an online portfolio site is a good start, make sure the main concern is to showcase work and best even, to have your resume/cv downloadable easily with a click so they'll know what you can help.

below here's some really plus point, which you'll have to always continously dig forums or portals that has 'developer/designer listing' so most of the freelancer-seeker will always drop by and look for peopel to work on their project...etc

http://forum.doxob.com/viewtopic.php?t=295...856a3f94ee2e2ad
http://www.actionscript.org

really, effort means everything.

You may also go to Colleges, to promote or do some demo or talk. At the same time, giving out your namecard to them. This is one really effective way.

But your demo must be impressive.

This post has been edited by zeist: Aug 30 2006, 09:44 AM

can she design a t-shirt ?

suddenly vinny come and offer a job hehehehe... so pennywise.. i dont think designing a tshirt is a problem to you and your partner since ---
Her services
- Logo design
- Letterhead design
-----

Hi Pennywise,

I'm looking for such freelance service. Email me at databoot@hotmail.com

owh I see I see...
then what about student freelance?

hehe... momochi you're a freelancer in mmu rite?
I'm looking for a web design freelance job here too,
but now transportation and exposion are big problems to me...
still fresh to the university,
I know won't earn a lot of $$ but can get lots of exp...
trying my best to have an aweful portfolio... = /

ps~
not just pure html web design of course... ^^

sorry.. tumpang thread..

i have got a freelance job introduced by my friend too.. and this is my first assignment. would like to ask, what are the procedures that you guys practice? need some guidelines. do i ask for partial agreed-payment before finishing the whole assignment or full-payment only when i present the final product which to me seems a little bit dangerous.

thanks in advance!

for me, usually clients come to me.. you do a lots of projects, present yourslef well, get recomendations/recognitions... so far, no degree, qualification whatsoever needed....

well, i have been doing freelancing (PHP SQL ) for a year now, ussually i do it for a designing company, i script it for them n they pay me end of project

but if u found any clients that wants u to do a project , wud be a good idea if u demand..erm..'ask' for partial payment, that wud secure u just in case they decide to drop off the idea n project half way..i went tru tat
hahha

gud luck ( doing a portfolio of wat u have created b4 will help tremendously )

thanks for the info.. planning to get one up but still considering whether i want to include those i did for my company into the portfolio.. hehe xD

am truly sorry for late reply for this.. but now take a break from freelancing coz concentrating on fyp and thesis research.. but all i can say is to have a platform to do any freelance job without being paid at first.. do free websites for clubs.

to me i do work only if the client pay like 25% or more...coz its secure your job between that company...

Hi, my company is looking for a freelance designer, we are dealing with all sort of signage making, so we need someone to design for us. please email me medianeon@yahoo.com.