The first challenge anyone who wants to freelance or work for themselves will run into is the difficulty of juggling marketing themselves with focusing on what they do. Many sell one job, set to work on it, and then don’t seek another job until they’re done. This results in periods of feast or famine and excessive stress between jobs.
While you could split your time between marketing and working, a better solution is to collaborate with others who can refer work to you. Once you get sufficient clients and build a substantial portfolio you will stay busy all the time. The other advantage of having someone else recommend you is that they can offer their honest opinion and reasons for recommending you.
The best recommendations come from someone you have done work for because they can comment on your communication skills, timeliness, ability to translate their idea into a deliverable, conflict resolution and about their overall experience working with you. These are important factors when hiring someone and they are not easily conveyed by your portfolio. Many are highly talented but difficult to communicate or work with.
The very best Web sites require a collaboration of individual specialists. Each brings different skills to a project. Derek Semmler and I have launched several new blogs. We work well together because he has the technical skills installing and upgrading WordPress and working with data feeds I lack. I have the marketing experience and usability background he hasn’t developed yet. We constantly learn from each other.
We have an opportunity to offer someone more talented than we are in creating logos and adding more compelling, advanced graphics to WordPress blogs. The greatest benefit they will receive is our ability to recommend them for future work. I am always on Twitter, FriendFeed, cliKball, send my Tweets to Del.icio.us and when my new PC arrives hope to be active again at StumbleUpon.
I am often in a position to recommend the very best specialists directly to clients and to answer online requests with specific recommendations and timely responses complete with links to portfolios. Business owners often do not understand the importance of logos and design and are reluctant to pay for quality work. That is where I come in. I know what is important and who is the very best. I also know who to recommend if they don’t need the very best or spending that amount is not economically feasible for them.
The more I know about a consultant’s prices, way of working, and talents the better I can match them with a particular client. It is rare for someone I have personally recommended not to be hired at their desired rate because I only recommend the best fit and ensure potential clients clearly understand the benefits of a particular offering and why it is worth the cost.
Besides the personal recommendations and mentions and replies on Social Networking sites, anyone collaborating with us will have a link placed in the footer of each site they have worked on with appropriate anchor text. Each footer could eventually have a separate link for Hosting, WordPress, Logo, Graphic Design and Graphics used within Posts. These links provide incoming links to your site from every page of ours. The faster our traffic grows the more that will benefit you. Here is the most recent Compete site profile showing our unique visitors:
I know this graphic is not easy to read. The latest period shown highlighted is for April 2009 and shows 13,478 unique visitors.
All of our blogs use the Thesis Theme on the WordPress platform. Except for this one our blogs are brand new and have no incomes. Derek still works for an employer and I give away almost all of my time promoting others so there is no budget for hiring graphics work done. I believe that ongoing promotion and recommendations I can offer are far more valuable than the equivalent money would be and hope one or more talented graphic artists will be interested.
I also have extensive experience in usability, ecommerce, and Web design which I will gladly share with anyone – and especially with any graphic designers interested in collaborating with us. Imagine having an Internet Strategist handy to consult with on an ongoing basis. Would site review skills come in handy? Have you ever had a question while designing a site and weren’t sure where to find the answer? Now you do.
As you may notice this blog needs a Logo suitable to be used as an Avatar / Gravatar and Favicon. It should probably resemble at least in general concept (the upward trend line) the Avatar I am currently using. This blog has the most traffic and is in the best position to recommend your work. That is only real need here; however, I am open to any other ideas a designer may have and have some of my own you’re welcome to consider. One idea is a map theme – possibly a variation of the parchment look posted by Curious Cat Creations.
Our new blog PSPLiving (PSPLiving) is about living healthy for less and will include anything related to that subject including:
- Specifically what to avoid (food and personal products such as shampoos, soaps, etc.)
- How to acquire organic produce locally for less than you spend now
- Product recommendations and how to determine what products are truly healthy and which are just standard toxic-laced products jumping on the bandwagon to make money off the unsuspecting
- Cooking tips that save you time and money
Another brand new blog is GrokHorses (GrokHorses) Grok means to understand profoundly and intuitively. This blog will cover anything related to horses and share three decades of knowledge. I highly suspect it will expand to have writers passionate about their sub-niche of the horse world.
We also have a Gift related blog at ExecGiftsBlog (ExecGifts) that we use to communicate with buyers and affiliates of Executive Gift Shoppe. There are so many gift blogs and stores that I include this blog here in case a designer would like to establish a clientele in this niche. We are actively recruiting affiliates and there is likely to be related design work as they build new niche gift stores.
All three of these blogs have Thesis installed and are a beautiful white palette just waiting for a designer to really shine. Although I have some ideas the designer will have freedom of expression as long as their design does not detract from the substance of each blog. The same designer is welcome to do an entire design including logo or one designer can provide a logo and another other design elements. One designer could work on more than one or different designers could be chosen.
They will be fully optimized for SEO and community building and already have associated Twitter accounts. People do tend to hire consultants who operate in the niche they know best so if you’d love to become “the” designer for any of the many sub-niches these two sites will incorporate here is your change to show off.
If you’ve seen my work here and elsewhere you know that I research and bring together enormous amounts of information. This means sites I create become huge attractors for everything in the niches in which they operate. They end up being highly trafficed sites with many incoming links and very high visibility – all good things for the designers who collaborate with us. I hope they’ll read this and we’ll hear from them. If you or anyone you know might be interested please do pass our proposal along. Thank you.
Are you looking for a great logo or graphic designer too? Here are some whose work has caught our eye:
- David Airey – (DavidAirey) – considered one of the best for those with the budget
- The Design Cubicle – Brian Hoff – (behoff) – his site provides an impressive amount of research on this subject
- Difference By Design – Synergy Logo – click on logos, promotions or illustrations to page through their portfolio
- Just Creative Design – Jacob Cass – (justcreative) – understated designs for serious businesses
- Logo Perfecto – Philip Brunner (LogoPerfecto) – click on the link that says random to see 37 designs
- LogoPond – Identity Inspiration – a showcase collection of logos from different designers
- LogosforWebsites – Bargain priced logo and graphic design
- Nick Pearson – recommended by app103 – creator of the really cute DonationCoder mascot at wtfCody.
- Nineteen Eight-One – Joshua Geiger – (_1981_) – logo portfolio, testimonials, get a quote
- RussoGraffix – April Russo – (app103) – April creates graphics, has programming skills and creates applications
LOGO and GRAPHIC DESIGN:
- Logo Design Love – extensive reference information and resources for logo designers – see their popular posts including 85 of the best logo design resources
- 15 Logo Design Tutorials with Illustrator (Integrity Lance)
- Constructing the Perfect Logo (devlounge)
- How to Design a Logo (JustCreativeDesign)
- 16 Unveiled Logo Design Processes (The Design Cubicle)
- When is a “bad” logo design actually “good” (Logo Design Love)
- 40+ Amazing 3D Typographic Designs (childimar.com)
- What’s Your Logo (Jayme Passiotive)
- 16 Useful Blogs for Web Design and Inspiration (Jon Bishop)
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Gail Gardner
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The most difficult for logo graphic freelancer is to find the customers at the beginning, once they got testimonial or good report they have good name in the market.I try to make some effort for almost 3 months to get my customer trusting me.
Certainly not only logos made be requested to be done on a free lance basis – graphic design is a waste domain which may offer pages layout designing, leaflets and prospect, etc., so that you would be able to accomplish quite a range of tasks at home
I do not know the technical aspects of designing but I know that you have guided in this article with great skill.
It is very good to get logos or some other work from very experienced freelancer instead of keeping busy yourself on this work.You can focus on many other important works.
For freelancing business one should be too expert in his domain to capture the market. But there is a great disadvantage of freelancing, usually buyer impose their limits and providers can not get the desire rate that is in accordnace with their ability
By reading this post with concentration and devotion , I have got a result that you are really very good at marketing you have started the article from Freelancing and very beautifully introduce your novice blogs and finally introduced very good art designers ( logo designer). When I started the article, it was not in my mind that I will get my destination here ( how to create logo) as I have started this work to day and near future I am also launching my own blog.
Finally I want to say you know how to do the marketing. Really it is art.
useful article, thanks
i want my logo to be designed for my NGO whose name is alliance for rural & urban development.please help me get designed.mail me at my mailing address nazish.laeiq@gmail.com
I highly agree with this article. In the growing industry of web designing and Logo Graphics Designing it is really hard to compete with a lot of competitors. Being a freelancer will not give you an assured income weekly, monthly and yearly.
There are a lot of great Logo and Graphics designers out there. The only way to get a step ahead of them is by good marketing and good advertising. There are those talented Logo Graphics Designers who are not really earning that much because they have a poor marketing skills. Or maybe they are also at the wrong place and at the wrong time. What do I mean by that? Some freelancers doesn’t have that much projects because the buyers that are looking for freelancers already found some providers because of their good marketing.
It is really true that it is a big challenge for freelancers to be competing even though they are highly skilled n their profession.
Welcome Ryan,
Most who are very talented at DOING are rarely equally talented at marketing. That is why I believe they need to create a portfolio and find marketers who like their work to recommend them.
I am working on a post about Logo Design that explains why one designer’s work can be worth $1000, $1500, or $2,000 or more while others are only getting $50, $100, or $500. There is a difference and I rarely see it explained.
.-= Internet Strategist @GrowMap´s last blog ..Select Keywords First to Make Your Content Easy to Find =-.
Welcome Lucky. Does your Webinar service work regardless of Operating System? If it does you may want to emphasize that and market it to those using Unix based systems like Ubuntu.
InternetStrategist’s last blog post..How to Get Your Free Business Listing in Yelp
Hi,
Very nice post.I enjoy the reading very much.
Thanks for the sharing .
Lucky’s last blog post..Video Web Cam Chat – A New Era Of Communication For Businesses
Thanks for including me in the mix! Now I know who my competition is! 🙂
Peter’s last blog post..Logo Created: Mitchener Foundation
Hello Peter,
I didn’t realize LogosForWebsites was another of your sites. I don’t believe there is much competition among logo designers. Many of those mentioned have a $500 minimum so their clientele aren’t likely to be yours.
You don’t appear to be too concerned about competition since you’re running AdSense ads for $50 logos on your site. But then you’re beating them on price too. 🙂 Besides, there is more work than any one person could ever do – plenty to go around.
I see you’re also a fan of Thesis. Perhaps I can interest you in collaborating?
InternetStrategist’s last blog post..How to Create a Successful Blog Based Business Part 1
Yeah, I’m pretty low priced, and I’ve got more work than I can handle at times. I’m going to be raising my prices soon though. I’ll email you about a possible collaboration. 🙂
Peter’s last blog post..Logo Created: Mitchener Foundation
Hi Peter,
I really like that blue design on your site. Something similar in green would be awesome for the PSPLiving.com site. I have no doubt that you’re really busy and can raise your prices without slowing down your incoming work.
InternetStrategist’s last blog post..How to Create a Successful Blog Based Business Part 1
I don’t think my daughter would be interested. She has changed her hobby to artistic photography. She also suffers from the same problems with forced creativity that I do (maybe its genetic).
I have contacted Nick and given him a link to this post, so maybe he will contact you?
April Russo’s last blog post..Free Header Graphic: Peachy
Thanks April. I suspect even those who do it for a living are sometimes challenged to produce on demand. Even if Nick isn’t interested perhaps he moves in circles where someone else will.
InternetStrategist’s last blog post..Intelligent Bloggers to Consider Reading
Just to let you and your readers know, I am not a professional graphic designer and I don’t do work in that field for hire. I find it very difficult to force creativity on demand. Mostly it’s just an occasional hobby when I am inspired or creating things for myself, when needed for a project.
However, I do release freebies from time to time on my personal blog: http://cranialsoup.blogspot.com/search/label/free%20art%20downloads
And not all the art on RussoGraffix is my own. A lot of it was created by my daughter, when she was a teenager.
If you want a great logo/character mascot that will come to life and has the potential for starting its own fan club, Nick Pearson is your guy (if he is available and willing), which is why I recommended him to you. Each of his marvelous works has a unique personality of their own.
April Russo’s last blog post..Free Website Buttons: Black Chrome
Hi April,
I probably know you because you don’t move only in the programming or graphics worlds – you have a wider vision. I don’t suppose your daughter is interested in starting a graphics business?
I did add Nick to this post after you recommended him; however, I’m not sure what the best link is for anyone to contact him. That really is a cute mascot he created. I shared it at Twitter, FriendFeed and cliKball so others could see his work.
Not everyone can afford a professional graphic designer and they still need a Logo, Avatar and Favicon. There is plenty of room for someone with a passion for graphic design to get started with inexpensive projects and develop their craft.
I know who the brilliant logo designers are. They are already extremely busy and would not benefit from what I do. I know there are others who struggle to stay busy, have the time and talent, and could really use continual traffic, referrals and recommendations.
I look at this the same way I do Local Search Listings. If someone pays me once to get their site listed they spent money once and get benefits from those listings indefinitely.
If someone designs a logo for one of my blogs or any other design element they’re only trading their time once in exchange for ongoing benefits. I feel certain there IS someone (or more than one someone) out there who would be interested. If enough share this post they’ll find me or I’ll find them.
InternetStrategist’s last blog post..How to Create a Successful Blog Based Business Part 1
I fully agree with you. Logos play an important role. Thanks for it..
Mohibkh’s last blog post..How do I use an iPOD?
Hello Mohibkh,
I am remiss in not having a shareable logo here which is what prompted me once again to seek out a logo designer. Every time I review a site I recommend they have a logo that can be shared at FriendFeed, StumbleUpon and elsewhere that is similar enough to their Avatar used on Social Networking sites that it is obvious it is related.
InternetStrategist’s last blog post..How to Get Your Free Business Listing in Yelp
Logos are important, mine is very simple (its also my Gravatar on blogs) and conveys our USP (unique selling point) without using words!
Hi Matt,
You are absolutely correct – logos ARE extremely important. A distinctive logo attracts your fan base to you wherever they see you online. Having a USP is even MORE important.
Many Web sites are losing visitors because they are unable to determine what the site offers them because there is no USP! They land on a page, look around, don’t “get it” and click away – taking your opportunity with them.
Some call a USP a slogan, tagline, or ? – I never can remember what the Brits call it. These are usually the same as your USP – but not always.
Internet Strategist’s last blog post..How to Create a Successful Blog Based Business Part 1