Are you passionate about logo design and want to start your own freelance business? Learn how to decide on a niche, building a strong portfolio, setting competitive rates, marketing yourself effectively, building relationships with clients, and being patient and persistent.
You may have thought that you could just up and start freelancing any day, but there are some top most crucial points before becoming a freelance logo designer, that you must first consider. Freelancing is not as easy and comfortable as it sounds. In fact, it could be quite tough. Even though logo designing might be your passion, you could still find it a lot of hard work. Before taking up freelancing, people usually feel that it could not be any worse than working under others in a regular office job. But if you look closely, it can be worse. Actually, it could be much worse. So before you decide that working as a freelance logo designer is your life’s calling, it would be better if you learned what the top most important & crucial points before becoming a freelance logo designer are.
The Most Important Points Before Becoming a Freelance Logo Designer That You Should Question Yourself on:
Before you take up freelancing full time, these are some of the questions that you should definitely ask yourself. They might give you an idea about whether you are actually suited to this career.
Can You Run A Business?
Most people forget that when you become a freelancer, knowing how to simply design the best logos is not enough. Sure that is important. But you also have to manage the business part of freelancing now. Handling a business isn’t an easy task. People go to college and study for 4 years before they get a degree in Management or Business. So can you do it without that knowledge?
If you believe that you can, then you have to make sure that you also do the following things.
- You just cannot give up learning. You have to keep reading up and gathering knowledge.
- have to learn all the new designing techniques that are developed in order to make yourself seem attractive and knowledgeable to your clients.
- Since the designing of a logo is greatly dependent on technologies, you must also keep track of the latest ones available in the market. Moreover, you must be aware of all the updated version of the old technologies. This way your work will always be accepted by any client.
Can You Be Your Own Boss & Make Your Own Hours?
You are definitely your own boss. You don’t have anyone telling you what to do and when to do. But, as good as that may sound, it has its downsides too. For instance, you don’t have anyone to tell you when to get up in the morning and rush to office. So, discipline is something you will have to have within you. If you are one of those people who only work when you have someone to give you a fixed deadline, wake you up and set you to work, then freelancing is probably not your cup of tea.
Here comes the worst part. Did you think your eight hours a day, 5 days a week job, was hectic? Then get ready to face something even worse. Since freelancing does not have any fixed hour, it also doesn’t remain restricted to the 8 hours every day mark. So, you must be ready to work more than forty hours every week and often, late into the night. Many a times, you will have no time to catch up with friends or go out especially, in the beginning of your freelancing job. Are you ready to deal with all this? If yes, then you definitely have a good shot at making it big, as a freelancer.
You Can Design A Logo, But Can You Handle Paperwork & Other Random Time Consuming Tasks?
You are your own manager now. So you can’t depend on others to handle the paperwork and register the business that you are starting. On top of that, it is your responsibility to look for your clients, handle all your emails and reply to them regularly, pay all the taxes etc. So, make sure you fulfil all the formalities right. You must not forget to consider this point, as it falls within the range of the topmost crucial points before becoming a freelance logo designer.
Can You Handle Stress?
The other very important question that any aspiring freelancing logo designer should ask himself is that can you handle the stress that comes with this job? Stress is something that you will have to deal with on a daily basis, so you would better start looking for ways to manage it.
You are going to have to work late into the night day after day. On top that, your clients pay for your services. So they are going to try and extract the maximum amount of work from you. This means that you would often have to fulfil a high number of demands involving re-doing, changing, altering etc. If you feel that you can’t deal with all this pressure, then it is better to give this career choice another much needed thought.
Can You Handle Criticism?
Are you able to deal with criticism well? You are going to get a lot of it. Many of your customers will have good things to say to you. Dealing with that is the easy part. Burt when someone points out our flaws and lays it all down in front of you, you must be able to take it positively. It must become a part of your growth process and help you to slowly overcome your inabilities and shortcomings.
Now that we have spoken about criticism, let us talk about abuse. No matter how unlikely it seems, you will always have certain customers who will scream at you and say demeaning things. This is because; there are a particular category of people who feel that they own you because they are paying you. Not only do you have to have a monumental amount of patience simply to deal with them, but also the confidence to defend yourself. Having said all this, your customers are the ones who will refer you to others in future and as a result, help you get more work. So you must always be on favourable terms with them.
These are only a few of the situations that you may have to face as a freelancer. However, it is not all bad news. Once you are able to deal with the initial hurdles well, you would start to get some regular amount of work. With time, you may even be able to make a good living purely out of freelancing as a logo designer. But before that happens, make sure you keep these top most crucial points before becoming a freelance logo designer in mind.