Design Forums - Graphic Design & Web Design Forums

You know, it's really nice to be personally messaged to join a website/forum. It would be so easy to just slap a link on another board and hope for the best. But personal emails are definitely appreciated.

I'm Neil. I'm 24 and I'm originally from Liverpool. I'm currently studying graphic design at the University of Chester and I'll be graduating (hopefully with a fantastic grade!) next year. I hate webdesign, but I can do it. I love logo design, but don't get enough of it. I love print work, because of the tactility of it.

My only real claim to fame is that I've designed a logo for Jonathan James, who is a well known wedding dress designer. It's nice to see your logo hanging from hundreds of wedding dresses and sewn into the backs of them. Can't say I'll be wearing a wedding dress any time soon, but it's nice to see the logo on them!

Aside from that, I'm still in the process of getting a decent client list behind me. It'd be great to find a client who I can build up a real rapport with to work with on a regular basis. But of course that's what we all hope for, isn't it?

Anyway, hello and bon concevoir!

Hi Neil,

Thanks for joining Design Forums, good to have you here, and I'm pleased the personal e-mail invitation was well received. As we're a pretty new forum we not really ranking in the search engines for any 'keywords' so I'm pleased to say all of our members have found us from direct contact, referrals from other members and word of mouth!

Sounds like a great client to have had, did you get a chance to do some print work for them also? Can imagine it would have great opportunities for some really lavish brochures and expensive print techniques.

Look forward to hearing more from you
Greg

Sadly, it was just the logo that was required and I was a subcontractor at the time. It'd be nice to revisit him though in my own right and see if he needs something more. Although having the confidence to go and essentially steal business from a design agency is not something that comes easily to me!

Ahh OK I see, that's a shame, guess that's one of the big disadvantages to taking on sub-contracted work. I'm sure you'll pick up some clients of your own in no time given your previous experience subcontracting. Do you have a plan for next year once you've graduated? Are you going to go straight out to look for a position with an agency? or will you be freelancing?
Greg

I'd like to look for a posititon within an agency to begin with to get some more experience under my belt, but I'd enjoy working for myself as well. I like being able to interact with the client myself because I believe that that's the only way you can truly get a sense of what the client wants. I don't believe you can get that understanding by having a third party tell you.

I agree with that Neil, that reason was on my list of advantages to go freelance when I did, having an extra person in the process between the design brief and myself as the designer never really sat well with me, I always felt like if I had got the chance to take the brief I would have gained a better understanding of the projects requirements. Pleased to say with my time freelancing the direct contact with clients has been really good and has enabled me to produce work that's been more appropriate to the brief from the outset

Anyway enough of me going on! Good to have you on-board here at Design Forums.
Cheers, Greg

Did you find it easy to transition from being in an agency to finding your own work? How did you maange to continually find work?

For the last few years I've always kept active on business forums so I had that as a starting point to start quoting for various design work. I was quite lucky with my timing as the week prior to finishing in my full-time position I had a few inquiries from previous contacts that gave me my first bits of work to keep me going. Just before finishing at the agency I spent some evenings and weekends putting together a quick portfolio site on Wordpress (quick to update) so I could start contacting potential clients straight away. Other than that it was just really a case of timing, as I knew I probably wouldn't get a better chance to try freelancing than that time, in terms of my situation and financial commitments, so I went for it.

Hope that's useful info in some way?
Greg

Thanks for the info. Always interesting to know how fellow designers started out.

Greetings, Comrade Anagoge!

Pleased to meet you!

Welcome to the forums.

` Skipper

And greetings to you, Comrade Skipper!

Trying to butter me up, eh? Just like Rico and Private.

No need to get formal, newly met comrade. Call me Skipper, with pleasure.

` Skipper