Attempting to choose if freelance web design is the right choice for you? Mulling over a new independent job in web design? Listed below are five crucial factors for you to weigh up before you go ahead and switch career:
(1) The clearest and most blindingly obvious factor that you need is a clear understanding of design, and an innate ability to register detail. Also, you need artistic skills. Do you have a background in art? We’re you always fascinated by good design and obsessed with art? Are you able to draw or paint and do you have a good eye for certain details on a webpage? If the answer is no you should consider your options very carefully. It will always be possible to teach yourself coding quite quickly, but it won’t be so easy for you to suddenly get yourself some artistic talent and design smarts. Decent design ability will at the very least take some years to develop and sink in. And if you do want to hone this ability and to practice your design awareness then you need to keep extensive notes on design. Take part in web design and graphic design competitions as well as studying the best designs all over the web. Take a notepad, pen and digital camera everywhere you go when you are out and put together a collection of photographs, drawings and designs that have inspired you.
(2) Do some research. Get out there and calculate whether there is much demand for web design in the area where you live. Get to know the local businesses that could be searching for web designers and then research just how many other designers are also advertising web design services. Likewise, do your research on the online job marketplaces to find out about your web design competition on the web and global job marketplace in the web design community. Put aside some time so that you can appreciate just how many people out there are already doing the exact same thing. Are you sure you can compete? Have you seen a niche for your set of skills?
(3) Get your portfolio together. The portfolio is one of the most important promotional weapons in any web designer’s arsenal as it is the very first item you will present to new or potentially new clients. So, when you select some of your web design work for your portfolio, make sure that the work is of the very highest quality and is definitely worth showing to potential clients. With portfolios quality not quantity is a particularly apt maxim.
(4) Start Networking! Whether you like it or not, green web designers are going to have to utilize their networking skills. From advertising in the local rag to using business cards, from making a name on online forums to attending community business get-togethers the freelancer must put themselves out there if they are to be successful in their chosen business.
(5) Putting Aside Savings for a rainy day. Freelance designers need to be practical with their career earnings. Who of us can know what is around the corner and whether there might be a period of no work just around the corner. Make sure you put some money aside for that rainy day, and make sure you take advantage of all the contractor tax breaks, contractor pensions, Umbrella Companies and any other contractor related financial products introduced to assist the self – employed.