Blog URL: http://www.elleandcompanydesign.com/blog/aspiring-designers

I particularly sought a blog that provided freelancing tips or even invoice design suggestions (I highly recommend researching this). Presently, I am finding myself in the freelancer’s world since graduating, having done branding for two small businesses and now I have a small commercial client with challenging demands. It is really making me think.

This blog, titled “Top 10 Tips for Aspiring Graphic Designers”, written by Lauren Hooker, provides a solid foundation for anyone starting out in the creative field. There are a lot of insights that speak to experiences I have faced in my short freelancing career. One being # 8: Being leery of working for free. This section described Lauren’s experience as being very frustrating but great for gaining experience. I have also found it helpful that if you are a student and unsure about compensation, ask that your payment be to add your client’s design to your portfolio. # 5: Educating your clients is another tip that speaks. The author writes about the importance to use your skill set to inform the client to help them (easier said than done when starting out), rather than to let them make terrible design choices. I am in that boat right now with a client. One mistake I made that is painful is never show your clients ANY of your working files of their projects in their presence, even to make a few tweaks. They may see a design that you purposely moved on from and want it.

The website design of the page, with the white space, the simple colors and beautiful use of the sans-serif headers adds to the authors credibility of being a designer. Each tip is labeled nicely that adds to the aesthetic and has enough content to help the reader understand its importance, supported with personal examples and clickable resources (one being about working for free by Molly Jacques) or bold information for emphasis, without losing the reader too much. I appreciate that the blog has a date stamp and that Lauren welcomes input from her readers, so others can read the comments for more advice.

Overall, this blog is a nice resource to have and these tips are still in effect today. I also wanted to share additional insight from my experiences to better help others make better professional decisions in their freelancing work.  I hope this helps.

By: Maurissa Keller