What does it take to be a PS professional (freelancer)?

[alixman96]

I have a feeling that I am no where close to get paid for what I do and I am sure many of you guys agree, But what does it really take for your work to get paid for ? how much more experience do I need before I can seek for freelance jobs?

also this might sound like silly question but do all the logos/business cards have to be fully hand drawn or can you take bits and pieces from Google image and work on them?

I am looking forward to your response

thanks

 

[alixman96]

I wanted to post it in here first but I thought... any ways sorry for the trouble

 

[IamSam]

Hi Alix,

Let me try to answer your question.

To be a successful Ps freelancer requires desire, patience, skill, and most of all determination. Don't defeat yourself by thinking you may need more experience, your work will reflect this and if you require more experience, then you will improve as you compete for more jobs. It's said, "you can never get anywhere if you don't try".

Don't be discouraged. Clients will always have different tastes and styles that they prefer. Remain true to your own style but take the opportunity to learn from each job you bid on and stay on top of all the current trends.

Build a strong portfolio! Always have examples of your work ready to be shown.

I don't suggest going "all in", start small and work your way up. Freelancing is a highly competitive and saturated market. Put your work in front of as many people as you can who could be potential customers.

You may have to do a fair amount of free work in the beginning but that's how you get your foot in the door. One free business card design can turn into many paying opportunities. Make a few free blog headers or logos and you may be surprised at how many requests you will receive. Also, (the time may come sooner than you think) don't take on more than you can handle. NEVER miss a deadline!

Do your own work. Use the internet to draw inspiration, but stay away from copyrighted materials. Don't, literally, take bits and pieces from anyone else's work. Use ideas and concepts, but make them your own. You may learn quickly that it is very frustrating when others copy your own original works.

A good starting point is the freelancing section of this forum. Give it a try to see where you might stand.

Hope this helps and good luck!

 

[hawkeye]

I agree with what IamSam said, except about working for free. When you work for free, you'll be amazed at how many requests you'll get for more free work. Starting out you'll need to charge less, but you deserve to be paid for your time, knowledge and work. I've been doing this for many years and never once has a freebie turned into paid work.

Your best bet is to charge nothing up front and only require a payment if and when the client is satisfied. I still work this way sometimes with new clients. Be ready to spend a lot of time just going back and forth with various attempts to please the customer. But you'll be getting experience and a feel for what people like and dislike.

Always watermark your work until you get payment. If they don't pay you and use your work watermarked, then the watermark will serve as advertising for you. And finally no, don't take things off the internet.

 

[alixman96]

thank you guys for the response now if I were to charge how much should I charge for some thing like a business card or a blog header?
also can I use free brushes, patterns, and fonts from websites like brusheezy or they also count as copy righted material?

 

[ChrisHPZ]

It also takes confidence in yourself. If you think your skills are lacking for whatever reason, put yourself through some exercises. One thing I've done is go back to some of my earliest works and consider how I can build on them. As far as using things like brushes or what have you from other sources and copyright, so long as a disclaimer has been made by the author or you have written permission to use such tools for commercial work you're fine. Now some of us are "die-hard use my own materials and brushes or whatever" in our own work type of people. If you fit this bill, then follow suit by creating your own brushes or whatever you need for whatever you're doing. Your skill set will grow and you'll be more resourceful with what Photoshop gives you. From a legal standpoint and Photoshop, it is advised that you purchase a commercial license as there are differences between the personal and professional license agreements imposed by Adobe.

 

[IamSam]

Alix,

I see where hawkeye is coming from concerning freebies. I like his advice about not charging up front and only requiring payment if the client is happy with the results. To clarify, I only do freebies for friends and this has led to many paying jobs from others who see the work and track me down.

I agree with ChrisHPZ, learn to make your own brushes and patterns. I visited Brusheezy and looked through several of their Free Brushes and Textures, most, but not all, came with the following:

"This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. You may redistribute, remix, tweak, and build upon this work even for commercial reasons, as long as you credit this artist by linking back and license your new creations under the same terms."

(Some CC's on the Free brushes were different than the one listed above.)

The Free Patterns I sampled at Brusheezy were not covered by CC.

At Brushking, I only found a few in the brushes section that were licensed.

Be sure and check all fonts you download as well. Some are listed as "free" and others are listed as "free for personal use" (meaning NOT for commercial use).

 

[Paul]

Do some free stuff just to get your hand in, enter the contests, set your own challenges to others and enter what you have done.
Just saying.

 

[alixman96]

Thank you all for the reply I got to say before I posted this thread I Googled my question nothing came up like you guys' it was all about people who were already free lancers and wanted to get some tips, but here is what I got the answers I was looking for