Archive for the ‘Question’ Category
Freelance Interview: Leigh Taylor
Monday, April 13th, 2009
Today we interview Leigh Taylor, an ex-marine turned freelancer. I bet he has very few trouble clients…
Who is Leigh Taylor, tell us a little about yourself, what you do for work any side projects etc.
“Leigh Taylor is an ex-marine who decided to become fat, go bald and strain the only muscle left that hadn’t been strained (his brain). All in the pursuit of his one true passion - design!”
I am a Web Designer based in little old Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK. I was a little late to the field not really getting into any type of design work until starting University back in 2003. I discovered my passion more by chance than anything else, I read no overviews or information on the when applying to Universities. Solely by the name of the course I narrowed it down to two; Multimedia and Communication Design in Sheffield Hallam University or English and Psychology at Cambridge University.
Luckily the first acceptance letter came from Sheffield Hallam and I had already made preparations for that course when the second acceptance letter came through and as frivolous that decision that decision was it set me on the road to becoming a Web Designer.
Thankfully the course I was on was so varied and introduced me to a multitude of various genres of design I was simply taking everything in with puerile enthusiasm but whenever a lecture was carried out on Web Design I actually did become excited and obsessive about the coursework assigned to us. This realisation was the incentive to pursue it further and ultimately try and make a career out of it.
Six years later and I am still as passionate and willing to learn new skills and techniques to broaden my knowledge and skill set. I predominantly do Web Design and everything attributed to that, such as information architecture, usability, user journey, SEO, front-end coding etc. I also, as of late, am doing more and more print work, branding, typography development, illustrations, graphic design, marketing and creative artwork. Anything and everything that takes my fancy I will do with an aim to do it well!
In terms of client work I have made a conscious effort to really ramp down on the amount on projects I do. Being really selective allows me to offer a lot more to that particular client and gives the opportunity of really taking a project from the bare bones to a fully branded offering. Something that allows me to gain true satisfaction in the work done and less of the ‘this will do attitude’.
How did you get started then in Freelancing?
In the early days I wasn’t actually aware of being able to make money from the work that I was doing. I simply was doing it will the sole intention to be truly creative and push the limitations I had in terms of my own capability.
For me freelancing started by fluke. Whilst at University I had unknowingly been entered for three local design awards for professionals by a lecturer and surprisingly won two out of the three, a few photographs later, an attended ceremony and a few hundred mailers allowed people to put a name to a face and that is when the requests started to come in.
I took any and every job which was a great learning experience. Being able to work with real clients compared to the fictional ones presented in University coursework was both refreshing and challenging. Two great motivational positives that I have and will continue to strive for in my professional career.
The snowball effect happened after that through referrals which has steadily built a really varied and recognisable client list. I have been very lucky so far, as a freelancer I have yet to pitch for any work; I simply get requests for work in my inbox/voicemail and take the interesting jobs. So there is an aim to keep that going with a little nudge from some self-marketing and self-promoting.
Do you think freelancers will feel the credit crunch pinching? How do you see the outcome? What tips can you give them in terms of marketing in this economic hardship?
Intelligent freelancers will still be working as hard, if not harder in this ‘credit crunch’. These people will already have an attitude of producing portfolio-worthy designs on absolutely everything they do, being pixel-perfect, quality and polish oozing from their work and showcasing that effectively inside and outside the design community.
The more savvy freelancers will take this opportunity to gain a little knowledge, even awareness will suffice, to how the stock markets and business is run all over the world. They will then also notice that ,yes, there are thousands of companies going bust, into administration and scaling down where money is tight and not available for creative, development or digital marketing but these also create fantastic opportunities for other potential clients.
There are clients out there that are capitalising on this ‘credit crunch’ situation, there are quite a few actually. With fewer competitors, cheaper cost of media, cheaper production and potentially significant increase in target audience brand recognition. Money is being spent and lots of it! The freelancers’ problem is spotting a profitable client from a client who is going to be yet more collateral damage of the recession.
All I can advise to freelancers is up your game, gain knowledge in areas that put you in an advantage over your competitor and keep doing work that always exceeds expectation.
If you could go back to have a quick chat with yourself when you first started freelancing ,what would you tell yourself?
- Be less protective of you work.
- Be more open and willing to receive feedback. Good and bad!
- Give back to the community, regularly.
- Get more people to tell me I can’t do something then do it.
- Be unequivocally honest.
- Don’t waste time on people or projects who don’t value you or your work.
- Worry less. Creative blocks happen for a reason. Realise that reason earlier and avoid it happening again.
- Educate and value clients more, show off less.
- You are only as good as your attitude and approach.
- Oh and finally the winning numbers for the €100 million euro jackpot was 14, 16, 30, 36, 46 - 02, 08 (9th Feb 2007)!
I love books, so if you could recommend a book (or several books) related to freelancing or your field, what would they be and why?
I ever so recently came out of a dry spell of buying books. To make me feel better I bought four in one go, luckily all are really good so I will happily recommend them to my fellow designers out there:
01. Guidelines for Online Success [Paperback]
By: Rob Ford, Julius Wiedemann
02. Logo [Paperback]
By: Michael Evamy
03. Marks of Excellence: History and Taxonomy of Trademarks [Paperback]
By: Per Mollerup
04: LogoLounge 4: 2,000 International Identities by Leading Designers
By: Bill Gardner, Catharine Fishel [Hardcover]
Do you peruse any blogs regularly?
I do and probably far too many for my own good, lol. The main ones that I visit regularly are:
www.smashingmagazine.com
www.ffffound.com
www.freelanceswitch.com
www.abduzeedo.com
www.designreviver.com
www.designflavr.com
www.designm.ag
www.fubiz.net
www.fuelyourcreativity.com
www.hongkiat.com
www.koikoikoi.com
www.techcrunch.com
www.ilovetypography.com
www.logodesignlove.com
www.vandelaydesign.com/blog
www.typeneu.com
There is a lot more than this, if people would like I am more than willing to share my feed subscriptions!
Do you have any links or projects you’d like to promote?
There is a hell of a lot of stuff going live towards the end of April but unfortunately I am unable to mention them until then. It is all hush hush I’m afraid. For people who are interested just keep your eyes on my personal site for updates in May - www.leightaylor.co.uk.
Thanks for joining us Leigh, I’m sure you’ve been of serious help & inspiration to the community!
Thanks for having me it has been a pleasure!
Tags: Freelance, Freelancer Interview, Interviews
Posted in Freelance Interviews, Question | 3 Comments »
Q & A: How to move away from the Job Boards
Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
Hi FreelanceKnight,
I’m a part-time freelancer now, I’m planning to go full-time eventually, but within the past month I found the projects on job boards are of low value, and the income generated from them is lower than my salary of around $2000 per month.
If it’s possible, can you give me some advice about getting more, high value freelance gigs?
Hi sir!
I totally understand where your coming from here, but don’t quit your job just yet. The reason for that is the following. Bidding sites generally have:
- Cheaper and smaller gigs (with VERY demanding clients)
- Massive Competition from other workers (more so now in the credit crunch with people been made redundant, and turning to job sites like GAF)
I personally tried the gig sites like Get a freelancer and similar, and had no luck.
I think, in the end I realized I was quoting too high maybe. However, I feel they are bad investment of your time. Yes, by all means use them to fill your time between bigger, more profitable freelance gigs.
Heres what I suggest you do:
I appreciate you have a salary now. This is great, because you have a reliable income to use whilst you build up clients. I personally would grab yourself some business cards, (maybe from Moo.com?) and give some out to all your friends, family and neighbors. Make sure EVERYONE you know understands your available to hire for freelance gigs. To this day I’ve never found a better (or more cost-effective) form of marketing.
You might also wish to leave your cards in local computer stores and coffee shops. I picked up a client who worked with major national brands through him finding one of my cards in a local computer shop.
You want to make sure you have pretty decent website and logo. If you don’t have one (and aren’t a web designer) then you could grab one from themeforest for as low as $10!
You might wish to set-up a blog, but then just get out there on places like twitter, facebook, forums and blogs and (not spammingly) provide your website link either as your name in website comments, or as a signature line to build up visitors.
Another, more active marketing tactic you might use is to simply walk into a local store, shop or business, and outright ask them if they need any help (or if they are totally happy with) their current website.
Thanks,
Paul, the Freelance Knight
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Tags: Q & A freelancing, Questions
Posted in Question | 1 Comment »
