Tips And Tools For Artists And Graphic Designers

How to Maintain Your Freelance Art Career During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Sat, 21 Mar 2020 23:57:34 GMT

How to Maintain Your Freelance Art Career During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Contact Adobe support immediately
Take advantage of your time off from a regular job
Shift your focus
Work with industries that have staying power during these difficult times
Take on lower-paying jobs that you might regularly avoid
Keep your business costs low (it’s easy)
Reach Out to Previous Clients

The coronavirus (COVID-19) has taken the world by storm, and certainly not in a way that is in our favor. Layoffs are a worldwide disaster, and a need to file for unemployment seems to be spreading just as quickly as the virus itself. If you are an artist or designer I want you to know that I am in the same boat as you. We are all now faced with a single option: work as much as we can, until we can’t.

Here are 7 important things to keep in mind when trying to maintain your career as a freelance artist or designer during a global pandemic. It may not be what you want to hear, but it is what you NEED to hear. I hope this article makes it easier on all of my fellow creatives looking to keep their careers afloat in these very difficult times. Follow these instructions and keep your chin up! We will all persevere together.

1. Contact Adobe Support Immediately:

If you are an artist or designer there is a pretty good chance you are subscribed to some, if not all, of the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite. This includes products such as Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, InDesign, and more. Adobe has carved a name for themselves in the world of graphic design and in most businesses their entire line of products is considered the industry standard.

Luckily for you (and me), Adobe is well aware of the hardships we are all facing as a community.

If you have lost a significant portion of your income or see it being a possibility in the near future I highly recommend reaching out to Adobe as soon as you possibly can. They are offering 90 day (3 month) credits to paying customers so that your Adobe subscription is one less thing to worry about in these incredibly difficult times.

Here are 3 ways to contact Adobe to redeem your 3 months of Creative Cloud, for free.

By phone - 1 (800) 833-6687
By virtual chat - https://www.adobe.com/support
By twitter message - https://www.twitter.com/adobecare

For me, the quickest method of contacting their support line was via Twitter DM. This is also the method of communication that will take the least amount of effort as you will not need to wait on hold or stay on Adobe’s page until a representative responds to you in the chat.

Give it about an hour for a person to message you back on Twitter. By then you should be all set and ready to receive your 90 day credit. The whole process is quick and painless, so I really applaud Adobe for both their understanding and their efficiency in this time of serious struggle caused by COVID-19.

2. Take Advantage of Your Time Off:

If you are more of a glass-half-full kind of person you can look at these temporary issues in a positive light, especially when it comes to your freelance work.

Face it, you have A LOT of time off right now. Channel your energy into something productive that will help you in the future when this all blows over. You can spend time practicing your work, mastering your craft, or diving into that procrastination pile and finishing things up that you would have otherwise not had the time to complete.

Luckily there are a lot of companies who, like Adobe, understand how difficult all of this is for us right now. There is a plethora of really incredible online courses being sold at a heavily discounted price to keep you productive and thinking while being stuck at home.

Here is a great collection of courses by The Futur that are being sold for a fraction of their usual price

And here is a list of college art and design courses that you can take for FREE.

You can’t beat that!

If further learning isn’t something you care to do right now, there is no time like the present to catch up on old projects, revisit old ideas, and evolve your art and design in a way that is meaningful to you and your future clients. This time spent inside is your time to grow, make the most of it!

3. Shift Your Focus:

We as humans rely on a very important thing on a daily basis: the ability to adapt and evolve to our circumstances. I’ll be the first one to tell you that amidst a global pandemic, the market for people looking to buy a portrait of themselves as a dead, dripping zombie creature is pretty much non-existent. As a matter of fact, I would be willing to bet that that is the exact opposite of what most people are hoping to see, nevermind spending money on it.

While you may not be making things that are as strange and out there as me and my own personal work, you may still be heavily invested into a niche that is relatively unfavorable at this point in time. That is okay, and it doesn’t mean that you have to settle for nothing just because of these specific circumstances.

Like I said, the ability to adapt is a gift, use it as much as you can right now. Shift your focus to other things that are applicable to the current coronavirus pandemic. Make art pieces or infographics that are relevant to the public’s current concerns. Who knows, that piece of art may go viral! (No pun intended)

4. Work With Industries That Have Staying Power:

In many parts of the world right now there are only a handful of businesses that are allowed to be open. This is to make the most out of our various policies regarding social distancing and infection control. The places that can be open are considered “essential businesses”. Basically, as long as this business is a vital part of human survival, they are allowed to stay open and continue to make money.

Here is a list of a few business types that were likely deemed “essential” in your area:

Essential health care operations (Hospitals, walk in clinics, pharmacies, etc)
Essential infrastructure (Power companies, water and wastewater, telecommunications, etc.)
Essential manufacturing (Food products, farms, Sanitary products, etc.)
Essential retail (Grocery stores, gas stations, hardware stores, etc.)
Essential services (Trash and recycling, news networks, auto repair, etc.)
Financial Institutions (Banks, insurance, payroll, etc)
Homeless Help (Shelters, food banks, etc.)
Construction, military, police, fire departments, hospitals, etc.

For a more complete list of businesses, click here.

If you are having a hard time finding work, feel free to reach out to any of these businesses and see if there is anything you can do to help. While the rest of the world shuts down, these places still need to move forward with business as usual.

Do they need a flier made for COVID-19? Do they want help advertising the fact that they are open through the pandemic? Who knows, but it never hurts to ask! You will be surprised how many of these businesses need an artist's help.

5. Take on the Lower Paying Gigs:

Unfortunately, we all can’t be as picky as we usually are. When the world is running normally and 90% of the population isn’t locked in their homes, it is normal to turn down clients that don’t fit your usual scope of work. However, we are at a point in time where every dollar counts and every gig could be the deciding factor that determines your financial stability.

Sure, that $50 dollar gig is severely undercutting your typical rates, but that payment could also be what puts food in your stomach for the next week or more.

Keep in mind that just about everyone is having financial struggles right now. Nobody can afford to pay what they would normally, so try to be understanding of your potential clients' situations just as you would want them to be understanding of your own.

We as people have to work together now more than ever, do what you can to keep both you and the people around you healthy and thriving as often as possible!

6. Keep Business Costs Low:

As I said before, your first measure to conserve your money should be reaching out to Adobe to redeem your free 90 month creative cloud credit. This can save you up to nearly $200 dollars over the course of the next 3 months. However, there are other ways to keep costs low as well, especially if you are working from home.

Reach out to your utility companies and see if they are doing anything to help people in difficult financial situations. There are already multiple banks and companies offering deferrals on payments, which basically means you can “pause” your payments for a specified amount of time while keeping your service on.

Are you a homeowner as well? See if you are able to pause your mortgage payments. There have already been federal laws created to prevent homeowners and renters from being evicted, but if you can pause your payments so your debts don’t snowball in the meantime, do it!

7. Reach Out to Previous Clients:

Last but not least, reach out to your previous clients. See how they are doing, what measures they are taking to stay in business during the coronavirus pandemic, and maybe find out if there is anything you can do to help them stay afloat.

Offer your services if they need them and give them away at a discounted price. Once again it is important to keep in mind that we are all struggling to make ends meet right now. Your generosity will be greatly appreciated and also guarantee that when things are back to normal you will retain these clients who saw the compassion in your work strategy during this terrible set of events.

I hope all of this information was at least a little bit useful for you. We are dealing with a lot right now, but together we can make a difference and push through all of this craziness and come out on top bigger and better than ever. As artists and designers we are extremely fortunate to have the ability to work from home indefinitely. Make the most of these circumstances!

Stay optimistic, stay safe, and please #stayinside.

We can beat this!

Everything You Need To Know Before Becoming A Freelance Graphic Designer (2020)

Sun, 16 Feb 2020 21:37:56 GMT

The 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Becoming A Graphic Designer

So you want to become a graphic designer? Awesome! Here are a few things you should know before starting your new career (and a few things I wish I was told before starting graphic design myself)

Freelance graphic design work is never guaranteed
You’re not going to enjoy every design project
Not everyone is meant for every project
Graphic design isn’t always an artistic endeavor
Dry spells should be embraced, not feared

1. Freelance Graphic Design Work is Never Guaranteed

The first and most important thing to think about when starting your career as a freelance graphic designer is that steady work is never guaranteed. As a matter of fact, when you are just starting to open yourself up to paying clients and customers, a steady flow of projects shouldn’t even be expected!

If you aren’t working for a professional marketing or design firm, any clients you get are going to be gained from either word of mouth or paid advertisement. I can’t stress enough how important it is to take things slowly at this stage! Sure, it may sound like a dream come true to quit your day job and pursue a life of nothing but art and design work, but realistically if you cut off your main source of income before building a steady clientele you will almost definitely be left broke and hungry!

Success comes at a snail's pace. In order to achieve the most out of your design career without burning yourself out too much, take it easy and make moves in a manner that is comfortable for you. There is no point in rushing what could become a lifelong career. Let the flower blossom, don’t rip it out at the roots!

2. You’re Not Going to Enjoy Every Design Project

Be honest with yourself here. At the end of the day when you are trying to become a full time graphic designer or artist, you are going to face the inevitable: a project that doesn’t really interest you but is necessary to take on for financial reasons. I know, it sucks sometimes, but it really is important to suck it up and complete these projects as they are handed to you especially in the early stages of your budding career.

I have had my fair share of “I guess so” projects and I embrace them as much as I possibly can. You are being hired to create your client’s vision. As a designer you are merely in charge of making that vision something tangible.

My advice for this particular scenario is to just go with the flow and take on these “I guess so” projects with a smile. For all you know, drawing a picture of someone’s pug could lead to that person referencing you to your DREAM job. You never would have had that chance if you didn’t take the time to draw Clipper in his “adorable” Halloween costume.

You can look forward to eventually picking and choosing what you do and do not work on, but trust me, when you are starting on the ground floor it’s basically a necessity to spread your work and earn some cash to keep you going.

3. Not Everyone is Meant for Every Project

I know, this sounds like a complete contradiction to what I just said right? Well here’s the thing: I believe you should take on every client you possibly can in the early stages of your career. HOWEVER it is also important to note that as an artist and designer you will have a skill set that is particular to you and your abilities. It is unrealistic to assume that you are capable of completing any project the universe throws at you.

You may be an amazing painter, or an amazing typographer, but if someone requests clean vector icons from you and you have no experience in that niche, you would be foolish to take on the project.

Without having the required skills to bring that person’s vision to life, it would be a disservice to both of you to accept the project and even worse to collect a payment on something you may not be able to fulfill. Always remember to work within your means. Yeah, you should take on boring projects but don’t bite off more than you can chew and leave someone feeling like they were scammed out of their money! This could tarnish your reputation at a time when it is more vulnerable than ever.

4. Graphic Design Isn’t Always an Artistic Endeavor

Another thing you will have to be okay with sacrificing sometimes is your artistic and creative freedom. Most times people are hiring you for a very specific thing and it is in your best interest to follow through with what they have hired you for. It can be incredibly tempting to “put your own spin on things” and believe me, there is a time and a place for that.

Just remember that you are the vessel in which another person's ideas will be brought to life. Some clients will come to you and happily ask you to do your thing, but others will be very set in their ways and want only what they have thought up and nothing more.

Any piece of design is a functional piece of art, just know when not to get too “artsy” with it!

5. Dry Spells Should be Embraced, Not Feared

Finally I would like to talk about another inescapable circumstance...No more jobs coming in!

As I said earlier when you are first starting out as a professional freelance artist or graphic designer you will most likely be getting your initial client base from either paid ads or simple word of mouth. While properly optimized ads will greatly increase your potential to bring in new clients and gain more exposure, they can become very expensive and yield little to no results if they are not done with a professional marketers mind.

This leaves us with the cheaper option (because what is cheaper than free?) which is word of mouth. I have personally gone through hundreds of ups and downs. Some months people would be recommending me left and right, while others I wouldn’t even pull in a single organic lead! This is the game in just about any freelance profession. It really is just a matter of learning to make the most of both the busy times, and the barren times!

While a period with no work may seem a bit scary to you, if you listened to my prior advice and kept your main source of income alive and well these “cursed” months could actually turn out to be an incredible blessing. Instead of worrying every single day about new projects, deadlines, and potential issues you can take a step back and focus on your own creative growth as an artist AND as an individual.

Work on some personal projects, take a few online courses, spend your downtime on things that AREN’T work. You will have a much longer, happier career if you take some time to breathe. Embrace your dry spells and use it as time to improve yourself in any way you see fit. Our free time on this earth is finite, so don’t forget to enjoy it every once in a while!

I hope this article was informative to all of you aspiring artists and designers out there! Please don’t let any of these points discourage you. Instead keep them in mind to ensure you have the most productive and positive career possible. This list was not meant to scare anyone away from the field and I truly hope knowing all of these potential pitfalls can help you prepare for your exciting new career that could last a lifetime!

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me here or on my instagram which you can find here.

Thanks for reading, and good luck!

How To Grow Your Instagram Art Account (2019)

Mon, 19 Aug 2019 06:18:52 GMT

If you want to learn how to grow an art Instagram account in 2019, you have come to the right place! In the past few years, I have grown my own personal Instagram account to over 25,000 followers through nothing but organic reach and engagement, and I am here to help you learn how to do the same.

Picking your niche

First things first, you have to figure out what kind of artwork you plan on producing and sharing with the world. Are you going to be doing classical oil paintings? Maybe some anime or manga design? Whatever you choose, make sure you stick with it! People are much more likely to follow pages and creators who have a consistent theme and aesthetic throughout the majority of their work. If someone follows you for your drawings of a puppy, they may not be too thrilled to see your painting of a skull the next day!

Staying consistent

As I said, people prefer to see consistency in your work. Now I am not saying you shouldn’t always push to evolve your artwork on Instagram, but it should always (for the most part) be an evolution into a similar style and aesthetic that you started with.

Not only is this important to keep your Instagram followers interested and engaged, but it is also important for you as an artist to work on developing an instantly recognizable style that is unique to you and your vision.

On Instagram, you want people to be able to recognize your work if it is shared, featured, or even to call out imposters who may try to steal your artwork and pass it off as their own. If a person who knows your work can see a brand new piece and confidently say “Oh look, another drawing by so and so!” you have done a good job at building your aesthetic and as a result, building your brand.

Post frequently

The Instagram algorithm is a constantly changing beast, and sometimes it may seem impossible to keep up with all of the new demands required to be featured and potentially go viral. However, one thing that will always be a beacon of light shining from your account to Instagram’s lens is frequent quality posting.

There is a reason I bring up quality, and that is because it is an unfortunately tight line to walk between frequent quality posts and what Instagram deems to be spam. This is especially important to consider if you are a new account on the platform because if they see a brand new page posting the same thing over and over again you can potentially be blacklisted, or in more extreme cases have your account deleted entirely.

The general rule of thumb I follow is to post one new, quality piece of artwork daily. While as of late I have been posting a bit less frequently (life does get in the way sometimes) I can confidently say I would not be where I am right now if it weren’t for nearly 2 years of posting drawings 350 out of the 365 days in a year.

The more work you are able to produce and draw attention to, the more likely you are to have at least one of those pieces picked up by the algorithm and featured on Instagram’s highly sought after explore page. While the explore page may not offer the same incredible leap of growth that it used to, it is still an incredibly important goal to strive for. Think about it, every time you post a new high-quality piece of art, your chances to be featured increase!

Optimize your hashtags

I can’t even begin to explain how shocked I am when I see people on Instagram neglecting to use one of it’s earliest and most important features, hashtags!

Finding the right keywords may seem a bit intimidating at first, but luckily there are free tools like this that make keyword searching and organizing a breeze.

I would typically suggest using a few large hashtags and a few smaller, more specific hashtags when creating your tag list. This is an important part of Instagram keyword optimization because it allows your post to “piggyback” off of the more niche tags while potentially giving you enough engagement to be pushed in the broader tags that could REALLY give your artwork the boost it so desperately needs!

Sound confusing? Let me explain a little further.

As you can see in the screenshot above, #art has over 500 MILLION posts and counting. Think it’s going to be hard to get featured here? Yeah, it will be. It’s even difficult for accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers to be featured here! People are posting under #art hundreds of times per minute. The chance of your specific post sticking out is unfortunately slim to none.

So how could you make it more likely for yourself to get featured on these insanely popular hashtag explore pages?

Piggybacking of course!

Check this out, while the #art tag has over 500 million tags, #darkartwork only has 57 thousand! Think about how much easier it will be for you to get your artwork featured on Instagram’s “Top” tags page for this one instead! This is where the piggybacking comes into play.

Since #darkartwork has a much lower volume of posts being pumped into the hashtag at a time, your post will hang around under the “recent” page for a lot longer. This means more people will have the opportunity to see your artwork and in turn, may even get you onto the top page of this smaller hashtag!

So what does ranking on smaller tags have to do with getting featured on bigger ones? Easy! You are more likely to have a post go viral within a smaller tag’s community, and once it starts to pick up momentum there it has the chance to be featured on the larger hashtags you used because of its already massive spike in organic engagement! You “piggyback” off of the smaller tags to get the numbers you need to be pushed to the top of the more difficult and inclusive topical hashtags.

Now I understand, dark artwork may not really be your thing, but I promise just about every artistic genre has its own dedicated hashtags on Instagram. It is all just a matter of finding them! The best thing to do when looking for specific hashtags is to see what other people in your niche are using. Stealing artwork is never okay, but snagging a few hashtags is totally fine and a surefire way to get your art seen by the people who you know are already interested in what it is you are trying to create!

Collaborate with other artists in your niche

Last but not least, always make yourself available to collaborate with fellow artists on the platform. I’m sure you have seen a countless number of “shout out for shout out” posts on Instagram, and essentially collaborating is a less desperate way of accomplishing the exact same thing.

If you do a collaborative piece with an artist on social media, it would be safe to assume both of you will be posting the finished product on your pages individually. By doing this, you effectively open yourselves up to a brand new audience on the opposite person’s feed.

Why is this important? Well, let’s say you have 1,000 followers and the person you collaborated with has 1,000 followers as well. Since both of you posted the work and tagged each other in the descriptions of each post, you have effectively doubled your potential audience through organic outreach alone. Your followers will follow them, their followers will follow you, and all of the new followers can be stoked about finding a super cool new artist to stay up to date with. Everybody wins!

I hope whoever reads this has found my insight helpful. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment below or message me on my Instagram account @colorfulfilth.

I look forward to hearing your success stories! Feel free to share this article with any of your friends who may also be looking for ways to improve their artwork’s social media presence.

Cheers!

How to Make Your First 1000 Dollars as a Freelance Graphic Designer

Sun, 18 Aug 2019 23:41:11 GMT

So you want to make money as a graphic designer? Believe me, I am with you! Whether you are looking to start working as a full-time freelancer or just hoping to pull in a little bit of money on the side, I am going to do my best to give you 5 tips to make your journey into the world of being a freelance artist just a little bit easier!

1. Know what your art is worth

Something a lot of people tend to underestimate is the value of their work. When you are giving a potential client a quote it is important to know that you are not only charging for your artwork, but you are charging for your time as well. Would you work an 8 hour day at your day job for $25? Of course not! Why should your artwork be any different?

I recommend charging no less than $20 an hour to start. See what your clients think of this rate and adjust your cost from there. If you want to make money doing the design work you love, the last thing you should be doing is selling yourself short!

2. Don’t keep doing it for the exposure

A lot of freelance graphic designers and artists (myself included) tend to work for free at first in order to build a portfolio and get “exposure” in the niche they are trying to work in. Look, I get it. To this day I am still guilty of trading my artwork for promotion on various websites and social media accounts. While I do think creating free portfolio work is an incredibly important part of building a strong foundation for your brand, you also have to know when your portfolio is good enough to start asking for cash.

You will without a doubt get to a point where shoutouts from smaller social media pages or instagram influencers will feel as though they are no longer worth your time. This is a GOOD thing, and you should be excited when you get to this point!

Everyone wants to be notable in their field and that is totally okay. Sometimes a solid promotion in exchange for a piece of art is absolutely worthwhile, but don’t let these people take advantage of you with promises of “fame and fortune” from their shout outs. I mean come on, how is anyone going to build a fortune if they are only working for free?

3. Your knowledge is worth paying for

There are two reasons why someone would be approaching you for graphic design work. They are either another artistic individual who wants to collaborate with you or someone who needs graphic design work done but doesn’t know how to do it themselves. Seeing that you are just starting out your career as a designer, chances are whoever is coming to you is coming for the latter.

You know that art degree you spent $40,000 on? That is the knowledge you have that your client most likely doesn’t and your pricing should reflect that. Maybe you didn’t go to school for artwork but you paid for online courses or a summer Design Bootcamp. These are investments you have made to better yourself as an artist or graphic designer and these investments absolutely HAVE to be taken into account when planning your hourly rate.

Even if you don’t have a lot of money invested in your artwork, I can guarantee you have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours perfecting your craft and getting to a point where you feel as if you are ready to start charging for art and design. Time is precious and so is the information you have learned over the years. Never give that away for free!

4. You get what you pay for

We may hate to admit it, but motivation is a very important part of the design process and money is as motivational as it gets. If you are getting paid a fraction of what you think your time is worth you will almost always end up dragging your feet through your underpaid projects, offering a half-baked version of your finished product because your heart just wasn’t in it for the long haul.

Not only does this hurt the client because they end up with a design or graphic that may not be up to par, but it hurts you and your brand because you now have a piece of artwork out in the world that represents you but not your best work.

Am I saying it’s wrong to work within people's budgets? Of course not! I also do not condone intentionally giving out poor work because you are not getting paid enough. I am simply stating that as a creative individual you have most likely had to work on projects that don’t necessarily interest you as much as the rest. Give yourself that extra edge to ensure you are always doing your best work 100% of the time!

5. Credibility is a necessity

Eventually, you will get to a point in your graphic design career where your branding and name are equally as valuable as your time and effort. Just as social media influencers expect big checks for product placement and endorsement, you should expect a bigger paycheck when your name and style becomes sought after.

By working with a brand or a company you are essentially endorsing them by putting your name and work on their products. When you get to the point that your name alone is enough to drive more sales, you should be including that in the cost of your work as well. A product that may have only sold 100 units may sell 1000 now that it has your work and brand name included in its marketing.

You’ve put in the work, you’ve put in the money, and you have created a brand worth working with that is a valuable asset to people all over the world. The worst feeling in the world is knowing someone is making thousands of dollars off of something you got 100 bucks for.

Don’t be afraid to ask for what your work is truly worth. If people respect you and your art and design and truly want to do work with you they will understand everything I have discussed above and happily pay you what you deserve!

Well there you have it, 5 tips to make your first thousand dollars as an artist or graphic designer! Remember, sometimes it could be a bit difficult to get your feet off the floor and get to a point where you are booking projects on a monthly basis. Whatever you do, do not let this discourage you! The snowball effect is a very real thing when it comes to being a freelance artist and even though things will start off slow, they will undoubtedly pick up the pace over time.

I hope this information was useful to you and that you realize now just how much you have to charge for as an artist and/or graphic designer. Your time spent, money spent, and experience in the field are just a few of the many assets that make your work worth so much. Feel free to share this with your artist friends if they need a little bit of motivation to get their freelance game started!