What skills and equipment will help?
With any freelance business, there are certain skills which will help you get the best results from your effort. You might love the creative side of design, but it’s important to spend some time working on your business plan.
Important skills for any creative freelancer include good, clear communication. Whether you’re meeting clients in person, or working entirely remotely, the sooner you can get a good understanding of what they want, and distil that into a brief everyone agrees with, the better chance you have to delivering a successful project.
Some understanding or talent for project management and an eye for detail are also valuable. As a web designer, you’ll probably be working with a developer to make your vision become a reality. And missing even the smallest requirements can lead to costly revisions, which damages your relationship with the client, as well as potentially costing you time and money.
Training and qualifications can be useful, but your skillset and portfolio will outweigh a course you took 10 years ago. Web design is constantly changing, so it’s important to look at courses and skills based on current trends if you want to tap into current demands.
Investing in a comfortable home office will make freelancing more enjoyable, and could make you more productive. But for your clients, your knowledge of common design software such as Photoshop will be important. If you’re on a tight budget, free options such as Gimp can provide the same functionality and quality. But the key is to make sure you’re able to share your work in a format that clients can easily access.
Along with knowledge of current design trends, you should ideally have at least a basic understanding of HTML, CSS and the most popular website software. You might not be coding the site yourself, but it means you’ll know what’s possible for a developer to achieve with WordPress, Shopify, SquareSpace or Wix.
How to start as a freelance web designer?
There’s no guaranteed way to become a successful web designer. And plenty of people have been able to build great freelance careers despite ignoring good advice. But most creatives would agree that you should start building up a portfolio as soon as possible.
If you’re just starting out, then you probably won’t have any existing clients, and you might not be legally able to share work from any previous employer. But you can create a good and varied portfolio by designing templates and themes, mockups, logos and more. These can be shared on your own website, or design networks like Behance and Dribbble.
Many veteran freelancers will suggest you should never provide client work for free to gain experience and exposure. The concern is that it undervalues your efforts, and web design as an industry, as well as potentially taking a paid project out of the market. But one option is to offer your services to a non-commercial organisation, such as a small local charity, which wouldn’t have the resource to hire a more experienced designer.
If you do choose to offer free or cut-price work to friends, family, or anyone else, make sure you treat it as seriously as any fully paid project. Clear briefs, contracts, payment terms, deliverables and deadlines are potentially even more important to prevent disagreements with parents and relatives, as unlike clients, you’ll definitely be stuck with them long after the project has been completed.
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