Freelance Road Trip — Business of Design
Create A Better Portfolio
Whether online or in hand, your portfolio is the primary means of landing a job or finding clients. Art school graduates have focused on developing
Alvalyn Lundgren
Freelance Road Trip — Business of Design
A Key to Productivity: Do the Right Things
Productivity is a popular and expansive topic, and it’s also big business. From apps and books on the subject to courses and mastermind groups, tools
Alvalyn Lundgren
advice
Does Formal Design Education Matter?
Aesthetic sense and talent are raw materials. They amount to nothing without discipline. Education forces you to add skill, discipline and expertise to your talent. And in order to meet project deadlines, you learn to steward your time.
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art law
6 Freelance Contract Mistakes and How To Fix Them
Most problems freelancers experience when working with clients are due to contract mistakes. Do any of these statements sound familiar to you? “I started working
Alvalyn Lundgren
Freelance Road Trip — Business of Design
Set Goals, Not Resolutions
Have you made resolutions for the new year? What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to change? Where do you see yourself
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client relations
How To Respond To Unusual Client Requests
An up and coming freelancer asked me about how to deal with unusual requests. We all get these from time to time. Once someone learns
Alvalyn Lundgren
Freelance Road Trip — Business of Design
8 Qualities of Successful Freelancers
Freelancing is on the rise. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the freelance (contract, temp worker and freelancer — in all industries) economy has a healthy
Alvalyn Lundgren
Freelance Road Trip — Business of Design
Self-Promotion Tips for Creative Freelancers
Self promotion is the practice of telling potential clients about what you do. With it you build your brand, engage prospects and find clients. As a
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design practice
Property Rights
Although it’s a common assumption, clients are not automatically entitled to a designer’s working files. The tools, preliminary concepts and layouts remain the property of
Alvalyn Lundgren
5 Reasons Why I Can’t Be Your Designer
I wish I hadn’t said, “Yes” to certain design projects. It’s not that the projects were a problem, but something about the clients’ approaches, actions or expectations
Alvalyn Lundgren
Maintaining Long-Term Client Relationships
When it comes to clients, it is better to pursue relationships instead of projects. We’ll build our businesses more successfully via relationships and connections, not
Alvalyn Lundgren
design practice
Why You Can’t Have My Font Files
Business and creative culture now runs on creative rights and intellectual property. Theft, abuse and alteration of intellectual property is as rampant as ID theft,
Alvalyn Lundgren
Freelance or For Hire? Clarifying The Designer-Client Relationship
Misunderstandings can exist between clients and freelance designers regarding their working relationships. Questions of who owns what, what files are provided to the client, when and
Alvalyn Lundgren
The Designer and the Relief Pitcher
If you know me well, you know that baseball is my favorite sport, and I often employ baseball analogies to explain concepts to students and
Alvalyn Lundgren
Briefly Stated: The Advantages of Getting It In Writing
Before working with a designer, a client should prepare for that relationship. Often, businesses will request a web site or a logo – a single
Alvalyn Lundgren
Spec Work Is Gambling
Working on spec directly contradicts good business practices and does not even promise payment for work performed.
Alvalyn Lundgren
Freelance Road Trip — Business of Design
Email Scams Target Web Designers
Scammers are highly creative in who and how they target. No one is exempt. This design project scam targeting independent creatives has been circulating in
Alvalyn Lundgren
From the Client’s Point of View
From the client’s point of view, there are two crucial criteria in deciding what designer is awarded the project: 1. Does the creative understand what’s
Alvalyn Lundgren