Is full-time freelance Web design a viable career alternative?
I was essentially wondering if freelance web designing/developing is a dependable career choice? ... I'm assuimg part-time is the way to go at first to get a feel for how long it takes me to do projects? ... If it's not so dependable and I must join the corporate world, what would be better for me to delve further into? the development or the design? ... Do "designers" decide how things function? Or is that ultimately the developers(coders) decision?
My Thoughts
I think that the nature of Web design has changed a lot in the past 10 years. When I started back in 1995, there were not a lot of professional-level developers - HTML was still very new, and it was dominated by programmers. Over the past 10 years, I've watched the field grow and get more and more crowded as many people started putting up personal Web pages and pages for their friends and family. In order to stand out as a Web designer, you have to know more, be more customer focused, and have low prices - and chances are there still will be a high-school student who can do the job cheaper than you can.
Freelancing, in any field, is a tough job. Most of the freelancers I know do it either part-time or they have a virtual sinecure with some corporation that allows them to stay afloat. Freelancing is not for the faint of heart. You have to be willing to put up Web sites where you hate the color scheme (read the notes from the designer) or your layout is destroyed the minute you give your client access to it. Plus there are the deadlines - most clients want things up yesterday, not in a reasonable amount of time. On one job I took, when I asked when they wanted it finished they said "well, it needed to be done last quarter." Luckily, building a time machine did not enter into the contract.
For your specific questions:
- Is part-time the way to go?
I suspect that unless you've already got the sinecure I mentioned above (or you've got a trust-fund), you'll have to do it part-time at first. The challenge here is that you'll probably get jobs where the client wants you to work 60+ hours a week, and only pay you for 20. Part-time freelancing is often hundreds of hours in a lump and then nothing for months. Making sure you have a big-enough pad to get you through the lean times is important. So, having a second job to help cover the bills is a good idea. - Development or design?
This really depends upon which you like more. But from a money making stand-point you'll probably do better if you focus on development - programming. Most corporations don't have any problem believing that writing a complicated PHP script costs money, but they get very resistant to the idea that making a high-quality design is something that requires education. I like to think of it as the "I don't know what art is, but I know what I like" syndrome. In other words, people might not know how to program, but everyone has opinions about what looks good - and if they have an opinion, they think they can create as well. - Do designers decide how things function?
It depends upon the company. At one company I worked for, there were three groups: designers, HTML developers, and programmers. The designers came up with the crazy ideas, the HTML developers put them onto Web pages, and the programmers made them work. At another company, the designers were asked to build whatever ideas came out of Marketing. I have found that the best teams are ones where everyone on the team works together to determine how things function. But that doesn't happen very often. I suppose if you were the only developer/designer at a company, you'd get to decide. But then you'd have the drawback of being the only developer/designer at the company - in other words, the buck stops at you and if you like vacations and free time, that can be overwhelming.
The bottom line
There is a lot of competition out there for freelance Web Designers. If you're going to do it, you should be prepared to have a strong portfolio and be focused on selling your business. Always be thinking about how to make your company more desirable - what makes you stand out from that high school student over there? Why should they pay you $50 per hour when they can get their son to do it for free?
Comments
Thanks for your input, I have been learning web development for the last year now and I was just wondering about doing freelance work.
With all the competition out there and the big companies to my suggestion to you would be to approach the small businesses, Churches etc in your local community.
“Why should they pay you $50 per hour when they can get their son to do it for free?”
In our house it’s the son who gets his mother to do it for free. He did write “Send an invoice”, but of course I didn’t.
I started very part time (with kids at home) and did fairly well, but it was definately a small supplemental income. My husband and I have now taken our business full time and it’s working great, but for several reasons.
One, he’s a programmer, so we do much more than basic websites. Two, we actually contract out some subprojects, so we can make business move faster.
As far as having their nephew/whatever design the site for them, most of our clients are people who got sites for “free” and now are having to completely gut and redo it because it’s a mess. Something for nothing should definately be explained to a client. Most of them have a hard time getting updates, etc. That’s if they have a decent site to begin with.
I think you all are a bit negative. It’s do-able, you just have to plan and probably have a range of talents. OR take on 2-3 big clients. Most companies would much rather hire someone freelance than pay you benefits and such. But…of course then you don’t get benefits or paid vacation!
It’s a tradeoff.
I agree with the part that you have to be client oriented. This is making all the differences between you and the scholar student who probably don’t have professional manners and way of working (correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s my impression on the subject).
Start to work for new or very young local companies, that’s the way to start, because even the companies are starting, so you are on the same “longueur d’onde”(path?). Word-of-mouth will do the promotion by itself, trust me on that, word-fo-mouth is the more powerfull marketing ever. So don’t do a mess job, do always your best to have a satisfied client, even if you don’t like what he says. (later you will be more experienced and you will be able to suggest that what the client is saying is very wrong adn you will have good arguments that you believe from the bottom of your heart, so he the client will take your advices).
I started freelance web design in the begining of 2006, one year later, I’m making more money than my last full time job for a company (I was a graphic designer), and I’m working half the time to reach the same “pay”.
Yes sometimes I had to sell myself and visits companies and prospect. I had one “yes” for 20 “no” but I did not lose hope, cause the one “yes” bring me clients I never contacted before!
Web design can be a viable career alternative if you start with very small companies, dong your job well, gain trust from clients and if you make them believe you are a professional (you have to be one tho!). By the way, when you reach about 20-30 good clients, you can probably just update web sites for a living!
Sorry for my english, french from Quebec here.
Last tip: make a signed contract as fast as you can, and ask for 50% of the money to start the project, cause people don’t pay very well everytime, but you.. have to eat..
The folks that I know who have “made it” as free-lancers have at least one really big client/project. It pays the bills while you look for more work.
I find it interesting the people still differentiate between designers and developers. Most businesses that have in-house web personnel lump the web folks in with the IT department - but our field encompasses more that just IT stuff: design, coding, information architecture, writing, content creation, customer service - we wear many hats.
I’d offer that if you are going to be a very successful free lance professional, you will wear all of them.
Hi Jim:
I have to disagree with your statement that “Most businesses that have in-house web personnel lump the web folks in with the IT department”. While that most definitely was true 5-7 years ago, I don’t think you can make that generalization any longer.
I have worked in and with many in-house Web personnel at various companies and none were in the same department. In fact, in my 9-year stint at a Fortune 500 company, I started in Marketing, moved to PR, was for a short time in IT, and then back into Marketing, and then finally into a completely dedicated “customer experience” team that ultimately managed the Web as well as all other customer touch points. The CX team had it’s own VP and was a completely separate department from either Marketing or IT - we worked with both teams, but did not report in to either.
I do agree completely that Web jobs require you to wear many hats. I think that was why I was bounced around to so many different departments.
I agree with her point. I think today been a full-time web designer is really hard. There are freelance web designers more than we can count. Getting on this train ain’t easy. If you are famous enough for what you do that’s another thing but if you wish start your own business now is another thing. If start it 5 years ago is also another thing. The time line, your contacts and your location are essential elements. Say you wanna start now at the year 2007 and you have no contacts, where you start your business is far from town or city. If all this condition is true you will need a strong and powerful profile. I don’t think Tiger wood is the best, he might be the best known player but there is got be other Tiger Wood out of the field who isn’t known by the world… I wish all of you who want to start your own business as freelance web designer the best and will be a pleasure to see your work one day.
I’ve been considering freelance web design for the last 9 months, and have been learning some key elements of good websites: graphics, information architecture, usability, accessibility, web content, and search engine optimisation.
My background is marketing and I have commissioned many sites over the last decade, and often found web designers with minimal knowledge on all of the above - often they concentrate on the visuals but give little regard to the other important elements that combine to make a great website - this is why I thought it would be a good field to get into, concentrating on small businesses - who don’t have the budget to hire a designer, usability expert, seo expert and copywriter. However I recently did a site (for free) for a friend’s company, and because I was designing the site architecture, and writing the content with seo in mind, the site took a very long time - Do you think this is a viable business proposition - given that it will be more expensive that a straightforward site design?
Yes Julia, I think that it would be a viable business proposition cause the big argument is that the websites will be build to sell and not to look at.
I so agree with key elements of good websites you mentioned, they are so important, cause without them, a web site don’t really have a meaning to exist.
Julia:
I can’t prove you wrong. In fact, what you say is very important. How often a web designer(or web agency) today consider those things important and I know some designers and agencies who doesn’t even know these 2 words “Usability” & “Accessibility” yet making money having lot of clients.
Example: www.etree.it
This one above is consider to be the biggest agency in Italy… However the prayers of people with disabilities for surfing the Italian web is not working in a Catholic country. I often think people with disability should gain more respect. I might be one of them in the future and who knows.
Not just yet, if look at the html code of this famous web agency you will see that it’s code is done badly.
Your client and normal people wants to see great effects, heavy effect or site only has effects. It like when you tell your client building this site of yours will take this amount of cost and they don’t know why make sites takes so much money. So, those who knows cheat them with effects and if your in marketing before you surely know how advertisement works.
They might be cheated by:
Big office
Great effect web sites
A name list of their clients
and so on…
Tell your clients why they need you. If they don’t know let them know. However, it’s easy to say changing people’s mind is hard task sometimes. I hope there will be more designer who think like to do in the future.
Thanks guys - I will keep at it!
Very well said, I fully agree with your cautionary approach. I would like to tell you and your audience about my site where freelancers can meet clients and bid on their projects: Takeacoder.us
Thanks for your inputs,
Enrico