When did you realise you wanted to be a designer?
I came to graphic design late in the grand scheme of things. I worked as a researcher for a database when I first left university and moved to London, and as part of my job I was tasked with creating a company intranet. I used WordPress as I had a little HTML knowledge from my university course and picked up a copy of Photoshop to crop and compress some images for the site.
I was instantly hooked, and I became obsessed with learning the ins and outs of how the software worked. I then started making free websites for local businesses in my area, so I could hone my skills as a ‘web designer’. And at the age of 25 I landed my first official role as a digital designer for Runner’s World magazine.
How did you get started and what was the biggest hurdle you overcame?
As a relative late comer, I worked quickly through the publishing industry as a junior and senior designer, before landing my last full-time role as head of digital design for the marketing team at a national newspaper group. And I hated it. I was constantly putting out fires and having to focus more on the managerial side, rather than doing the actual design work that I loved.
After six weeks in that role I left to find another job, but took on some freelance roles to pay the bills in the meantime. And I immediately realised that working as a freelancer was for me. Eight years later I am still a champion of the freelance lifestyle, and over the last few years I have transitioned away from ‘generic graphic designer’ into ‘logo designer’. And that is my specialty now. I focus on designing logos and visual identities with meaning.
My biggest hurdle has been finding that sweet spot with pricing my services. In 2021 I almost lost my business because of a decision to list my prices on my website. I’ve written extensively on what happened, but ultimately it was a huge mistake that almost cost me my freelance lifestyle, and since then I have reverted to a value-based pricing model. But my prices are constantly in flux and I struggle with it to this day.
What’s been your most successful way of getting clients?
Hands down, social media. One day in early 2021 one of my videos hit more than 3 million views on TikTok. I received more leads in a single day than I’d had over the past six months.
Upon releasing the power of social media, I switched up my daily routine to try and focus around half of my time creating helpful, engaging content for graphic designers. And as a result, I have been booked solid since that first viral video.
I was lucky that I had a bit of experience creating short videos for clients, and had a little knowledge in Premiere Pro. So the video editing side of things came quickly and I’ve since created more than 250 short videos for TikTok / Instagram. So these days my process is pretty streamlined, and I’ve done my best to stay consistent with the content, posting two or three videos a week. But growing a following on social media has led to lots of opportunities and revenue streams outside of logo design, so it’s time well spent.
How do you get clients to stay with you and use you for more work?
The short answer is, I don’t. There are additional deliverables I can sell to clients as part of the logo design process (website, stationery templates, marketing assets, etc) but I’ll be honest, I don’t enjoy that retainer style work as it quickly falls into maintaining a visual identity, rather than creating one. And the latter is the part of the process I enjoy the most.
Instead, I focus on the customer service (hitting deadlines, listening intently) so that the client might refer me on to the next customer. Or at the very least write me a beautiful testimonial so I can win the next job.
Do you ever have issues with clients paying late? How do you manage that?
To be honest, it doesn’t happen too often. Annoyingly, it’s the larger organisations that are always the culprits because they have accounting or payment systems in place that can delay an invoice.
When an invoice comes up as overdue, it’s usually a mistake or the client has simply forgotten, and a simple follow-up email is all that is needed to get things sorted.
What does your typical work day look like?
I’m a freelancer with two young children (2 and 4), so it massively depends on which day it is. On the days I get to work ‘normal’ office hours, I start off by clearing emails and responding to new leads. I have an assistant that works from Germany, and because of the time difference there’s usually some work in my inbox to review. My assistant helps me pull client presentations together and with the exports and delivery of logo projects.
These days I split my day in half, with the first half working on logo projects. I ask for two weeks from each client before I send back their first option to review. This allows me the time to germinate a good idea and to sleep on my own designs so I can check my work with fresh eyes. So depending on where we’re at in the process, I’ll either be generating new concepts or working through client amends. Typically I’m working on 3-4 projects at any given time.
The other half of my day is focused on content creation for social media. I see this as marketing for my business and it is hugely important to me. It makes sure that there are fewer peaks and troughs within my business, and that leads are steadily trickling in. And because of this, there is always at least a two month wait to work with me.
Any piece of advice/wisdom that you’d like to give the readers at This Design Life?
The best piece of advice I ever received was, “Be prepared to defend your own work”
When I worked in magazines, our work would have to go through two different internal teams before it eventually went back to the advertiser for approval. And each one of those teams had individuals who wanted their say, especially on specific design choices, on things like colour for call to actions or the typeface we picked. It was such a drain on the resources of our team that my creative director at the time had us implement something new.
Each time we sent a design across to an internal team for approval, we would need to accompany the work with a one paragraph rationale for our work. The aim was almost to second-guess the feedback that we’d eventually get through, and preemptively justify our design choices.
At the time I saw this as a massive pain. But over the next few months the designers on our team started having this paragraph on their mind while they were designing. And it forced us to think critically about our design decisions as we were working, knowing that we’d ultimately have to defend each decision.
Our designs became less cluttered and ultimately cleaner because every time we added something, like a keyline or some effect like a glow or a drop shadow that probably added nothing to the overall design, we realised we couldn’t defend it. So we removed it.
And secondly, the amount of feedback we received internally plummeted. Because we’d anticipated the questions for our decisions and had preemptively answered them with our rationale.
Today, I apply this to my freelance business. My rationale is clear and concise, and tries to preemptively explain away my choices. Without answers to these questions I open myself up to subjective criticism and doubt, which leads to indecision, more feedback and a slower sign off process.
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