Good living in web design?

DeadlyByDesign · 14-06-2010 12:38pm #1

Hopefully once I get more to grips with the process of design and all my languages are up to scratch I want to venture into freelancing. I am just curious as to if I do this (and do it well), is there a good living to be made at it? Will it pay the rent and bills?

Placebo · 14-06-2010 1:03pm

i personally do not think so.
Work fluctuates. so do the rates.

DeadlyByDesign · 14-06-2010 4:01pm

Really?! I thoght depending on your skill level/work ethic and how much you have networked that there might be some kind of re-occuring revenue there?

professore · 14-06-2010 4:06pm

Yes and no.

You can make money at anything if you are good at what you do, have a good grasp of finances and can find enough clients.

Very important if you are to make a living is to be fast - and don't put up with endless UNPAID changes from the client. Better to walk away than keep that sort of client happy.

If you are anal about your work and take months to "perfect" a 5 page site, forget it !!! Unless you are on a retainer or can live off the income from that one client of course.

condra · 14-06-2010 7:19pm

Apparently there is money in "site flipping", but this requires some extra skills in SEO, internet marketing, using Flippa, etc..

On the plus side, you don't work to a brief, which is nice.

It's something I'm looking into, but probably further down the line.

________

All that aside, you could register with Elance and pitch for some freelance gigs. If you don' have a portfolio together, you could do some gigs on Fiverr. You only get 5 dollars per gig, but it could be a quick way of getting "commercial experience" and building up a portfolio of work and testimonials. Everyone has to start somewhere!

Best of luck with your design career.
___

lil_lisa · 15-06-2010 12:44am

Web design is being taught in a lot of schools nowadays. Even back when I was in secondary school we learned the very basics (stress the word very). Everything is online too so people are learning from a young age the essentials, meaning you have to be extremely good and have be creative to really make a living. Of course good marketing helps too.

DeadlyByDesign · 15-06-2010 9:54am

Wow! So that's food for thought. I knew that it would be hard at the start, but I honestly thought that free lancers can make a living off of the business they get in?

cormee · 15-06-2010 10:02am

Look at it as some sort of natural selection - if you have skills employers/clients want you'll live long and prosper if you don't you won't.

Coding a page/site is a small part of the process, there are, as lil Lisa mentioned, other very important factors such as design, marketing and experience. The more of these you have the higher the fee you'll be able to command.

You can also try focus on other specialist areas of the web such as UI/Usability, Accessibility or SEO.

I also agree with all of Professore's points apart from the last one - being anal about your design is a good thing imho, in the short-term it will take you longer, but the longer you spend perfecting your designs the better they will become, and the faster you will become at the process. So while it may take you a week to build a pixel-perfect brochure site the first time you try it, a year or two down the road you should be able to produce the same quality site in a day or so. This will obviously increase customer satisfaction and result in an increase in repeat work from clients.

I'm happy to say I'm making a nice living from it, fingers crossed things will stay that way too. My path into this job was studying Industrial Design in college, working in that field for a few years. I switched to Web Design about 10 years ago and for the last 3 years or so I've been working mostly in UI Design, most recently UI Design with a focus on accessible cloud computing s/ware (which by the way will be a big growth field if you're looking to specialise).

I still do lots of freelance web design work, and if I had a business head on me I could probably make a very nice living working freelance.

Best of luck, I'd say freelancing with no experience will be very difficult in the beginning. If I was you I'd try find a full-time job first, get a bit of experience and build up a list of freelance clients by doing nixers, then when you're ready to make the move you'll at least have some sort of a client base.

DeadlyByDesign · 15-06-2010 10:21am

cormee wrote: »

Look at it as some sort of natural selection - if you have skills employers/clients want you'll live long and prosper if you don't you won't.

Coding a page/site is a small part of the process, there are, as lil Lisa mentioned, other very important factors such as design, marketing and experience. The more of these you have the higher the fee you'll be able to command.

You can also try focus on other specialist areas of the web such as UI/Usability, Accessibility or SEO.

I also agree with all of Professore's points apart from the last one - being anal about your design is a good thing imho, in the short-term it will take you longer, but the longer you spend perfecting your designs the better they will become, and the faster you will become at the process. So while it may take you a week to build a pixel-perfect brochure site the first time you try it, a year or two down the road you should be able to produce the same quality site in a day or so. This will obviously increase customer satisfaction and result in an increase in repeat work from clients.

I'm happy to say I'm making a very nice living from it, fingers crossed things will stay that way too. My path into this job was studying Industrial Design in college, working in that field for a few years. I switched to Web Design about 10 years ago and for the last 3 years or so I've been working mostly in UI Design, most recently UI Design with a focus on accessible cloud computing s/ware (which by the way will be a big growth field if you're looking to specialise).

I still do lots of freelance web design work, and if I had a business head on me I could probably make a very nice living working freelance.

Best of luck, I'd say freelancing with no experience will be very difficult in the beginning. If I was you I'd try find a full-time job first, get a bit of experience and build up a list of freelance clients by doing nixers, then when you're ready to make the move you'll at least have some sort of a client base.

Thanks for the detailed response. I am in full time employment now, and I am in no way throwing that out the door to start freelancing yet. My plan was to do a few personal projects on the side to build a bit of a port-folio, and then take the plunge once I am confident enough. The specialisation idea is a great idea.

cormee · 15-06-2010 10:39am

DeadlyByDesign wrote: »

Thanks for the detailed response. I am in full time employment now, and I am in no way throwing that out the door to start freelancing yet. My plan was to do a few personal projects on the side to build a bit of a port-folio, and then take the plunge once I am confident enough. The specialisation idea is a great idea.

I'd say stay in full-time employment until you have a lot of clients pestering you to do work on an almost daily basis. That will probably take years rather than months though.

DeadlyByDesign · 15-06-2010 10:53am

cormee wrote: »

I'd say stay in full-time employment until you have a lot of clients pestering you to do work on an almost daily basis. That will probably take years rather than months though.

Yep indeed. This will be a marathon not a sprint

mattfinucane · 15-06-2010 1:11pm

Ok here's my advice on this.

If you are going to freelance entirely on your own my advice is not to do this. Work with someone who can complement your skills.

Running a web based business requires a lot more skill than just programming and graphic design skills, as I learned the hard way.

The industry is also saturated with web design and development outfits who charge differing prices to reflect the quality of their work these days it has become price-driven, so be wary of that.

I would advise you not to do this but to gain industry experience, write a blog, get a name for yourself, meet people at web industry events (like FOWAD) and get a group of like-minded and hardworking individuals whose skills can come together to make something really great.

Loot is also very difficult to come by as a freelancer. People just don't have it these days and you will find youself in that position as well. Let me tell you that although money doesn't necessarily make you happy, having none of it sucks big time.

Best of luck with it.

lil_lisa · 15-06-2010 5:31pm

I don't know if you're aware of this but the way technology and the internet are going, its going to be a lot different in ten years time to how it is now.

Being able to create a simple HTML/CSS website will more than likely be expected by many people. They key will be functionality and the web. So many things are becoming web based now adays. People are keeping important documents, files, personal information, videos, music, calendars etc online. Games are being played online, everything is getting bigger and bigger. Data transfer is growing at a crazy rate.

They are currently building a web-based Operating System (could be already created). Soon, when you start your computer, your hardware will do its business, then it will go online and get your software from the web. They will look back at 2010 and think, wow, web design was so basic and simple then.

Basically, what I'm saying is, if you want to keep up in this marathon as you put it and not dehydrate, start looking at web-based programs instead of just web design.

Just to show you an example, www.fanbox.com is like a virtual pc on your machine. Something like that (with a good, useful functionality) should survive and stay ahead.

Axwell · 15-06-2010 6:48pm

lil_lisa wrote: »

Just to show you an example, www.fanbox.com is like a virtual pc on your machine.

Eh no its not

To the OP if you are in full time employment now then use that to your advantage and keep learning in your spare time. Look to do some free projects for friends and family to get some work together in a portfolio. As Cormee said maybe look to specialise in a specific area. You mention "all my languages" above, there is a big difference between a web designer and a web developer, if you are into programming and language then development is a completely different route to go down.

Decide what you are good at and focus on it and soak as much information in as you can on it and learn as you go till you feel the time is right to look at freelancing when you are at a stage where you feel you have enough clients and work coming in to sustain yourself at it while giving up your current job. Just be aware that this could be a few years down the line and its something to work towards.Best of luck with it.

lil_lisa · 15-06-2010 7:16pm

My apologies, I thought I changed the link, its http://developer.fanbox.com/

forbairt · 15-06-2010 7:29pm

Blatent self plug here of a post I made a while back http://www.jameslarkin.ie/2010/02/14/what-should-i-be-charging-for-webdesign/ it got a lot of traffic and interest at the time and it still has a lot of people telling me thanks for it

Its not the normal style one of http://freelanceswitch.com/rates/ more a look at what you'd like to earn / what you'd like to charge an hour

Ultimately being a freelancer in this game will require a few things 1 ... a business mind of some sort ... 2 .. skill or ability to project manage

There are a number of routes you can go down .. doing it all yourself is the one I went down and IMHO it leads to insanity ... (I'd love to know anyone doing everything well and maintaining sanity levels .. I'm sure there are people ... but the stress can be insane)

graphic design / web design / app development / SEO / keeping up with the latest tech / doing your own IT support and so on ...

So my question to you as a new freelancer

1: Do you have a portfolio ?
2: Do you have an existing client base can you build on it ?
3: Do you make enough from these jobs to earn a nice living (factor in all the costs not just your wages)
4: Can you ensure you'll get the work when you go out freelancing (my advice would be that unless you've got the connections initially you're going to have to build a lot of contacts .. get known and so on)

Anyways just a few thoughts ...

James

ps: I'm speaking from personal experiences both great and crap and from great decisions and dreadful mess ups over time

BostonB · 15-06-2010 8:02pm

If you're good enough to stand out from 20 other designers, and have a good business head, you can make a living at it. Most don't however.

TitoPuente · 16-06-2010 8:47pm

First things first - spend many, many late nights up learning your trade. The best designers I know are the ones that broke their bo**ox mastering their profession. There is no easy way into the high end of the industry where you can produce quality work and command budgets that you can live on. It takes years and years to become a 'professional' designer.

Alternatively, you can learn the basics (and a bit more) and get a junior position at an agency and slowly learn from your more experienced colleagues. This is a great option (if you're still relatively young) because you get paid and you learn steadily.

I always laugh when I see threads on forums with people asking about 2 week Web design courses and what kind of jobs they can get as a result. Like most things in life, you get out what you put in. If you're truly passionate about Web design then work, work work, learn, learn, learn, consume as much information as you can and immerse yourself in the industry online. There's no other way if you want to ever be more than average.

Good living in web design?

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