Graphic Designer wanting to set up on his own

paddylonglegs

Hi Guys,

Got let go from my job recently so now that i'll have a bit of "free time", i'm going to concentrate on starting on my own in Graphic Design to produce branding, logo work, brochures, stationary etc etc.

Looking for a bit of feedback really - as business owners or managers, would you see a business like my own being more professional if I was based in an office or office block, or would it appear unprofessional if my clients knew that I worked from a home office?

For the moment I wouldn't have the finances to start paying office rent and bills so working from home seems to be the option for the moment as I will have to start from scratch with building up a client base. However, the (high) quality of work would be the same if i was based in either. So, if you were looking at getting graphic design work produced for your business, would you go with the guys based in the office, or the guys based at home?

MyBusinez.com

paddylonglegs wrote: »

Hi Guys,

Got let go from my job recently so now that i'll have a bit of "free time", i'm going to concentrate on starting on my own in Graphic Design to produce branding, logo work, brochures, stationary etc etc.

Looking for a bit of feedback really - as business owners or managers, would you see a business like my own being more professional if I was based in an office or office block, or would it appear unprofessional if my clients knew that I worked from a home office?

For the moment I wouldn't have the finances to start paying office rent and bills so working from home seems to be the option for the moment as I will have to start from scratch with building up a client base. However, the (high) quality of work would be the same if i was based in either. So, if you were looking at getting graphic design work produced for your business, would you go with the guys based in the office, or the guys based at home?

I run a web design company from home and I had the the same issues when I started. I've been running it from home for the last 6 months or so.

None of my clients see me as unprofessional. I don't think clients will see you as unprofessional just because you work from home. If the quality of the work is good and you meet deadlines with a high standard of work that is all your clients will want to see.

They don't have to know really but I wouldn't try to keep it from them as clients don't like to be lied to. If they feel they can trust you they will continue to use your services.

Good luck with the venture. I hope it goes well for you.

FusionNet

Hey there,

It doesnt matter where you work from once the quality of your product is good. Ive never had one client to my office in nearly three years. I also run a home office. I think people dont care where you work from once you do what they want when they want. I have clients that have massive turnover Im talking huge and if you saw where they worked from people would be shocked!!

Anyways I will give you one bit of advice. Do not give credit to people. Even starting off you will find you will be owed thousands in a matter of months. I gave credit and it nearly finished me as people were closing let right and centre last year. Im now only supplying kit like Tesco and Dell, its upfront or not at all... Since doing that Im bringing the business back to where it was before the country got into trouble.

In your game its easy to do art work show the client and then they take it. I would only supply art work in paper format, if approved and signed for by the client collect your money and then supply it on disc. This will mean you will look forward to your work and your customers will respect you more..

Best of luck and I hope it goes well..

Oh by the way, how good of a designer are you? Will you PM me a price for a logo for a product Ive developed.. I can give you ideas on the PM of the design format Im looking for..

21inchguns

I think you will find it much harder to work from home (motivation ect.) but as a business looking at you I would prefer that you worked from home, it means to me that you should be more competitive because you have lower overheads.

Axwell

Working from home shouldnt be an issue. A client is going to be more interested in your portfolio of work and the cost of whatever they are after. Where you do it is of little interest to them, more so now than ever with everyone looking for a good price to spend less money. Get yourself a good website together with examples of your work and go from there. Also as im sure you know yourself you can watermark all your work when sending it to a client online so it wont be of any use to them taking it like Fusion suggests.
As the last poster said motivation when working at home will be your biggest issue and keeping the work coming in working on your own. Best of luck with it!

paddylonglegs

FusionNet wrote: »

In your game its easy to do art work show the client and then they take it. I would only supply art work in paper format, if approved and signed for by the client collect your money and then supply it on disc. This will mean you will look forward to your work and your customers will respect you more..

Thats great advice, the company i worked for got duped so many times for sending visuals via email. good tip.

21inchguns wrote: »

I think you will find it much harder to work from home (motivation ect.) but as a business looking at you I would prefer that you worked from home, it means to me that you should be more competitive because you have lower overheads.

lower overheads is definitely an advantage for me as a designer. The issue like you say of motivation at home is so true. It takes alot to work on that annoying project over making a cup of tea or walking the dog!

Axwell wrote: »

Get yourself a good website together with examples of your work and go from there. Best of luck with it!

Cheers Axwell, website on the way

MyBusinez.com

paddylonglegs wrote: »

The issue like you say of motivation at home is so true. It takes alot to work on that annoying project over making a cup of tea or walking the dog!

If you don't have the motivation to work from home you will have the same problems at the office. In fact if I didn't have the motivation I wouldn't be working in the web design/ programming industry at all.

You have to find your motivation. Find something about the job that you love and focus on it. Nothing wrong with making a cup of tea or coffee to keep you going, even a walk of the dog but while you're doing that keep thinking about your marketing, think about products that work, think about what your clients want. So when you come back to the computer you're rearing to go!

I've been working 12 hour days trying to finish my business network, mybusinez.com, but I've been working those hours because I like it and I like the idea, not because I have to. I am also learning some great skills and brushing up on old skills. It's challenging, it's tough but I LIKE IT! That's my motivation.

TheWaterboy

Id have to echo what other people said. The big thing is getting the work and then providing quality results. At the end of the day clients dont care if your in a big fancy office as long as your work is good and your prices are competitive. Lower overheads mean you can provide a better price.

Further down the road you can look at getting yourself an office but with the internet now and wireless you can produce work from anywhere in the world.

Best of Luck with it.

Barname

designers, just reading the thread and I am curious,

do business' steal your work? do they actually use and not pay for your work?

what kind of generalisations would you make of these people if this is the case?

MyBusinez.com

Barname wrote: »

designers, just reading the thread and I am curious,

do business' steal your work? do they actually use and not pay for your work?

what kind of generalisations would you make of these people if this is the case?

I've had my work literally copy and pasted onto someone else's server. I used to work for a recruitment solutions company. Part of our service was website design. One of our clients cancelled his account. We later had a look at his website and found it was the recruitment template we had built for him. It had the same html comments, forms we used, it even had built by *us* at the end of the site so there was no doubt who built it.

At the time, we charged around 25k for the entire recruitment service and I think around 10k for the website (madness I know. This was c 2000). It such an audacious thing to do and this client obviously wasn't short of funds if they were paying 10k - 25k for our solution. We could have sued him and took him to the cleaners. In the end I think we just e-mailed him and basically told him to cop-on. Couldn't fathom it though. Some people are either ignorant or just plain crazy!

The thing with today is that it is very hard to do something new in web design. That's why bespoke web designs are so expensive. Most designers just use templates because they can't sell bespoke web designs anymore. Clients just want something online that isn't too expensive. But even templates have to be customised, not copy and pasted lol.