Most graphic designers who have mastered the art of graphic designing choose to go solo in freelancing. They believe they can progress individually and become their distinct brand by making a name for themselves. However, a freelancer’s job is not limited to designing alone.
There is a myriad of demands of a freelancer, ranging from constructing their web presence to new clients. Also, a freelancer will have to do whatever he can to outshine his competitors to win over a new clientele base. If he can follow his own set of Principles of design, he can secure a visible profile in the competitive field of design and gain leverage over his opponents.
Suppose you have decided to kickstart your career in freelancing or have decided to leave your agency. In that case, you need to adopt a wide variety of tools and elements that will enable you to wrap up your work at an accelerated pace, giving you space and time to focus on design.
Remember, you are facing stiff rivalry from other freelancers and graphic design services companies whose potential audience you have to win over and convince them that you are the graphic designer for the job. We will expand on the tools that you can take a look at to maintain your profile.
FreshBooks
The requirement for a billing solution and invoicing becomes mandatory, especially when you experience an increase in your work. FreshBooks gives you the chance to create invoices that are customized. The same is the case for billing software. It conveniently assimilates with other services and software like using other email providers to import contacts.
Zoho Invoice
Zoho is an excellent service where you do not have to pay for invoices. It delivers a ‘free forever’ service for freelancers or graphic designers who have at least five clients. It offers a plethora of business related to business, which can help you handle tasks that include managing client relationships and scheduled meetings. Zoho is also useful in auto-schedule invoices you can create using a software template or your own PDFs.
Aweber
Aweber is an excellent service in which you can build an effective email campaign for yourself. It gives you the freedom to retain relationships with former clients and establish new relationships with newer clients. You can also resort to other services such as MailChimp, which is free with up to two thousand subscribers. You also have the option to use GetResponse as well.
WordPress
Many freelance graphic designers don’t have their blogs. They are not aware of the necessity to showcase their work and abilities. It also paves the way for you to gain recognition in the graphic designing industry and accumulate additional income.
WordPress is the perfect platform for your blogging endeavors. It can be daunting when you set it up initially. But the rewards are worth the challenge, which includes the proliferation of your customer base.
Dribbble and Behance
You can use Behance and Dribbble to share your creative work with your viewers with ease. They are also a great way to promote your work and are also a great source of inspiration.
Balsamiq
You can create product UI Concepts and mockups by using a rapid wireframing tool such as Balsamiq. If you take a look at their website, you will realize that it is a platform for collaboration and brainstorming. You can cooperate with clients, developers, designers, and product managers for a cost of around $79.
Basecamp
Basecamp is a paid tool built by 37Signals that serves to help you handle your projects and daily tasks. It gives you the space to collaborate and cooperate with other graphic designers and team members. It is particularly useful when dealing with web teams and big companies. The tool is offered with a starting price of $20 per month through a subscription plan, catered to every budget, company, and needs.
Google Web Fonts
Suppose you have operated in the graphic design industry for a significant period. In that case, you know that every graphic designer is limited to using only one or two fonts at best. Google made its way to the market a few years ago with its font library, which was open-sourced and allowed its users to add additional fonts to their website with a few clicks.
Many fonts are found in Google, and graphic designers make modifications and improvements in their work process. The best part about the Google library is that it’s free, and requires a few clicks to add their fonts to the graphic designer’s website.
Adobe Creative Cloud
Adobe has changed its business model this year in terms of the subscription model to selling expensive ‘boxed’ software. This means that while you can still buy CS6 versions of Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc., additional features will be unveiled through the Cloud.
Toggl
This is a popular and useful time-tracking tool that is used by graphic designers and developers alike. It assists you in tracking the time you spend on various projects, and it also helps with billing-related information. It works well with software such as Zapier, Freshbooks, Bascaps, etc.
It comes with a mobile app as well as a desktop. It also increases the graphic designer’s visibility to acquire their potential clients. Freelancing is a profession that requires numerous tools and elements at the disposal of the graphic designers.
The main requirement they need to be aware of is that their job is much more complicated than those who work for a graphic design agency. They must raise their profile and increase their visibility.