So freelancer has all the flexibility, who doesn’t want to be one. I used to think about SoHo, if you even remember this word though. It was a hot topic back in the 90′s and I thought I must give it a try. While I was still in college, I started to work a little bit on the internet. Until a day, I thought to myself, I should start charging.

Get advice and give advice

I spend a lot of time in all those webmaster forum. Before this, I wasn’t really a web designer yet, but a designer. Works a lot on logos, t-shirt design and web page design (no coding yet).

I spend time wandering on forums to get advice. It is also one of the way I interactive with those designer/developer who also now in my MSN list. I’ve even have a PHP programmer as my partner years ago, and we still planning to work together.

Do free work

I know it sound bitch. I started off with a lot of spec work, this is, somehow, to polish my design skill too.

While learning new tricks on designing, I also learn to get used to most important technique. Forum and some contest website always a good to go.

Being a freelancer now, I sometimes, calculate my rate too. If the cost of the project is low due to their budget, I would know what and which kind of design I will go for the low budget. It helps me to create an eye on design according to the budget.

Learn one CMS at a time

Even if I’m good in XHTML/CSS, I probably won’t get too much static website to build nowadays. Looking at the prespective that most company likes to update their website on their own, or perhaps, a cooporate blog.

Get more knowledge on CMS, e-Commerce or so. It’s always an added advantage to get lean a CMS script. WordPress is a good start, since it has the most tutorial on the Internet.

It is not easy to start up to become a freelancer. I get lots of bomb and critic when I started out and still getting them. But that’s is how I grow. The more the client are demanding, the more I know how to handle client and web design trend.

Tags: Freelance