Freelancing, something probably something every designer thinks about at some point. It may be an aspiration, something that instills fear, or maybe a little of both. As with any path, there are advantages and disadvantages to choosing that of an independent designer. The main appeal of freelancing is flexibility. You have control over what you want to do and how you want to go about doing it. There's also the option of working from home or having your own studio. Each allows you to create a space that best suits you. The downsides include having to constantly find work, having to take care of the managerial side of things, and the facing the apparently persistent problem of late payments. As enjoyable as I think it would be to work from home, having to take care of all the overhead doesn't sound all that attractive. Well, that, and I know I'd be easily distracted working at home (I'm looking at you RSS).
Chapter four takes the idea of working for yourself a step further, which is setting up your own studio. I've thought about what it would be like to work in-house or at a studio, even freelancing, but setting up a studio is something I never really considered. Shaughnessy lists throughout the chapter the sorts of things you'd need to start up a design studio, and a lot of them are things I wouldn't want to think about. There was something in there about getting poked in the eye by a sharp business plan. I don't want to get poked in the eye, especially by something sharp, it sounds painful. One thing Shaughnessy lists that really stood out to me though was the need of an identity for a studio. He says "Few things will vex you as much as creating your studio's identity – it exposes a weakness in the mentality of most designers. We are generally bad at designing for ourselves." Beginning to work on my portfolio, this is painfully relevant (especially after sketching logo after logo).
Designing a Digital Portfolio, Chapter 2
In chapter two Cynthia Baron talks about self-evaluation. Part of this is figuring out your strengths, what you need to improve, if you have the right skills for your target audience, all things that should play a role in how you put together your portfolio. The self-assessment checklist provided in this chapter is a no-nonsense sort of way of helping to point you in the right direction. Abilities, goals, and personality are broken down into a list and while going through it told thing I already know about myself, it did bring to light some things I want to look into. One such thing is finding a balance between the personality of my work and the personality I want to give my portfolio. John Slabyk's portfolio I think is a good example of one way to do this. Even though his work varies from things like the Jello home page to urban and grunge-inspired shirt designs, he has a site that works equally well in displaying them. Something else in the chapter that stuck out to me is the push for a few strong pieces in a portfolio rather than a large number of pieces that may only be so-so. This could mean cutting out work that reduces the overall variety of your portfolio because quality is more important. While this is something I've been told before, seeing it here coming from the author and in quotes from designers really reinforces the idea for me and will hopefully keep it on my mind as I start to gather my work.
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