Sevenzest

Babble

24 April 08

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How I work

Since I’ve been freelancing (my third week now!) I’ve been thinking about my success as a designer. As I grow, both creatively and as a business person I’ve been wondering where my success comes from. What is making clients choose me over another designers or other companies? Is it the price, is it the talent, or is it word of mouth and referral. In terms of my own clients I think I’ve been able to attract new businesses to ‘try me out’ as I’m friendly (personality), but also I’m knowledgeable and give honest feedback and opinion. In this profession I’ve come to really admire my clients for coming to me and trusting that I will communicate to their target audience. So in retrospect I think the core factor of being creatively successful comes the ability to be intuitive. Being able to sense what the client is trying to say, being sensible enough not to cross that line where you know something you want to add in the design (I mean really, really want to do cos it looks cool!), but know that your client will not stand for it. It means being intuitive in the ability to make judgments when your client asks you for a logo but only have a business name and no goal or idea.

I’ve come to do learn more and more about trusting my abilities to portray something that my clients want, and feel is needed – and not just what I think they should have. In fact I’ve got to thank my old employer for that, she really taught me how important it is to listen to her clients, and the times where I ‘instinctively’ knew (but ignored) that I had crossed the line because I thought FOR the client I ended up upsetting the client. So say good bye to ego driven environments and personalities. I have really discovered who I am (or striving to be!) through my designs and work ethic. I do wonder if I could ever handle working in a big corporate advertising environment again. Mm probably not.