Some prospects of a web designer getting into freelance carreer

This post is a reply to a comment from Jun Lisondra on my post Important thing to remember, when being hired by a web design firm.

I personally think there is a lot of benefits doing freelance. The only thing that is harder is, that you need to find clients by yourself, but you can do that in a lot of ways actually. The other thing is that the payments are better if you do it right. But sometimes there are either payments nor clients - but this depends also since if you aren’t looking for any you won’t have any. A good solution for this is to just save money for these days. Also blogging while freelancing can make you money.

There are a lot of ways getting clients. For example, posting your work on forums, having a signature to your site on forums, attending contests (this is good for exposure which equals clients, it’s good for your design skills + you get money if you win). You should check out www.getafreelancer.com and sign up, make a profile for yourself and use the service for notifying you when some new work pops up, i’m sure you will get more then 3 emails a days with more then 10 small or big job offers and work that people need.

Also if you already have a good job and aren’t working your ass of and the payment is good, you really should think about maybe rather staying and continue to work what you do since it does give you financial safety. Also, you should take in consideration what all the firm is also paying for you at the end of them month like health insurance and other stuff that you really need.

I like freelancing more because:

• a) i’m still studying at a faculty and i need time for that
• b) i make enough money online with design work and affiliate marketing as a part-time job
• c) i can go everywhere whenever i want, i make my own daily plan and routine, when i want to work i work when i’m not in a mood i don’t ( the biggest problem here is, that you can get really lazy! )
• d) i choose the work i want to do and like - this means less stress and a lot better work done.
• e) i choose my reasonable deadline which can be extended
• f) a lot of clients like webmasters will need more work in the future, if they like my work i will be able to work on their future projects
• g) i work at home
• h) i can work drunk and naked

I don’t like freelancing because:

• a) sometimes i have to work at night because of the time-zone the client is in
• b) today i have steak, tomorrow i may only have soup
• c) i can get lazy

There may also be some other “i don’t like freelancing” problems, but i can’t think of them right now.

In conclusion freelancing can be seen as a different lifestyle in some points a better one and in other not so good.

Also if someone thinks of some other points, feel free to add them in your comments.