10 Biggest Mistakes of a Freelancers

I am not a perfect freelancer. We all make mistakes and learn from them. As a freelancer, here are the list of my common mistakes and how to avoid them.

1. Missing Deadlines - Learn how to budget your time. Finish the task 3 days before the given deadline.

2. Charging too little – Find out the market average of you work and try to ask a little more.

3. Lack of preliminary research – Know the client and his needs.

4. Choosing the wrong client – Select a client carefully. Evaluate him if he is the right one for you.

5. Getting too personal – Be a professional freelancer then try to be a friend to him depending on how the client handle the communication.

6. Letting off steam – Do not communicate on him right away. Let your steam off some other way. When you have calmed down, communicate with your client in a non-emotional but professional manner.

7. Not proposing a follow-up idea – After completing the task, make a follow-up proposal for future work. If there is no reply, follow up.

8. Not having multiple income streams – Always have a multiple ways of income. Don’t rely in just one client. Have another way to get other sources of income.

9. Allowing yourself to slack – Work when you feel that you are productive. But if you have deadlines to meet, push your self to finish the task before the given deadline.

10. Failing to be yourself – Start from the start and find a work that aligns with your values. Don’t be afraid to say “no” to the stuffs that you don’t like. Always strive to fine work that you love.

7 Tips for Freelance Web Designer

Love your work
Never stop studying
Specialize your skills
Have a good portfolio
Use your contacts
Have a time management skills
Build a good reputation

Graphic Design

Visual design. Art direction, visual communication, creative direction, illustration, photography, visual art. Using color, symbol, and type to communicate ideas, brands, styles, and expressions. Arranging image and text to communicate a message. Style versus design. Layouts, grids, identity and logo design. User interface design, user experience design, interaction design. GIF, JPEG, Flash, PNG, SVG.

Typography

Communicating via typefaces. Fonts and layout. Designing for readers. Legibility. Typefaces, graphic design. Problems of typography on the web. Controlling web typography: size, font, color. CSS methods, browser problems, user problems, and workarounds. Typographically correct punctuation. Unicode. Scaling text in modern browsers. And in IE for Windows, too. Replacing text with images: CSS, XHTML, SVG, and Flash methods.

Webpage Layout

Web page layouts: ways and means and meaning. Grids and rules; columns fixed, liquid, and elastic. Size, color, and contrast. To center or not to center. Layout and genre. Print paradigms and new media approaches. Let the web be the web.