by Shaun Crowley

Setting yourself up as a freelance designer? Going solo can feel like a daunting prospect, but if you have a good self-promotion strategy you’ll find work in no time.

The 7 tips in this article show you how to promote yourself as a freelance designer, covering business cards, your online portfolio, direct mail, who to target, contact strategy, and how to conduct yourself in pitching meetings. Read the rest of this entry »

by Gerry McGovern

Practical and functional websites rarely win prizes for design but they do win sales and make profits.

Recently, I did a masterclass on web sales with about 50 Danish web managers. I gave them a list of issues and asked them to choose the most important ones for them. The top 5 issues for these managers were: Increase sales, Customer-focused, Usability, Completing the sale, Serving customers better. Read the rest of this entry »

by Shaun Crowley

You’ve set up your online portfolio. Now you can direct potential clients to your website when you contact them.

But wouldn’t it be great if new clients contacted you?

In the following article, I’ll show you how to conquer the search engines, so prospective clients can find you online. We’ll look at four core areas: Choosing your keywords, Making the content of your website “Googlable,” fulfilling the needs of browsers, and getting other sites to link to you. Read the rest of this entry »

…Getting the most out of your images.

by Jane Long, mirage design

Sometimes you want to create a particular theme or “feel” to something. Something that triggers an emotional response in the viewer. It can be an intimidating task trying to recreate what you see in your mind’s eye, but with a little planning it’s not as hard as you might think.

The key is to break things down into individual components.

For example, mirage design was recently asked to create an invitation with a “Midsummer Night’s Dream” theme. The client (the local school swimming club) had a very clear idea of what they wanted - champagne in the background with words reflecting the theme of the evening sprinkled over the top with something down the bottom (but no clear idea what). So there were three very clear components required to the image. Read the rest of this entry »

A quick, easy year-end assessment you can use to gauge your preparedness for growing your business in the coming year, from marketing consultant and advertising copywriter John Kuraoka.

As 2006 draws to a close, it’s time to look ahead to the business challenges facing you in the first part of 2007. Here are seven important questions you should be asking yourself about your advertising and marketing, to make sure you have everything you need to grow your business. Read the rest of this entry »

by Shaun Crowley

When a potential client types in your URL, they are not just looking to take a gallery tour of your past work. They want to know what you can offer them. That’s why the copy and structure of your online portfolio plays an important role in drumming up new business for you.

In this article I reveal 5 tips to make your online portfolio work a little harder. But, take this advice and you should find more hits to your site resulting in new graphic design assignments. Read the rest of this entry »