Weekly round up and other stories

Its been a funny old week. First off, I've wrapped up my freelance work for the Customs House. I'd already done the jigsaws and colouring books, so that left me with the Where's Tommy? Illustration. It was abit of a slog, and the client came back asking for a few amendments so it was back to Illustrator where I redrew the whole background, well live traced it, but it still set me back a couple of days. It was good to get back on Illustrator though, I haven't really spent much time on it recently, opting for Photoshop for most of my work. I think Illustrator brings a different approach though, and that professional finish needed in some projects. Hopefully I'll be playing around with that a bit more anyhow. The clients really happy with the end products though, which in turn makes me really happy, I felt relieved and proud that everything went through okay. Its strange, but when your working by yourself, it can be a bit lonely and daunting, there's no one their to cheer you on or give you a pat on the back...but thats something I'll have to get used too if I want to make anything of myself. Still, sometimes its good to have a second opinion on your work, but as I said, I hope that will come with experience.

I've also managed to get a couple of new freelance gigs too, the first is for a local newsagent. Its basically a logo and a boy riding a bike holing a paper. I'll post it up in due course but I used the same method as I did with the Customs House work. I sketched out a few ideas, which I think is always important as your first idea is very rarely the best one. I then inked it up in Photoshop, and live traced it in Illustrator using the 'detailed illustration' mode. It came out great, so I Live Painted it and hey ho there it was.

The other project is for a marble arts company, they want a Rococo type logo with two characters either end. I've sketched this up and I'm awaiting approval to go ahead, so I'll be sure to update as soon as I can.

Reflecting on the work that I've been doing recently, I think freelance work is exciting, intimidating and rewarding all at the same time. It's a bit like being a footballer, you can do all the training in the world, but once you get out onto the pitch, its a different ball game. You're following set instructions and expected to deliver a high quality product on time and on budget. Seems simple enough, but in my experience I began to doubt myself at first, I almost felt like I'd forgotten how too draw a straight line. But, you just have to work through it. I'm not sure if this a common thing but that was my feelings anyhow. Another important aspect is the time spent on each design. I had to think what my time was worth, and in some respects I think I made some mistakes on this one, especially on the Wheres Tommy. Also, after speaking with Dave, he told me that even if you yourself arn't 100% happy with everything, it doesn't really matter as long as the client is. You could spend more time tweaking things that people won't even notice, and the more time you spend, the less money your essentially making. So I suppose the golden rule is: If the clients happy, then you should be happy.

Freelance work is an interesting beast. As I mentioned it can be a lonely road to take...but the prospect of being your own boss is an appealing one to me. Having said that, I'm under no illusions about how much of a struggle it would be, there would be good times and bad times, and in the beginning I imagine it would be mostly bad times. Building up a strong client base would be the first port of call, but that can take years, you need to prove yourself to be reliable, efficient, and have the skills necessarily to deliver what you say you can, there's no hiding behind colleagues and not answering the phone and the delivery date. That appeals to me though, I like to deal with people and see projects through, I think this could come from my time working at Hexagon, where my job was basically to see a job through from quotation to sales to artwork to delivery. And all business work on the same principle, so I think its set me up in good stead for the future. Having said all this, if someone was to offer me a job in Studio I would bite their hand off, I'm going to keep my options open.