There is nothing more satisfying than clocking out after a long day at work. It's a fairly routine thing for offices to encourage everyone to leave between 5pm and 7pm, depending on the type of office. Watching the clock count down to the end of the day seems to take hours longer than it did yesterday. The simple satisfaction of getting your things and heading to the exit is a thrill I don't often have anymore. Many freelancers don't end their days at 5pm. Though maybe we should.

Work Knows Nothing of Time

As a freelancer, I often work from home. My goal is to one day rent a small office space where I can go and use it for nothing but work. Until that day comes, my home office does the job just fine. What happens is there is no clear definition of when I'm working or when I'm not. I always track my hours but when I'm taking a break, I look around and I'm at home. Mentally, I'm in home time. Are there dishes that need to be done? Is the laundry put away? Does the dog need to go for a walk? It's taken some discipline, but I've managed to avoid getting swallowed up by house-hold chores while stepping away from the computer. Projects that allow me more flex time to complete can be put on hold until I have the right wave of inspiration. That wave often comes either in the early morning or the early evening. The middle of the day is the slump time, and often I'm not making my most creative work then. Setting hours of what time is work time vs. not work time were slowly forgotten over the last few months. I catch myself checking emails at 10pm or later on nights I have to get up early the next day. Or making that one last tweak to a logo before sending it off after midnight. At my home office, it's near chaos to how I operate my projects. Everything gets done, but it's like a winding back country road, going up a mountain, in the snow, and you're low on gas.

Setting Your Hours

Some freelancers work best working within the normal 9-5 time range of weekdays. That's great if you can stick with it. I've conceded that I have broken my own rules and worked on projects well after I should have stopped for the day. Emails and other forms of contact with clients happen during the normal work hours of typical businesses. I have to consider what my clients' time schedule and when they're most likely to respond to my messages or calls. Most of them have offices but they have access to their business email all the time. Unless it's an emergency, I wait till 8am to send emails. As we're still in January and resolutions are still pretty fresh for 2016, I'm setting my clock out time to 9pm. Any emails that come after then will still be in my inbox in the morning. I might check it one last time before bed, especially if a project just left for the printers. There's no way of knowing what might go wrong there.

This might be a complete failure. In fact, I'm writing this blog at 10pm. I would have to count blogging as a violation to the clock out rule as it relates to work. But then again, when inspiration strikes you cannot let is pass you by.

All fields of art have style. Whether it's fine art, crafts, posters, sculptures, film, or music; each outlet has niches and genres that make the various styles easy to identify and categorize. The same concept applies to design. Some designers have a specific style or look to their work, making them easy to recognize. But is this harmful to a freelancer? Well, that depends on the goal of the work being created and the designer creating it.

Dodging the Pigeon-Hole

While I was in college for graphic design, I was told repeatedly to not pigeon-hole myself into only one style. I was encouraged to push the boundaries of everything I did. Make cartoons and corporate looking logos. Layout computer themed magazines and children's birthday cards. Make medical manuals beside dog walker ads. Become a Swiss army knife of design and go in every direction but one. For a few years, it did help to some extent. My portfolio was full of examples of things I could make. I was trying to appeal to as many potential clients as I could. I knew at the time people would have their own taste and opinions to what was deemed "good" and I was just trying to satisfy what they wanted. This wasn't the fun part of my job.

Ugly Design Makes Designers Cry

I hated making logos and designs that weren't very aesthetic to the eye. Having a designer's eye, I focus on what's wrong and immediately want to correct it. It was my job to steer my clients into the light, into a design that still reflected what they wanted but wasn't alienating their target audience. In the end, there are logos that I will never display in public. Clients insist that they want what they want, and frankly it only appealed to them anyway, so I would make it and be done with it. I hate that part of the job; catering to the design aesthetics of someone who may have never experienced great design. But what can you do?

Just this past December, I entered a poster competition for an annual arts and crafts fair. I won't name the fair, as I'd like to stay on good terms if I enter their contest again for next year's poster. Having never been to the event, I could only speculate what kind of items they would have there. Fine arts and crafts seem to be the solid majority of items on display and for sale. While the poster I created met all their requirements for must-have content, I know I made it with more of a designer's appeal to the style. I am a fine artist, but I had less than a week to submit a concept. Being more comfortable using a computer, I made my poster completely digital. I used paper texture for all the surfaces, soft summer colors, clean edges, and lots of visual movement for the eye to circle around all the information. I was quite proud of it. Now, they have selected the winner and sent out rejection letters to all the losers. They seemed pleased that they received 19 entries for the contest. In my experience, that's pretty small. But I digress. My letter, which was generic with no name tied to it, told me when I could pick up my entry next week and shared the full name of the contest winner.

Scrapbook Explosion

Let's call her Ester. Well, I decided to look her up. I wanted to see what other work she had done to wow the judges in selecting her poster. No website, but she had an Etsy store so I went there. I won't voice my complete opinion on her "crafts" because I can tell you, most of those graphics are purchased from vector stock websites. I should know. My corporate clients have accounts and sometimes send me there to get graphics their sub-clients want for a project. All of Ester's work looked like the scrapbooking aisle of any crafting store. The curly default Word fonts that made copy difficult to read, colors that were too bold for the small space they occupied, text that wasn't aligned properly to anything (not even in the same paragraph), text that was inserted in any open space (even if it was vertical and impossible to read). The list of violations to design principles go on and on. I kept looking at her work, hoping there was one piece that had more forethought put into placement of graphic elements and text. Every single one was the same. And the only conclusion I could come to was she applied the same techniques to her poster submission.

THIS?!?! Was this the style that wooed the judges? Was this the style that was chosen? I won't know until the poster is revealed until April. I can only speculate that Ester's paper products reflect her overall artistic style.
Am I upset about it? Not really, more disappointed than anything else.

Drilling My Own Pigeon-Holes

I wanted my entry to stand out from the previous winners. Which I know for certain it did. But now that I know the style the judges picked, should I alter my style to something like that for next year? Simply put: hell no.

I'm comfortable creating work in a variety of different styles, but I stand firm on proper design principles. The fact Ester is making money and won a contest with work that violates many design rules, is no slight on my work.

Was Ester a friend to any of the judges or does she rent a booth every year at the fair? I honestly have no idea. Should I compromise my work for a contest with only a chance at winning? No way. If they were a paying client, well that's completely different.

I work for myself and contests come and go. If I were to win, I would want it to be with a piece of art that I am proud to display in my portfolio. If it doesn't win, then oh well. It doesn't mean what I made was terrible, it just didn't appeal to the judges or wasn't a good fit for the purpose.

And that's OK.

Maybe next time I'll find a happy blend of styles between what the judges like and what I want to create.

There are dozens of articles and lists that declare boldly "30 Things You Should Do Before You're 30" or "10 Things You Must Have in Your Apartment When You're 30." Pick an age beyond 29 and random activities or things that are commonly thought of as associated with young people, and you'll get a list of mindless nonsense that is more than stupid, it's disheartening.

Today isn't directly about freelancers and their work, but these types of articles are often found on freelance career sites. The authors associate risk taking and making mistakes are expected (and encouraged) to be done before you hit the big 3-0. Because no one over the age of 30 has ever made a mistake or taken a risk. (pause for sarcasm)

Age Is Meaningless

Here's your daily truth bomb: your age has nothing to do with anything. Now you might be thinking, there are lots of things that I cannot do because of my age. Really? I challenge you to name one thing that is completely out of bounds, that you actually really want to do, but you can't because you're too old. Not an activity that you used to do but you don't now because you have no interest in it, or it doesn't exist anymore, or something that is often for kids only because they're small enough to fit (like kid roller coasters). Eating ice cream for breakfast? Reading a kid's book? Playing with toys? You're an adult, you can do those things if you want to. It's the stigma associated with it that stops people from doing things they enjoy. I'll be the first to admit that I've bought toys as an adult. I still buy little trinkets that make me smile and decorate my desk with them.

Who Cares What Other People Think?

The biggest problem I have with these lists is they assume you're a failure if you don't meet their "by 30" requirements. That your life choices just weren't good enough and it's too late now to improve as an adult. But why? Why does this random blogger get to make the rules and this list of requirements? Why the hell do they get to judge you? Another truth bomb: they don't.

If you didn't check off everything on their list before 30, and there are things you really want to do, then do them after 30. There is nothing stopping you.

There is no expiration date for passion.
There is no age defining your abilities.
There is no number that will limit your choices.
There is only your enthusiasm and ability to not care what others think while you're having fun.

I know I wasn't focused enough to see the big picture in my 20's. I made mistakes, missed opportunities, and did a lot of stupid self-centered things. Now in my 30's, I understand and appreciate what I did do even if it wasn't the complete list. I also appreciate my mistakes as I've had time to learn from them. All the bad relationships, the crappy jobs, the all-nighters in college, all the things that got me where I am now. Not some blogger's definition of me.

If we can take anything from these lists, it's inspiration. There are activities that I still have on my own to-do list but I'm not limiting it to all get done before I'm 40. There's a whole world of adventures to be had and I'm going to do them at my own pace. Sorry blogger, but you don't get to decide for me. Respect your elders.

There is nothing dirtier, or more insulting, to a designer or artist that does their craft for a living than to call them a "hobbyist." Full stop. No really. There are many things you could call them that may or may not be true, but calling them a hobbyist dilutes all their education and experience into a flavorless goulash of mediocrity. Let's be honest here for a moment. Not everyone can be an artist in the sense of a financially successful one. Yes, everyone can be an artist in one aspect or another. But your child's crayon drawings are not the next Picasso or Banksy. Sorry parents. Even if they wish really, REALLY, hard they won't make it to that level without a butt-load of work and dedication.

Hobby vs. Career

There's an old saying that goes "Make your hobby your career and never work another day again." It's a nice sentiment to give someone who is stuck in a dead-end job some glimmer of hope that there is something better just beyond the horizon. But how many people actually seriously attempt to make what they love their everyday job? I'll tell you, a hell of a lot less than you'd think. Because the big reveal is there's even more work to do when you attempt to make what you love into a real money earning endeavor. It's a lot more work trying to convince other people to buy what you're selling, and still love to do it even when no one is buying.

A hobby is something a person does for leisure. That seems much more relaxing than searching for new clients, producing your own work when projects are slow, or attending all the seminars and events to keep up with networking. Even if you put a lot of time to ascend your skill level to the max, it's still something you do for an escape from the everyday. Moving that into the career realm, and there's a lot less relaxing involved. Making projects for yourself might give a much needed break to client work, but only a handful can live off their personal projects.

They can because they are the best and people want their work. Did they start as hobbyists and work their way up into careers? Possibly, but they didn't start at the middle ground and take the short climb to the top. What they might not show is all the rejected work they sent out in the early years. Even in the face of constant adversity, they kept pushing and pushing hard. Eventually, after years or even decades later, they make it. Anyone doing this as a hobby would eventually give up pushing it that hard and go back doing it for fun. Or be so turned off by the backlash that they shake off the craft completely. Rejection weeds out the weak.

Being Taken Seriously

I have no ill towards people that do art in any form as a hobby. I hope they enjoy it and progress their skill as far as they want to pursue it. However, the creatives that have chosen to take the professional route should be held on a higher ground. It's not being an elitist to expect to be held to a higher standard as we take what we do more seriously. This is our living. Most months, it's hand-to-mouth in regards to money and projects. I will politely correct anyone that labels me as a hobbyist and not what I actually am: a freelance graphic artist.

I've spent over a decade perfecting, and still evolving, my skill set to produce the best work I can for clients. I've been drawing since I was two years old and still crave to keep drawing everyday. And I have spent the last few years learning how to better run and maintain my business because I don't want to work in a sea of cubicles anymore. This is the most stressful and time consuming hobby if there ever was one. Calling all this work just a "hobby" doesn't do my efforts justice. It undermines the time, money, blood, sweat, tears, and hair-pulling into an easy to dismiss lark that anyone with basic motor skills can do. If anyone can do this, why aren't they?

To put it in simple terms, not everyone has the courage to. That's not a jab at people that have chosen not to make their hobbies their careers. Some people prefer to keep their hobbies just that, which is OK. Others can't handle the idea of extra work or the risks of rejection and failure. That takes the fun out of it. Hobbies are meant to be fun. I do have fun with my work, but I won't lie and say I'm grinning like a cheshire cat when modifying a logo for the fiftieth time. It's a different mental presence that is required to dig deep and keep working even when you're mentally spent.

All About Passion

Hobbies and careers have the same base to their souls: passion. Whatever gives you joy and pleasure stems from the drive to do it in the first place. Keep building your cabinets, blowing your glass, molding your clay, drawing your sketch, sewing your quilt, or whatever your heart wants to do. But please, don't call creative professionals hobbyists. We only play hobbyists on television.

Happy New Year to all! There's nothing like the coming of January first to instill some much needed motivation to make changes to one's habits. The new year is often a time of reflection on the past year and setting the bar higher for the next one. While personal resolutions are common, going to the gym more, eating healthy, spending more time with family, etc., freelance resolutions are just as important. Running your own business requires a lot of personal investment of time, money, and energy. The new year is a great opportunity to reflect on how your business did last year and what you want to see change or improve for next year. My work resolutions are the same as my personal ones: do more. It may only be one resolution but it covers a wide girth of avenues I want to cover.

Network More

There's nothing like putting yourself into a networking event and pitching what you do to strangers. It's exciting and nerve wracking all at the same time. I did a respectable amount of networking in 2015, as my business was just starting to pick up momentum. Putting myself in public situations where I had to introduce who I was and what I did always made me nervous. I'm not great at chatting with strangers, but I got better at it the more I did it. This year, I hope to attend at least one or two networking events per month. Finding events that would serve me best ties in with my next resolution.

Research More

The internet removes many obstacles that I might have faced half a lifetime ago. From Google's homepage, I can type in anything I want and find relevant information about the local, regional, and national markets. I can see who my competition is and what businesses I should pitch my services to. In 2015, I made a slew of bookmarks to pages I got as results but didn't dig much deeper into them. The bookmark was more like "Oh, this might be useful but I really want to watch some cat videos today" type of treatment. This year, I'm going through all of those bookmarks and checking to see if they are worth keeping and following up on. Which also flows into another resolution.

Organize More

I'm terrible at keeping things in proper order. I have a stack of papers that are in an area I've nicknamed the "file whenever" pile. My goal is to actually file my paperwork once a week rather than once every few months. I know exactly what's in the stack, and that's been a lame excuse to put them away in an actual file folder. In the spring, I go through 75% of everything I own that is small enough to carry with one hand and determine its final fate or location. I love my desk trinkets, but they are overwhelmed with too many office supplies. Putting everything in a new home and de-cluttering my work space is a constant battle I fight. This year I'm going to put more effort into cleaning and maintaining things.

This year will be all about more. More productivity, more connections, more work, more income, more success.

Here's to 2016 and all the mores to come!

The time between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day is the most difficult time of the year. For a freelancer that is. From my experience one year ago, unless you have established contracts or a large project to work on, businesses slow down during the holidays. Holiday campaigns were started months ago to be ready to launch live right before or on Thanksgiving. Retail companies stay ahead by three or four months of the current calendar. How do you think all those new holiday store graphics get in the windows so fast after Halloween? It's because they were approved back in July, went into production in August, and then were shipped to the stores for display by October. For freelancers that didn't come on board until the fall, the holiday season can be difficult to find long term work. It does, however, allow some time to get your ducks in a row that you might have been neglecting for a few weeks. Or if you're like me, a few months.

This year I already know money will be tight and my friends and family aren't expecting a barrage of gifts. I'm relying on my crafting skills to make gifts for people on a very tight budget. It's a hand craft skill I've been itching to get back into and it gets me away from the computer screen for a few hours a day. I'm also using this time to organize my old artwork files and get everything ready for a yearly "dump" on to my back-up drive. My laptop only has so much storage space and moving all things 2015 and older off will only help it run faster.

I also use the month of December to get my tax documents in order. I have several W2's and 1099's coming in January, so I have to get all my invoices and deductibles organized. An organized shoe box of papers is better than missing something important. Taxes are never fun for me, even when I had a full time job.

I'm also sending out holiday cards to my business clients. It's another expense that seems unnecessary during a time of thinner income, but it's a gesture that means so much more. I want to keep in good relations with my clients and most of them are wonderful to work with. Family and friends know how much they mean to me, I want my clients to feel just as important. Without their faith in my abilities to produce work they love, I wouldn't be doing any of this. And that really means something to me. Their continued flow of projects means they want to work with me and know what I do is worth the expense. They allow me to set my own hours, have creative freedom, and do what I love for a living. A card is the smallest gesture I could do for them. Of course I designed something unique for this. Sending a store-bought card would be an insult to my profession. It's always a good idea to think like the retailers and have something ready months ahead.

With all the free time I'll have from a down turn of project work, I'll be hunting for short term projects. This gives me time to go through all those job links I've marked over the year and see which ones I want to keep and pursue. I bookmark so many pages then forget if they were worth looking into. December has become my digital cleaning month. I want to start January with a faster computer and less cluttered list of bookmarks on my browser.

So to all freelancers out there, don't fret. The holidays are a trying time for work but it will pick back up in January. Take it easy and get ready to hit the ground running on New Year's Day.

Have you seen a freelancer working in the wild of a locally owned coffee shop? The mental picture that fabricates might be: a young-ish hipster dressed person, with extra ear piercings and visible arm tattoos, working on a slim Mac laptop computer, drinking a $10 cup of coffee, while using the free WiFi at the cafe in the early afternoon. They are looked on with envious eyes of the workers that are dashing in for a quick to-go cup of caffeine while on their way into a florescent lit room of cubicles, often mistaken for an office, as they wear uncomfortable button up shirts. Other coffee shop patrons are stay-at-home parents, mostly moms, with their newest offspring in tow while they get a much needed coffee before running errands in their matching track suits. At least that was the impression given to me by movies and television. It all seemed so glamorous and carefree. I knew that wasn't the case, but oh how I wanted it to be true.

In fact, the amount of times I actually went to a cafe to sit and use their WiFi as I sipped casually on a cappuccino has been a total of three. Three that I can remember anyway. Some cafes didn't have the most comfortable chairs, so I didn't end up staying much longer after I was done with my drink. Other places got too noisy and I'm not a huge fan of wearing my headphones while out in public. Most of the time it was a hassle to pack up my work station, drive to a coffee shop, and set up to work for maybe an hour or two. No, I spent the majority of my time at home in my elastic waist-banded sweat pants and a comfy t-shirt. I was anything but the model of what a freelancer would look like. But for the past year, my method worked just fine for me.

After a year freelancing full time, all I can say is it feels much longer than that. I'm still in contact with some of my past co-workers from my last office job. Occasionally we have lunch and chat about work and how things are currently. They tell me in so many ways "You aren't missing anything." For the first few months after departing I missed only the people, not the work. And a few months after that I missed the paychecks, still not the work. Another reason I didn't drive out and patronize local coffee huts; money.

Over the summer, my boyfriend and I took a once in a lifetime trip to Alaska. It might sound like I was making oodles of cash in order to pay for that trip, but I'm still feeling the sting of the cost four months later. It was worth every penny I spent but it knocked me back in a way I wasn't prepared for. I had work coming in but it wasn't nearly enough income to pay all the bills. After a few weeks of sporadic clients, I started looking for a "real" job. Something part time that would get a little cash in during the lull in design work. Believe me, I tried every avenue I could before I made this decision. After a half dozen interviews and some time gone by, new clients started coming in and I no longer had to find extra work. Did I luck out? Maybe. None of the jobs I was interviewed for wanted to hire me, even though the interview went spectacular. If nothing else, it was good practice for when I interviewed for a freelance in-house position with an agency downtown.

Like most new businesses, there is very little show in profit for the first few years. I was expecting that but I didn't plan ahead like I needed to. This past year has been an incredible learning experience. Everyone at every creative brunch or happy hour says the same thing, so at least I don't feel quite so out of place. Even this far in, I know I'll never stop learning. My methods are becoming more streamlined and my file of resources steadily grows, making my interactions with new clients much smoother. I know how I want to present myself and have gotten a stronger back bone when I need to say "no" to someone or something. And when I say no, it isn't immediately scoffed at by a potential client. They walk away and later come back with more understanding that I don't sell myself short just because their project is important to them and they think they're special.

Here's to another 365 days out in the wild. And many, many more.

Idiom: Wear many hats. If someone wears many hats, they have different roles or tasks to perform. As a freelancer, this is not an option. It’s a requirement. When you launch out alone you MUST assume many roles that were once distributed to other people in your work space. You’ve become the account manager, the head of finances, the art director, the creative director, the production designer, the graphic designer, and whatever else needs to be accounted for. That requires some learning on your part to ensure invoices are billed out, clients are tended to, emails are read and replied within a reasonable time span, all the things.

After almost a year working for myself full time, I’ve adopted all the roles and now I’ve acquired a paragraph worth of titles that won’t fit on a business card. So which one do I present to new clients? Well recently I’ve been assigned the role as a production designer and another as a creative director. Of course creative director sounds much more important, but I’m flexible. I try to mention in less than a breath or two that I can go from brainstorming to production all on my own. Working from client input, I have had to do all the roles in between the starting line and the finished product. But I don’t worry about wearing all my hats simultaneously, that would be exhausting. I’ve learned to switch gears mid stream and change hats to get multiple projects done. While waiting on feedback for a printed magazine, I change over to icon development, then to presentation boards. All with different audiences, goals, and outputs. Something of a Swiss army knife but in human form.

Does it get stressful? Yes. No point in sugar coating it, it isn’t easy sometimes to halt working in one mindset to work on something completely different. But once you do it long enough it gets a little easier, or less noticeable that you’re doing it. Like with any skill, expertise comes with consistent practice and patience. It took me just around a solid year of working to feel like I’m not tripping over my own feet.

This career path isn’t for those that can’t hold out, and I wouldn’t assume that everyone that tries succeeds even then. If you’re against the idea of adopting different skills and don a few new hats to get work done, then you might be out of luck in the freelancing field. If you work better doing only one thing and letting others wear their singular hats around you, then I hope you find that office or cooperative work space that suits your needs. As for me, I’ll keep adding to my hat rack.

We all know there is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone has to pay the bill once the meal is over. Be it the person who ordered, the person eating, or the person who made it; someone has to pay.

I know I've covered spec work and other forms of working for free before. Today though, I want to talk directly to the potential customers out there that think asking designers to work for free/exposure/until the product makes money.

Take this scenario: a person or company is searching for designers. You don't have any money to spend on a designer but your project will be so widely distributed or visible that the designs will be seen by millions of eyes. While this might be true, you have to consider a few points.

It's Your Product, Not the Designer's

If the design is for your product/service/thing then the designer's name won't be visible on it. It isn't the designer's product, it's yours. Maybe you can put the designer's name on the footer of the website they created for you, or a tiny footnote on that booklet they put together. But their name won't be front and center because that's not the point of the project. Promising a designer exposure in exchange for work is an insulting way of saying "I'm not going to pay you but I want the best work you can make for me, because this project will make ME a lot of money and I'm not sharing." While you might not think the tone is what you might mean, that's how it comes across.

There have been many (hilarious) responses to job posts on Craig's List of people looking for free design work and designers responding to them with mouth-frothing fervor ranging from disdain to rage. I can't argue with them though, as I would feel the same of a client asking for work that would take weeks to do and all for naught.

Freelancers Are People Too

Designers have bills too and need money in order to pay said bills. I know, quite a shocker isn't it? This is where realism comes into play. You wouldn't expect your orthodontist to put braces on your kid for free. They spent years studying medicine and oral health to get to the level of skill they are currently at. Also, they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in schooling, training, supplies, staff, all the way down to the cleaning staff that empties the trash every night. None of their staff or vendors will work for free, so the orthodontist charges their customers seeking their services. Simple economics. Designers are like orthodontists, but much less painful.

If a designer won't work for free or the rate you want them to, they have every right to say no and walk away. We don't come with a set price rate, we each measure our value and offer services at our own rates. I may be less expensive than others, while I am more expensive than most. You aren't paying for the hour it took me to do your work, you're paying for the years of training and experience I have to get to where I can work efficiently (plus that one hour).

If you want to "shop around" for someone cheaper, that is your prerogative. Just know that designers are people too and have bills to pay and work for a living. Just like you.

Focus is what makes skills sharp, talent shine, and projects complete. The ability to know what to focus on and when is imperative to getting things done efficiently, thoroughly, and with a strong force behind it. But when you're the only member of the team doing all the work, it becomes overwhelming. There are aspects that you can do amazingly and other things you can't do at all. So what do you do when you're flying solo on a huge project with lots of parts that you're not comfortable with? Well, before you get to that point you should look at yourself (and your skills) and ask:

• What can I do?
• What do I love doing?
• What do I hate doing?
• What do I want to improve?

Answering these questions will help a great deal when presenting yourself to clients and selecting projects. In the years I've worked in both office environments with other team members and working for myself, I've discovered a few things. First off, everyone does something different in regards to a single project. A few people might be good designers but one is better at making logos, so they got that job. Only one person can code, so they got that job. A few can brainstorm and present well, so those jobs were divided among them. There is some overlap and people can float, but it is a group effort with many hands working together. When you freelance, there might only be your two hands.

After working for a while as a freelancer, there were projects that came up that I could do but I wasn't very excited about them. They involved companies that were too corporate for my flavor of design. But that's the name of the game sometimes. Doing work to pay the bills is going to happen but it isn't satisfying. When the fun projects come along they are often rare and very quick to wrap up. Much like watching fireworks for five minutes. As the skill list grew, I noticed those firework projects were coming in even less than before.

I recently attended an AIGA event at a local branding/screen printing company and art gallery BLDG. They have a flavor for urban street art and present themselves as more of a boutique of branding and design. They don't offer anything web related, do wall murals around town, and they aren't a one-stop-shop for work because they don't want to be one. Their concept blew my mind! With a staff of less than a dozen people, they had a successful shop with amazing work that you could see the love behind. I decided to take their approach and apply it to my company. I've decided to narrow down what I offer so I can find a better niche for myself and the strengths of my skills and be able to do more of what I love.

Can Do's

First I had to figure out what those where. So I decided to make some lists. I love lists. My first list was all the skills I had, things I have done, things I was confident doing, things that were easy to do for me. This is my list of Can Do's:

It's a pretty long list of things. Aside from all under the blanket of design, there is no focus to anything. The amount of items surprised me after I wrote everything down.

Love to Do's

Next was the list of things I loved to do. Using the first list as a starting point, I picked out the items that I loved to do. These were the elements that I get excited about and I know I excel at. Here is my list of Love to Do's:

A much shorter list for sure. I started to see a pattern here of things I enjoyed doing the most. There is a lot of visual items, such as cartoons, logos, icons, and illustration. These are at the core of my passions. It was great to see that and allow me to focus on presenting myself more in this direction rather than with everything else I could do.

Hate to Do's

Now that I covered the love part, time for the hate part. This list includes items from my Can Do section and also includes things clients have asked me to do in the past. These also include skills that I can do but not well enough to say I can. I don't offer some of these items openly, as I don't feel confident in my abilities. Here are my Hate to Do's:

A much shorter list this time. It also displays for me what I want to avoid doing. In my case, anything related to code. I know enough X/HTML to get by, but it's a skill set that I never mastered. More importantly, after I tried to learn it I never wanted to be a master in. It just isn't my cup of tea.

Want to Do's

Finally was my dream list. This list has items that I can do but I'm out of practice in. It also has items I want to learn and focus on as new skills to present to my clients. Here are my Want to Do's:

This list supports my Love to Do's list with things related to playful things, like toys and greeting cards.

Writing these lists provided so much clarity to where my passions are and what areas I want to step away from. It won't happen overnight, but I now have better focus on where to put my force.