[QUOTE=Crhem van der B;37505581]You see SCop, working in a web dev company assures that you DO get a wage. Working as a free lancer does not guarantees that you will be paid, sure, you can earn much more, however, what if you don't get lucky that month and find no work? You're pretty much fucked.
And this also applies for, let's called them start-ups, as in, first of all you must have some capital beforehand, because you will not earn money for at least some time. And another problem - if your idea fails, you're also pretty much fucked.
And that's why I think a set-wage job is important. Really, once you have such a job, I believe you should start thinking about your own ideas as side projects and when they're mature enough, leave your current work and dedicate yourself to the project.[/QUOTE]
I see too many people undersell and undermarket themselves as freelancers.
I know of a few freelance graphic designers, and their personal approaches by observing how they work.
One barely gets jobs and seems to spend all his time on Facebook going on about how he doesn't work for free.. even making beautiful images explaining how little he makes and how much he should be making. He uploads all his work onto Facebook and has no real way for people to contact him, aside from facebook.
His 'target market' seems to be small independent shops and bands, and people who want tattoos. All of these avenues have very little in the way of capital with which to pay him, so he shouldn't be expecting much more than 100 pounds per design, nor should he be pissed off when people ask him if he'll work for free.
Another spends time making a sharp, crisp, awesome corporate logo, and names his company after his own name (pretty simple right? Barely any creativity required for that but it works). He draws some select pieces of work that are of interest to his target market (cars designs) and puts them up on a nice portfolio website with a simple and clean theme.
He goes straight to every car and car design firm he can find, along with any companies tied to car design in some way, via email, to offer his services and price, and sends them a link to his portfolio. Within a day or two he lands a big contract and gets tens of thousands of pounds worth of work very quickly, which pays the bills for several months.
Another, who has been established for several years, offers his design services to companies like BMW and Audi to name a few.. He's somehow got away with charging them ridiculous amounts of money per concept he displays to them, and even if things aren't ever used, he still lands like the region of eight thousand pounds per iteration of design (half-weekly presentations or whatever) for some of his work. Of course he had to get to this stage first, which meant he did work for smaller companies and made less than he does now at some point in the past.
You have to remember that some huge companies probably hire ten different freelancers for the same job and just pick from the best one. When you've got millions coming in the door every day, having £100k to blow per week on some design projects is petty cash.
So yeah that's it. The 'trick' as a freelancer (can be applied to business as well, really) is to create work similar to what a customer already has, which will appeal to them. Stuff that matches their brand focus, if you will, and then contact them. Don't sit back waiting for jobs to come to you, or you'll end up behind a till at McDonald's, wondering why you aren't getting the recognition you deserve.
As for start-ups, it's a whole new ball game. If you can do stuff yourself the cost can be pretty minimal. Hosting for £5 a month and domains for £5 a pop (yearly). Where the ideas come from? Who knows. Experience as much as you can every day (even outside of the internet, although this is not essential) until inspiration strikes I suppose.
[QUOTE=Crhem van der B;37505581]You see SCop, working in a web dev company assures that you DO get a wage. Working as a free lancer does not guarantees that you will be paid, sure, you can earn much more, however, what if you don't get lucky that month and find no work? You're pretty much fucked.[/QUOTE]
If you're running your business right (and yes, as a freelancer you are 100% an entrepreneur and business person, not just a developer or designer, which a lot of people seem to not realize) you don't rely on luck to find projects.
I never perceived working as a freelancer my business. I did it (and will do, probably) because I wanted to gain experience in the field and at the same time earn some money.
If you see yourself as a business then I do not think you can call yourself a freelancer.
[thumb]http://i.imgur.com/noFHj.png[/thumb]
Finished the blog redesign :) (live@ [URL="http://blog.rndm.de/"]http://blog.rndm.de/[/URL])
If you got any problems feel free to tell me.
Windows 8 Buttons: [url]http://jsfiddle.net/usa_/h5m8a/2/[/url]
I just had to have them.
[QUOTE=Amiga OS;37514029]Sexy, get some Segoe UI as the default font. Fall back to Open Sans if the user isn't on a windows machine.[/QUOTE]
Im going to use them on my new site along with some even more sexy transforms similar to: [url]http://lab.hakim.se/meny/[/url]
I'm building up my new personal site, probably it will be finished when... never, i guess.
[thumb]http://i.imgur.com/vwuBU.png[/thumb]
Looks like shit though.
I want to add a shoutbox to my site. Any recommendations which one to use?
Also, are shoutboxes a good idea? Or is there something with similar functionality that works better.
[QUOTE=Darwin226;37521524]I want to add a shoutbox to my site. Any recommendations which one to use?
Also, are shoutboxes a good idea? Or is there something with similar functionality that works better.[/QUOTE]
A shoutbox sounds so 2003. What do you need it for, what kind of site do you want to put it on?
I know what you mean. Not to mention most of them would degrade my site to a teenage girl's blog.
I don't really NEED a shoutbox but here's my situation.
It's a gaming website, we organize tournaments for League of Legends. I want a place where people can ask stuff, or generally talk and I can reply to them when ever I can. Something like comments on videos. I would use a forum but I think it pushes people away because they need to register.
Since it's a small website I don't see a problem with posting stuff as guests because I can remove it manually so a forum is an overkill.
[QUOTE=Darwin226;37523478]I know what you mean. Not to mention most of them would degrade my site to a teenage girl's blog.
I don't really NEED a shoutbox but here's my situation.
It's a gaming website, we organize tournaments for League of Legends. I want a place where people can ask stuff, or generally talk and I can reply to them when ever I can. Something like comments on videos. I would use a forum but I think it pushes people away because they need to register.
Since it's a small website I don't see a problem with posting stuff as guests because I can remove it manually so a forum is an overkill.[/QUOTE]
Doesn't sound hard to make IMO
Well, I have never worked with databases and I have no idea how I'd make it auto refresh.
Besides, I don't want to make it myself.
[QUOTE=Darwin226;37523957]Well, I have never worked with databases and I have no idea how I'd make it auto refresh.
Besides, I don't want to make it myself.[/QUOTE]
Why not just make an IRC channel or a Skype group chat?
I don't need to communicate with the people I know. I want to be able to communicate with the visitors of my site.
[QUOTE=Darwin226;37523957]Well, I have never worked with databases and I have no idea how I'd make it auto refresh.
Besides, I don't want to make it myself.[/QUOTE]
Why not just make an IRC channel or a Skype group chat?
[editline]3rd September 2012[/editline]
oops
[QUOTE=Amiga OS;37524743]IRC is public, and quite handy. Look into it.[/QUOTE]
But it actually fulfills none of my demands.
You need some kind of registration system, you can see only the messages that are sent after you log in and it's a bit too big for what I want.
[t]http://i.imgur.com/gSofA.png[/t]
Will add margins to the text, change the background color of the main block of text, and some other stuff.
Thanks to USA for those buttons, I somehow made the buttons seamless.
CC?
[editline]3rd September 2012[/editline]
Is there a way to make a div length relative to another div length?
[QUOTE=Darwin226;37525304]But it actually fulfills none of my demands.
You need some kind of registration system, you can see only the messages that are sent after you log in and it's a bit too big for what I want.[/QUOTE]
False, chatlogs, and false.
You obviously wouldn't host your own IRC server.
Made this today.
[url]http://gw2trading.com/[/url]
[QUOTE=The freeman;37525446][t]http://i.imgur.com/gSofA.png[/t]
Will add margins to the text, change the background color of the main block of text, and some other stuff.
Thanks to USA for those buttons, I somehow made the buttons seamless.
CC?
[editline]3rd September 2012[/editline]
Is there a way to make a div length relative to another div length?[/QUOTE]
Paragraphs are far too wide, at that size it becomes a chore to read.
Either narrow the text, or go for two columns.
[QUOTE=SCopE5000;37529678]Made this today.
[url]http://gw2trading.com/[/url][/QUOTE]
You need some validation on that email submission, apparently 'dicks' is a valid submission
[QUOTE=wizard`;37529931]You need some validation on that email submission, apparently 'dicks' is a valid submission[/QUOTE]
Haha, gonna prune it at a later date with a function that works out what's an email and what's not.
[QUOTE=SCopE5000;37529964]Haha, gonna prune it at a later date with a function that works out what's an email and what's not.[/QUOTE]
I'd recommend doing it sooner if you plan on spreading it around, SQL injection galore right there.
[url]http://wolfenstein.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_4/Floor_10?useskin=monobook[/url]
I made a new skin for the wiki I am an administrator of. Comments?
The CSS code I edited may be found [url=http://wolfenstein.wikia.com/wiki/MediaWiki:Monaco.css?useskin=monobook]here[/url] if anyone wants to check that out. Note that I have only limited CSS skill.
[QUOTE=Darwin226;37525304]But it actually fulfills none of my demands.
You need some kind of registration system, you can see only the messages that are sent after you log in and it's a bit too big for what I want.[/QUOTE]
get a chatroom and register a bouncer for yourself then you can see all the /pm's when you login.
[QUOTE=Elecbullet;37531645][url]http://wolfenstein.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_4/Floor_10?useskin=monobook[/url]
I made a new skin for the wiki I am an administrator of. Comments?
The CSS code I edited may be found [url=http://wolfenstein.wikia.com/wiki/MediaWiki:Monaco.css?useskin=monobook]here[/url] if anyone wants to check that out. Note that I have only limited CSS skill.[/QUOTE]
- Don't use wikia
- Colors are horrible (blue links on a blue background)
- Use of transparency just looks weird
Apart from that the layout is fine for a MediaWiki Wiki.
Actually enable the theme called Vector or something if you can, its the one they use on Wikipedia. (I don't think you can do that on Wikia thought)
The [url=http://wolfenstein.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_4/Floor_10]old theme[/url] looks a lot better. :e
[QUOTE=adamjon858;37497991]ITT: Mostly 18 year olds and younger who've never have a real job and don't understand how finances in the real world work.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=adamjon858;37497991]ITT: Mostly 18 year olds and younger who've never have[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=adamjon858;37497991]who've never have[/QUOTE]
Thank god I'm not in that category because I've have a job for quite some time now.
