This week marks eight years since I raised my first invoice as a freelance designer.
I can’t remember much about that job, but I remember the mix of excitement and nervousness.
How much should I charge?
What legal wording should I include?
Shouldn't I have actually sorted out my own branding before starting this whole thing?
Could I really pay the bills going it alone?
1398 jobs, 77 clients and 8852 billed hours later, I wish I could go back and tell the younger me just to press that send button and stop worrying!
From the first brief to becoming a trusted partner
When I first started, I took on anything and everything. Big projects, tiny projects, underpaid projects, "jam tomorrow" projects (the ones that promise future work but never quite materialise). The early days were a crash course in figuring out what worked and what didn’t.
Fast forward to today, and 28 of those 77 clients are still with me. Some have been on the journey since the very beginning. I’ve gone from being "that freelancer who did that one thing once" to a trusted extension of their marketing teams. Now, I work on projects where I really understand a company's brand, ethos, and goals. All without having to sit in their office or ask a load of questions to get up to speed.
Covid actually played a big role in breaking down that barrier. Before 2020, I would have conversations with agencies worried about whether I’d "get" their culture without being on-site. That concern has completely disappeared. Remote collaboration is now second nature, making it easier than ever to work with all kinds of businesses.
The reality of freelance life
One thing I naively underestimated? Peaks and troughs. I imagined I would have more control over my hours, picking and choosing my projects and taking spontaneous days off in the sunshine. The reality? Some weeks it’s a flood of deadlines, and I still have the mindset that if the work is there, I need to take it.
That said, for the year ahead, I'm making a conscious effort to make flexibility work a little better for me. So you won’t find me behind my desk on Fridays for the next few months. I’ll be off having adventures. Or just recharging my creative brain and ignoring emails for a few hours.
How the industry has changed
When I started out, AI wasn’t a thing. Grammarly was about as advanced as copywriting tools got. I was spending hours in Photoshop extending backgrounds and retouching images. Now that can be done in seconds with a couple of clicks. But while some jobs have disappeared (I was once hired for a week to cut out and retouch hundreds of product images!), others have emerged. Design tools like Canva and PowerPoint mean I now get a lot of projects where clients have started designing something themselves but got stuck or realised their design limitations. I just did some number crunching (because, yes, I love a spreadsheet), and adding some magic to presentations now accounts for 12% of my business. Turns out, I’ve levelled up my PowerPoint and Keynote skills more than I ever expected!
Looking back through the archives, I’ve designed for everything from toy brands, infrastructure companies, governing bodies, international football clubs, banks, media companies, stately homes, charities, NHS trusts, education providers, start-ups, and everything in between. I couldn’t have predicted that level of variety, but it keeps things interesting.
Still here, still designing, still pinching myself that I run my own business
So today I shall be celebrating with tea from my favourite mug, which has managed to survive the past eight years with me. Here’s to whatever comes next.
Oh yes, and if you need a good freelancer, need help fixing your design, or just want to talk spreadsheets with me, let's chat. Just not on a Friday though, because adventure awaits... 😀
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