Megalongcat | Design in the Presence of Idiocy. -

I understand when you’re in design school, or you’re just coming out (school just let out for the summer not too long ago) you want to work but you find most positions at design studios, corporate firms, and other venues filled with hard working (theoretically) designers. So what do you do? You freelance. After a while of making a break here or there freelancing you start talking to other freelancers to help your self-started business get off the ground. A couple of jobs later you’ve completely forgotten that your original goal and you’re perfectly content working your own hours. I know a lot of great designers who are freelancers, but I know even more horrible freelance designers who ruin the market for real ones. I’ve freelanced and worked for businesses along with studios and firms and still find that freelancing is not it for me and here’s why:

1. Medical Benefits
I’m not sure about freelancers out there, but in the US, Health Insurance and Dental Insurance are pretty expensive and hard to come by at an affordable rate. To be a freelancer, you have to be organized; sadly most people aren’t and taking care of their health insurance properly is something most freelancers probably forget here in the states. Sticking with a business or firm allows you the alleviation of this by having it simply as part of your benefits package for working with them. There’s nothing worse than paying for a broken ankle right out of your pocket.

2. Learning from Peers
Freelancers learn from other freelancers; they rarely learn from people in the industry who are attached to a firm because people like that tend to keep the secrets of their trade to themselves out of fear of losing their position to someone else. However, when you’re a designer working at a firm with other designers, they teach you quickly and efficiently to make sure that you’re a valuable member of the team. Teamwork is important, one of the most fundamental skills of being a human being, but it becomes hard to develop when you work alone and never stay attached to a business for too long.

3. Growth/Advancement
The best thing about being a freelancer is that you’re the boss. The worst thing about being a freelancer is that you’re only the boss of yourself. Ever wanted to run a corporation or have a higher position than just “the guy that designed this”? Attaching yourself to a business allows for growth and advancement. I started off with one firm as a logo designer and ended up as their assistant director for marketing. What’s nice is that people in and outside of the business start to know your name, and the harder you work, because you’re part of a company you’ll be noticed and have the ability to rise in rank. Freelancing means once you’re done with the project you’re done. They might contact you again for more work, but it will always be the same thing for the most part.

4. Stock
Most freelancers don’t care about it, and they probably don’t understand it. With the economic recession still in force here in the states and around the world most people wouldn’t think having stock at this time is even a good idea. Wrong. Now is a great time to have stock as well to buy up other stock while it’s dirt cheap. Having stock in a company that’s doing well, and keeping track of your stock will not only be great for when you leave the company (sell the stock and get rich anyone?) but it teachers you how to manage it.

5. Resources
As a freelancer, there’s no doubt you’ve accrued a large amount of contacts through your years of working for various businesses. But as valuable as these contacts are, the likelihood of them sending you work from other businesses are close to none. Businesses provide great resources such as laptops, desktops, art supplies, and printing costs for you as long as you’re doing your job well. These resources are great perks when you realize you can go to your boss and say: “I need a new Mac Intel Laptop to do this work right”, and they give it to you to keep.

Working from home is great, but working in an office on strict hours trains you to be diligent and efficient with your time instead of thinking: “Oh I can just do this at night and sleep in”. It’s common knowledge that if you don’t get anything thing done by 12pm in the afternoon, nothing’s going to get done at all.

So what are your thoughts on freelancing as opposed to working directly for a firm or business? I’d like to hear your thoughts.