Hi guys. Are you dragging yourself out of bed today, just I like I am? Man, Mondays are hard! I thought I’d start this week off my sharing some recent resources that have been helping me out as I figure out this world of full time freelance. It’s been 1.5 years and yup…still figuring it out.
BOOKS: The first life changing resource was suggested to me by the lovely Jessica Comingore. During one of our online chat sessions we got to talking about the always brought up topic, also known as pricing and proving your worth as a designer. We got to talking about specifics when it comes to pricing certain aspects of the work we did and she suggested I get my hands on the Graphic Artist’s Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines. I don’t know how this book slipped through my fingers, but it’s got concrete numbers you can use as a reference when pricing your services. It also has example invoice forms, contract, etc…all very useful! You can buy it on Amazon, here.
TIME MANAGEMENT TOOLS: A few weeks ago, I reached out to a graphic designer Facebook group I’m a part of and inquired about the best online tool for keeping track of where your time goes throughout the day. I wanted to be able to log hours per client, per project and then see everything beautifully represented in a graph at the end of the week. I know I was asking for a lot, but found my answer in the free app called Toggl. The interface is nicely designed, it’s easy to use, and it also comes in a desktop and mobile version so you can track your time no matter where you’re working. Others that were suggested to me were RescueTime, and the StayFocused Chrome Plugin.
STATS ABOUT YOUR WEBSITE: Have you guys ever wondered how your blog, website, or portfolio is performing or just curious what people are looking at? I definitely have wondered and when I came across PEEK (thank Becky Murphy), I found the tool I was looking for. All you do is go to this link, type in your url and see what happens. After a few minutes, you’ll receive a 5-minute video back of a real person using your site and providing feedback. Cool huh?
RENTING CAMERA GEAR: Recently I wanted to borrow a fancy pants lens for a shoot I was doing. This left me with the obvious question of where can I make that happen. My local camera shop is usually my go to solution, but for some reason their rental prices are out of this world expensive. I’ve heard of lots of online rental services, including lensprotogo, borrow lenses, and Contaxrental.com, but I ended up using LensGiant.com. I was extremely pleased with the service and their prices. Everything was shipped quicky and the return shipping was easy peasy. This was my first time renting gear and I found out the hard way that while you can rent additional camera batteries and chargers, I didn’t think to rent memory cards or memory card readers. Oops. Overall, great experience and I’d rent online again.
GAINING OTHER PERSPECTIVES: This fall I bought the Live Pass for the Circles Conference ( a conference for creatives and innovators) and loved watching all the chats live and then watching a few I missed later on with their On Demand feature. If you missed the live chats, you can still register and few all videos with an On Demand pass. Sign up online to gain access.
That’s all I’ve got for now, but I’ll be sure to stop by ever so often to share anything new. Let me know if you’ve discovered any life changing apps, books, websites, tools, people, etc. I’d love to explore more.