A Birds Nest

What’s It Like, Shazzer?

People are always asking me what being a freelancer is actually like. For those people, I have written a post which describes the average day. Still want to freelance for a living? Then you really should read on…

1) I wake up around 9am. Okay, so it’s not as early as you, but remember that when you are finishing work I will still be sending emails, applying for jobs, reading emails, getting work done that had to wait because I was…well, you get the idea I think…

2) I first go through any emails I haven’t responded to. I use Facebook. I update my blog. Then I get emails from friends asking me why I didn’t reply to them, because they saw me on Facebook promoting an article. I then have to feel guilty, and reply telling them that I am at work and sorry, but that’s the way it has to be.
3) There is a brief pause for something to eat. By brief I mean while on my way back from having to call my editor. Then I start work again and keep at it until…
4) I realise I should have eaten already. It is now 7pm and I am looking at working another four hours minimum. I could go out, but if I do that then tomorrow it will be even worse…
5) At midnight, it slows down a bit. I reply to a couple of friends emails and then watch some TV to unwind.
6) Just before I go to bed I realise that I forgot to write the press release for laser hair removal manchester …and it is due in the next day at 10am.
7) I get to bed, finally, at 3am…

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The Freelance Diet

My friends tell me I am terrible with food. I either scoff loads of it at once, or I get really engrossed in what I am doing and forget that there is anything but emails, research, HTML and quotes.

Here are my top tips – actually they’re my friends'top tips – on how to survive while freelancing.

1) Put “eat food at lunch” on your to-do list. This may sound really obvious but trust me, it works brilliantly.

2) East snacks, but don’t binge. If you do make the mistake of binging you’ll regret it later, I can assure you. Eat power snacks – fruit and nut bars are very good for this – and you’ll have enough energy to get through the day no problem.

3) Watch that caffeine intake, because, as any freelancer will tell you, it’s dangerous! Count how many coffee’s or tea’s you have in the day and you’ll see just what I mean.

4) Don’t get distracted by websites about compression clothing, or how many cows you can fit in a mini. It just isn’t worth it, plus you’re only encouraging people who try and fit cows in mini’s. Which is just wrong, if I needed to tell you.

5) Take breaks at scheduled times. It’s a well-known fact that you get much more done by having scheduled breaks rather than stopping every few minutes to catch up with Loose Women. I should know…

5) Sugar is your friend. Eat it every so often for a mega boost!

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The Brief

When I first started designing based on what people had told me to design, I, like many people got it a bit wrong. I saw the idea and I ran with it…came up with something that I thought was really good. Although I was very happy with the end result, my client – who didn’t pay for the job, but still – wasn’t quite as impressed. She immediately pointed out things that didn’t fit and pulled out her copy of the brief. Then transpired the most embarrassing fifteen minutes of my life. First she told me everything that wasn’t in the brief – and this was pretty much all of it – and then she told me everything that needed to be included when I re-did it…which was everything I had missed, virtually. Understandably I felt like a miserable failure of a human being. But then we had a coffee and she smiled and said, “don’t worry, I can remember how I was when I started”. She then went on to tell me about how she had started her copywriting firm, and how writing to a brief was pretty similar to designing to a brief: hard to get right, easy to get wrong.

Fortunately the next attempt was better. The design work I did wasn’t quite my cup of tea – a little too corporate – and actually it wasn’t hers either. But the fact was that the information, now, was easier to understand, and that was the whole point. My advice? Don’t see some graffiti on the wall saying r4i and automatically include it, and think more about what is needed than what you personally like. That way you can’t go too far wrong, really.

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Make Money The Easy Way

Most things, if they sound too good to be true, ARE too good to be true. We all know that. Yet every single day people who should know better get ripped off by money-making schemes that offer nothing but a headache and a hole in the pocket in return.

Well, today think yourself lucky because we’re going to discuss – or I’m going to rant at you – about a way to make money that is legitimate, easy and can be done by pretty much anyone.

In a word, or two words to be precise, we are talking about medical trials.

Here are a few reasons why it’s actually a really good idea, as well as some friendly advice on how to approach this as a part-time job:

1) Providing you’re doing it for a good cause, you might actually help advance medical science. That’s pretty good, don’t you think? With cancer and other serious illnesses killing so many people, something has to be done. This is a good way for everyone as the patient gets paid and the research people might be on to a good thing because of you!

2) It’s really easy: most medical trials are very simple. You try out a new pill or harmless drug – the only difference between it and one you can buy on the shelf is that this one has similar ingredients that haven’t been tested. The pay is also quite decent, considering your body biology does all the work for you.

3) When you test products , you have time to think about what you really want to do: you can sit there with a note-pad and ponder your next move, not exactly something waitresses have the time to do.

4) Just make sure that it’s nothing dodgy: in the main, medical trials are perfectly safe, but to be sure always check the credentials of an organisation before doing anything they ask you.

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You Get What You Pay For

The title of this article is a good one and it says a lot, to me at least. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to be confusing it with “If you pay very little, you get a really good product”. This non-sensical saying didn’t used to be the standard, but as a graphic designer I see it being thought of as true all too often. In fact, if you ask me it is very quickly becoming that most dangerous of things: both “seniscal”and “expected”…

It would be easy to blame it all on India, wouldn’t it? All those people willing to do my job at a rate that I could never compete with? But the simple fact is that it is supply and demand. So in that case, there are obviously plenty of people out there who don’t care what the product is, as long as it’s half-decent and arrives with them on time.

My problem is that I like things done well. When I design, I do the whole process with an aim of making them a repeat customer, or at least feel as though they could approach me again. This is where the cheap graphic designers – as with all freelancers – differ. They don’t care about getting repeat business. They are happy to jump from one customer to the next forever, never maintaining a strong relationship of feeling of mutual trust.

I always had this perfection thing. When I was little I wouldn’t go to be until I had drawn some

hovis bread completely accurately. One mistake and I would start again.

Who knows what the solution to all this is? I just have to hope, I guess, that there enough people like me left in the world. Hopefully then I should be OK.

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5 Reasons Why I love Jazz Music

I was a pub recently that was showcasing a jazz band and really enjoyed it like I do Hovis breads. I pondered then why I love jazz so much. Here is what I came up with.

1. Diversity: When you choose to love jazz, you will not be choosing to confine yourself to a particular fixed type of music that must always feature a particular sound so as to be considered part of the genre. Loving jazz means that you will be embracing a wide variety of musical types in fact most jazz enthusiasts can’t even mention every single type of jazz music that is in existence.
2. Performances: When you pay to see a jazz performance, you are always assured that you will get your money’s worth. Jazz performances are all breathtaking since there is no dull way to perform jazz music. You can always see the effort that the bands put into playing the jazz music on the faces of the members of the jazz band. This helps you appreciate even more what goes into the performance of jazz.
3. Creativity: Jazz music allows you to take almost anything and turn it into glorious music. Jazz music makes use of some musical instruments that can never be used elsewhere.
4. Mood: Depending on the type of jazz music that you choose to play, you can set the mood for almost any setting whether what you are looking for is a relaxed atmosphere or if you are preparing for wild party.
5. Inspiring other genres: Almost every other musical genre from blues to rock, ska, reggae and even funk draw much of their inspiration from Jazz music. The influence of jazz music is such that it reaches even those who may not know much about it. If you look at the instruments in many musical genres, you may notice a slight resemblance to those used in jazz only the manner in which they are played may vary.

We are always trying to compare things to find the best options. I found this was the case with all thing, including energy suppliers.

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Organisation IS King (Or Queen, Whatever You Prefer Really)

As a child, I was always very messy. I dreamt of Polar expeditions and Polar bears and great treks up K2 and other dangerous mountains. Basically, I just didn’t have time for organising things, but as I got older I realised that if I ever planned to actually summit K2 or Everest, I would need to get organised.

I never did summit Everest. I didn’t bother with K2 either. Mountains lost out to Barbie and drawing when I was ten, I’m afraid.

But my mum had a point, when I was seven and she said messiness was bad news. Messiness IS bad news, and if you’re going freelance or even if you’re not, organisation is the key to running a successful life and business!

Here are my top tips on how to organise your desk for work so that you can clear it away easily at the end of the day.

1) Don’t put up with a sub-standard desk that’s falling apart and you can never get to sit quite level: buy one with a draw, and that saves a lot of hassle and gives you extra space to store stuff. It’s worth the investement, even if you’re a major cheapskate!

2) Don’t fall into the trap of leaving mess at the end of the day: tidy up each and every day, because we all know there is nothing worse than waking up to the site of an awful, messy desk. It just isn’t conducive to work is the thing.

3) Personal stuff one side, professional the other: this way, you don’t get into a massive muddle. Also, it helps you find documents better, which is a great help when you have a client on the phone who wants to know a quote you wrote down…somewhere…

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Working With Others

Shazzer’s back, peeps, and she’s as awesome as ever! OK, I’m going to stop that now and spell correctly. It’s making me feel all a bit too hip-hop, and that wasn’t quite the look I was going for.

Today’s post is about working with others; it’s something that all freelancers have to do at some point, and they have to get good at it or else people get frustrated. While it can be tough to begin with, it’s all about communication. Here are a few tricks I have for getting jobs done with less confusion:

1) Make sure you know the brief: if you have a question about the job, ask it immediately. You might sound a bit silly, or you might feel embarrassed, but both of these are better than doing the job wrong and then having to re-do it later. Or worse…Losing the job altogether.

2) Be clear about money: I once made the mistake of not being clear, and at the end I only got half as much as I had expected. This is bad news! Money is a big issue when knowing how much time something will take, so best to get this clear on the outset.

3) Don’t lie: it’s no good lying on your CV and saying you have a comprehensive knowledge of Hotels in Looe when in reality you’ve never set foot In that part of the country. Lying might well get you the job, but it won’t KEEP you the job, and surely that’s more important, isn’t it?

4) If you have a problem, address it: any queries should be made IMMEDIATELY. Otherwise, it’ll come back to you later if something goes wrong as a result of you not asking about it earlier.

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Ways To Tell If Freelance Work Is Worthy (Over The Internet)

Now I’m a freelancer in the busy and indecisive world of design, good ol'Shazzer is just one of many freelancers trying to get somewhere fast! The problem is to begin with I went nowhere fast: I didn’t understand what a strange animal freelance work is, and I had no idea how to tell the decent job advertisements from the dodgy ones which were almost certainly scams; here’s some advice so you don’t fall into the same nasty traps I did.

1) Is the punctuation appallingly bad? If a job ad features bad writing, and talks a lot about the benefits “you can get if you surely do sign join up for us working with” then clearly they don’t know their backside from their eyebrows and you should steer well clear.

2) Is the ad worryingly vague? Avoid avoid AVOID!

3) Does it sound like they are too keen to pay you an obscenely low amount of money? You know what I think about this.

4) Do they promise you “a good platform to showcase your work which will impress future clients”? While future clients will be impressed by this, they will be impressed much MORE if you can show them that catalogue you designed for the large format printing place down the road from you. Show them you can work to deadline, and you never need worry about how much you got paid for that first initial job, because it will surely lead to more.

5) Google them, see if you can find their name anywhere; if they supposedly are legitimate, you’ll definitely be able to find their name associated with clients or other companies. If they refuse to give you their name when you outright ask for it, heed the warnings. It’s likely not worth the hassle or your time.

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Top Freelance Mistakes

Shazzer here, and she’d like to welcome you back. I have no idea why I like to talk about myself in the third person. Note: ask parents if I was dropped on head as child.

Or it could be that I am ashamed of myself ever so slightly…the other day, see, I made a freelance mistake and it cost me the job I had applied for. The job I really needed and couldn’t afford to lose. To avoid making the same mistake as I did, read on for some common mistakes that new freelancers tend to make…

1) Pricing themselves too cheaply: it’s very tempting to do this. After all, you’re competing against potentially hundreds of others freelancers – it’s only natural to air on the side of caution. But be warned: don’t go too cheap. It might help you get the job, but after a while the work will become laborious. Most importantly, you’ll not get what you could have.

2) Ranting on too much in your cover letter: cover letter’s are for who you are, what you do, and how you do it differently. You don’t need to put in how you freelanced for two years for an industrial lubricants company and you were all mates and once when you had a break from doing that work you accidentally cut yourself and couldn’t…see what I mean? Cut anything like that out otherwise you risk falling at the first hurdle.

3) Replying too casually: much as the internet can be casual, an employer expects a Dear Sir, as well as a cohesive answer to their questions. There can be no “Hello mate” or “Cheers” at the end, at least not until you’re on first name terms (which you may well not ever be). Don’t do these mistakes and you are at least in with a good shot.

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