Horatio Farquaar asked:


We’ve all dreamed of spending our working days reclinining back in a deck chair eating cheese sandwiches on an overcast summers day. But then we remember the mortgage/kids/wifes $500 a day drug habit and our fantasies turn to dust. It doesn’t have to be this way. Here at www.mindtap.co.uk we show in 5 easy steps how you can quit that lousy Graphic Design job and spend the rest of your life living in easy street.

Step 1: Think yourself in a better place and low and behold it will happen

This is your first step towards financial freedom. Imagine if you will yourself sat upon a huge pile of money, flinging it in the air with *** abandon and why not? Congratulations you’ve just made the first step towards making this a reality. Forget the graphic designer career you had mapped out. Let’s join the idle rich instead.

Step 2: Tell the boss what you think of him and burn those bridges!

Now its time to get some payback. Remember the time your design studio manager had you stay late and manually key in that 1oo page farming brochure text by hand and then laughed at you in your face? Right, we’ll show him who’s boss. A good way to be forcibly removed from the office and earn some extra kudos from your fellow graphic design employees is to take a dump and leave it festering away in a drawer in the bosses desk.Just wait for his reaction when he smells that sick stunt. You’re history.

Step 3: When you hit rock bottom the only way is up, up and away

No job = No money right? Wrong you putz. How do you think the tramps and beggars fill there days outside sainsburys? That’s right – drinking and robbing. It isn’t absolutely necessary to pick up a drink and drug habit at this stage but it isn’t going to harm your chances of success. Now would also be a good opportunity to get rid of the other half if you happen to have one. A spot of domestic violence after hitting the bottle is usually enough encouragement. Hey Presto, one more tiresome burdon off your back!

Step 4: Remember keep your vision and your dreams will come true

At every stage in this degenerate journey, never lose sight of that image we visuallised in step one of yourself sitting astride a huge pile of banknotes. They can take away your dignity but not your dreams. After several years of eeking out a living as a street bum its time to get this show on the road. Think hard about your previous day to day life, was there someone in your remote family or circle of friends who had a large stash of cash readily disposable? It’s time to pay them a visit with cap in hand.

Step 5: Invest wisely and you can say hello to a life of wanton abandon

Now after securing your large sum of cash from your chosen aquaintence, its prudent not to blow it all in one go on 200ft gold statues of yourself or buying an amusement park complete with zoo. No, you don’t want to be going back to the nine to five graphic design day job do you? There are a thousand ways to invest your cash so that it will sit pretty and continue giving you a steady stream or revenue for a long time. Property for example is ‘as safe as houses’ or maybe put it all in a high interest savings account. It’s taken a long time to reach your goal and hopefully the pain, ill health and loneliness have been worth it.

anton ardjanggi asked:

Few years ago, I had an opportunity to discuss with one of Indonesian well-known ‘branding expert’ about “how we can survive as a graphic designer, specially a freelance graphic designer. Does style affect?” He said, “What is style?! Go to hell with it. Style is killing designer!”

His answer really shocked me, because I am a graphic designer who likes certain style of design, and without I realized people recognized my work by that style.

What he said might be true for graphic designers who work at advertising agency or some creative boutiques, because they have to be able to fulfill what clients need and obey their boss.

It made me think. Do I have to change my style?

Then I tried to trace all the way back. I have been 10 years working on graphic design field, during that time I always design with a certain style which more oriented to German style that has a certain characteristic such as ‘neat, compact, well alignment with strong square or rectangle geometrical shape’. In fact, in my early years I broke the design style one of the biggest local bank which already known as a very conservative bank with ‘minimalism, modern and geometrical’ kind of design.

That makes me sure that graphic design style is not always about era, just like many people think. Style is more related to like or dislike. In other word, a certain style won’t kill designers’ life.

On the other way around, a freelance graphic designer will be able to survive with his/her own style.

A freelance graphic designer, who has his/her own style, unconsciously would create his/her own target market. With their portfolios, prospect clients would see the characteristic of their artworks.

So, to those (future clients) who like our design style will fall in love automatically when they see our artworks without wasting more time to brief us what they want. The only information we need is about product they sell or message they want to deliver. They already trust us on how we will visualize it.

We don’t need to deal with hard to please kind of clients.

But still, it doesn’t mean that we are stuck and stop digging our creativity. Explore and strengthen the style in order to get the personal touch, that way our style will be our identity in graphic design industry.

Design style that becomes identity is very important for freelancers, because it is not easy for freelancers to get new clients. That is how to attract new clients.