25 Getting Started Right
business models, and a ton of them simply worked
because someone had a problem and solved that
problem in a beautiful way.
”
Valuing Your Skills: A Word for Students
If there’s one thing that I could “do over” from my college years, it
would be this: I wish I’d taken the option of freelancing more seri-
ously. The idea of “student work” gets a lot of flack from the design
community, but we’ve all been there. The truth is, there’s no better
time to take risks, experiment with new skills, and beef up your
portfolio with real-world work than when you’re in college.
Value Your Skills—Wherever They’re At
Being an ambitious, inexperienced designer can be a frustrating
stage of your career. You’re being trained to be a professional, and
you know you’re talented, but you don’t have the projects under
your belt to prove it. What’s more, everyone expects you to work
for free.
Let’s address that last one right away. You’ll run into a lot of non-
profits and academic groups as a student who need design work
and ask you to contribute your time. You should never, ever work
for free. Even as a new designer, even if freelancing is not your
intended career, you need to value your own skills and time. That’s
not to say you need to charge these non-profits exorbitant rates as
a new designer, or even exchange money at all, but there always
has to be something of value traded for your time. Perhaps the
group can offer you some great promotion, feature your work at a
public event, or write an excellent testimonial, or offer some other
boon that helps to get your career off the ground.
Not only does this help build your reputation as a designer, but
it also sets the tone for dealing with your design clients. If your
