Regardless of whether it’s optional or inevitable, it isn’t a good idea for freelancers to let downtime become wasted time. Graphic design freelancers, in particular, can be productive during downtime. Graphic design is a robust industry that’s increasingly growing in importance during the digital age. Companies and individuals alike want to invest in their online brands, and visual style is a core concern. Time spent scrolling through everything the internet has to offer is far more likely to be captured by eye-catching visuals than by even the most carefully-targeted copy. For those creative professionals who excel at graphic design and know how to present their services properly, there’s a lot of money to be made. As you might expect, though, supply has crept up to meet demand, and there may be more graphic designers around than ever before — particularly freelancers. Some graphic designers have top-notch reputations and can charge hefty sums. Others are just getting started and looking to prove themselves. The waters are further muddied by the part-timers: the people who have some basic graphic design skills and hope to occasionally supplement their income streams. Even if you’re the best of the best when it comes to graphic design, the sheer variety of professionals around (and the speed at which visual design trends come and go) will ensure that you have downtime on occasion. You might choose that downtime on occasion, of course, not particularly wanting to work hard all the time. But regardless of whether it’s inevitable or optional, it isn’t a good idea to let downtime become wasted time. It can still be productive. Productive Ways to Draw More Value from Downtime To help you squeeze more value from your downtime, then, we’re going to look at four ways in which you can use it more productively. Let’s get to them: Learn to use new tools Maybe the most useful thing for a graphic designer to do during downtime is work on their skills. The better they get at what they do, the more they can raise their rates, and the easier they’ll find it to secure work in the future. Someone who primarily works using Adobe tools like Photoshop and Illustrator might benefit from dabbling in the Coral suite, for instance. There’s a lot of overlap, naturally, but you may discover CorelDRAW better for some things. Additionally, we all fall into repetitive patterns sometimes, and graphic designers are no different. It’s easy to find one way of achieving a particular effect — even if it’s somewhat slapped together — and keep using it in perpetuity. Downtime can be used to try new methods, which may turn out to be more efficient and/or more effective, particularly if they involve macros. Produce educational courses to sell When you have in-demand skills, providing them for a fee isn’t the only way to monetize them. You can also profit from teaching others to do what you do. Since it isn’t specific actions that make you an expert (it’s […]
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