Bleek Blog

From the moment I decided to freelance full-time, I’ve been working hard to get everything up and running. I did have a side business before deciding to go full-time, but I really wanted to start fresh since our old company, Globalphobia, was primarily web and software development based (as my husband is a software developer) and old school at that. And so, to get started, I made lists and more lists, got my office painted and prepared, picked my name and designed my logo and started designing the website. That part I could handle. It was all the legal stuff and learning how to manage your own business that was extremely daunting. Here are the steps I took in getting set up, including all the design stuff.



Talk to people. Talk to everyone. Parents, friends, neighbours. Especially people who own and operate their own business. In my case, my life line came in the form of Lea Alcantara, a friend and fellow student of mine at Grant MacEwan who had started her own successful design company, LeaLea Design, a couple of years ago. Not only did she give me excellent business advice and answer my multitude of annoying questions, she also helped me immensely with branding myself thanks to a helpful series of articles found on her website. And that leads me to number 2.

Brand yourself. Not as easy as it sounds, that’s for sure! I could ramble on about how to do this (or at least how I did it) but Lea says it much better in her article series on self branding.

Register the domain for your company name. Once you’ve picked a name, the challenge is finding a domain with your company name in it (or a part of it) that’s actually available. I got lucky… the .com version of my name was taken, but .net wasn’t.

Pick and meet with an accountant. My only criterion for this was that the accountant be familiar with working with independent contractors. I literally knew nothing (and still don’t know a lot) about managing books or anything at all related to accounting since numbers and accountants scare the pants off me. So what I did to prepare was bring my husband along (who knows a heck of a lot more than me) and show up armed with a long list of questions. A looong list. Ask Lea. I love lists of questions.

Do up a business plan for personal use. As a consultant/micro-business, a business plan isn’t necessary but it was vital in helping me nail down my target market and the overall goal I had for my company. It’s best to do this before the process of branding instead of in the middle of it like I did, but invaluable nonetheless. The best site for information and assitance on writing you business plan (as well as info on starting a business in general) is the Government of Canada's Business Start-Up Assistant.

Register my trade name and business. This one wasn’t as obvious to me as the others. Some people recommended going through a lawyer, but all I could picture was my start-up funds quickly depleting, so I did some research online and found out I could go to any registry and do it there. Sweet! Now, to most people, that’s probably pretty obvious, but I had no idea where to go as the last time I set-up our business I went through a lawyer. So 15 minutes in a line up, $44, and one form later, I was good to go.

Set up a business account. I signed up for a separate personal account being a micro-business and all, and ordered my cheques. I also set up a Pay Pal account.

Get a fax number. This one isn’t necessary, though I figured it would come in handy. For just $10/month, you can get a fax number at myfax.com, and all faxes are emailed to you in PDF format. I can send PDF documents as faxes, or I can scan documents, PDF them, and send them that way as well. Pretty cool!

Get business cards and other stationary printed. Most definitely the most exciting part for me! Thanks again to Lea, I went through print100.com to get my business cards printed (who did an amazing job, by the way—varnish and rounded corners all for a very low price) and I made up my letterhead and envelopes so they are ready to print on an add need basis for now.

Organize and create your own workspace. A spare room, a nook in your living room or kitchen… whatever works. In my case, my office is a spare bedroom painted a warm tan with white trim and chocolate brown accents. I didn’t spend a lot on re-doing my office, but the transformation was pretty amazing and I’m able to get a lot of work done in the calm and relaxing environment. The best part is it’s pet friendly, so my 4 cats and 2 pugs can co-exist in the space with me. Note to self though: chocolate brown fabric and fawn coloured pug hair don’t mix.

Design and launch your website. Ah, the website. My baby. Designing and implementing my website was incredibly fun, but like any good child, it caused some frustration and cursing as well. Learning to use Expression Engine as a developer has a bit of a learning curve for a non-programming savvy web designer like me, but once I figured out what I was doing, I quickly realized how much in love I am with this tool. It’s incredibly powerful and easy to use. ‘Nuff said.

Prepare template for invoices, write up web contracts, establish pricing guidelines. Lucky for me, I had already pretty much established my pricing guidelines, but if you’re struggling, check out a book called Graphic Designer's Guide to Pricing, Estimating & Budgeting Revised Edition by Theo Stephan Williams. I used another book called Business and Legal Forms for Graphic Designers (3rd Edition) by Tad Crawford and Eva Doman Bruck to help set up my web and design contracts with my own tweaking here and there. It comes with a handy CD with all the files, so it’s really easy to use.

And that’s pretty much it really. I guess the obvious next step is to get out there, network with people, and generate yourself some work. Word of mouth and a shot of bravery go pretty far in the world of freelance, and of course, it helps if you've already been doing work on the side and have a list of existing clients. For more information on actually generating business as a freelance designer (or where to start), check out Veerle's article on what she learned from starting her own business.