So now that you know how to design logos using Adobe Illustrator as well as how
to write up a contract and a design brief, how is it that we find logo design
clients who are willing to pay for our work? Well, there are a couple of ways to do that.
The first way is actually just seek the work out yourself so you find the clients.
So what I've done in my town. I just go to the Chamber of Commerce and I go to
the listing and I've actually got a lot of clients this way where I re-designed
their logo or their website and I just contact them. I can email them or call them and say,
hey, I'm a designer in the area and if you need a re-design, you know, let's meet
sometime and we can write up a contract etc, etc. And you do need a portfolio to
do this which I go over next, but seeking out work is fine. You need to look at spam laws.
Make sure you're not seen as, you know, spamming people and things like that but
I don't see a problem with just emailing them once and just saying, hey I'm a
Graphic Designer in the area and if you're interested in work, here's my
portfolio and so on. I don't live in Los Angeles but I'm using a large city example here.
I just googled Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce You go to Membership, Business Directory,
so which ever Chamber of Commerce you're looking at or really just any directory.
So if you're in another country, you might not have a chamber of commerce,
and some do but some countries don't. They have more of a business directory,
like we also have Yellow Pages.
There's a lot of business directories. It just depends on the country or the state
or the province, the city that you're in and how they list businesses in your area,
whether they have a chamber of commerce or not regardless, you want to find some kind of directory.
So in this one in the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, you can
actually just look up all people in Accounting or all people in Aerospace,
Airports, Apartments. So I'm just going to Accounting and click search. It lists all
these Accountants, right, and then you can go to their website, it's got the little link here,
and just check out their logo. See if you could maybe design a new one for them or
maybe they don't have a logo, just text and they might be in need of a logo.
Now, that's one way, just contacting people, introducing yourself.
Another way is them finding you, so instead of you going and finding them,
they find you. So what you can do is actually have a portfolio.
So I have a portfolio, you know, .com
and I try to update it every couple of years as far as the
overall look of the entire site but I do try to update it occasionally and I should
update it more often but I'm so busy with other stuff that I don't update the blog
too much. But you need a blog on your portfolio. So when you blog, what happens
is you get these keywords and when people are searching for those keywords,
they're more likely to find your site, right. So if you have longer articles with
good quality content and then people can find your site that way. So that's one
way to get clients, people finding you. I have been contacted by this graphic
design website publication that wanted me to write for the website because of
my contacts and working in the industry but also my portfolio so that can work
when people find you having a portfolio with a blog on it. If you don't have a
blog you do need at least a portfolio and if you have a .com that's great
or you can use a third-party site. There's a lot of different sites like this,
carbonmade is one of many. So if you go to carbonmade.com, the basic version is
free and you can see examples on here, some good examples, and there's a bunch
of different creative areas like Illustrators, Creative Directors,
Photographers, Copy Writers and so on. So if you go to, like Graphic Designers,
for example, there'll be a bunch of different things in here. So Designer, Poster Designer,
Information Designer. So if you go on that, it shows their specialties
in the categories of work.
The reason you need a portfolio is because you need to put yourself in the shoes of
your potential client. Why do they want to hire you? They need to make sure you can
create the work and create it well. Now if you don't have a portfolio, you don't have a lot
of work to put in there at first, you might try doing work for non-profit organizations
or entering logo contests or doing spec work. You know, made up business name and you
create a logo and identity for them. It's just a fictitious company that you put
in your portfolio. You can put it as spec work or you design logos for friends at
a discounted rate and that, that leads to building your portfolio up.
And another thing you want to check out, Behance, is another one where I think the layout
maybe is not as good as some of the other portfolio websites but I think
it's pretty extensive as far as their category so you can go to Advertising,
Branding, Icon Design, Graphic Design and you can see different people's work and
so this is another way also to get discovered. Instead of seeking out work,
you might get discovered and featured on here as well. So those are ways to find
work in logo sign. In the next lesson I'll explain the pros and cons of
third websites compared to just traditional work. Thanks.