My
Website:
http://www.aithene.net Computer: 17” G4 Mac Laptop Favorite Work Apps: Photoshop, Painter, Flash Favorite Play Apps: Snood, Enigmo, Crazy 8s Art School: Joe Kubert School of Cartoon & Graphic Art Major: Animation & Sequential Illustration Favorite Artist: Michael Whelan Favorite TV: Firefly, Battlestar Galactica Favorite Movies: Star Wars, Serenity, MIB Things I love to do: Play with my daughter. Read stories with my daughter.
Swim, with or without my daughter. Mountain Bike. Draw stuff that has nothing
to do with work. Study the Bible. Personal Opinion: Most shows get better when you add in a hyperdrive, but
a hyperdrive cannot save a bad show.
Reluctant Freelancer...
Always wanted to go freelance, but not the way it happened. Anyway, there
I was. Out of work, broke, with a family and plenty of school loans to
pay. Thank god for deferments.
When the dot com I was working for went belly up in November of 2000 I
had nothing but my wits, my experience, a few good contacts and my Blue
and White Macintosh G3. Because of my experience working in multimedia
and web-based technologies, I immediately began my freelance career by
putting together high-level flash presentations and web-sites for companies
that hadn't yet heard that the economy was crashing. That lasted about
a year, and then they too were gone. By that time, I had become known as
a "web guy", and most of the work I was getting was website and
print collateral related.
Logos. Biz cards. Letterhead and envelopes. Not exactly what I wanted to
do, but I can't complain, since most of my colleagues that couldn't diversify
the way I did were completely out of work. Some moved back home. Others
took jobs in other industries. I was able to continue creating artwork
and keep a roof over our head, food on the table, gas in the cars and clothes
on our backs.
It may sound bad, and starting out, it felt pretty bad, but each year actually
got better. As I learned what I was doing, each year saw a 30-50% increase
over the previous year. My freelance career continued full-time until March
of 2006. At that time, one of my clients, ESPN*, made me an offer I couldn't
refuse. So, now I have a day job creating all sorts of cool multimedia
content for the web and CD-ROM, and have returned to that niche freelancing
segment: moonlighting.
I hope that you find the lessons I learned the hard way during my 5 and
a half year stint as a full-time freelancer helpful.
--- *Note: Melman has been instructed to NEVER let me see email related to
people pitching ideas for ESPN. Legally, I can't look at them, so please
don't send them.
