Umm, temp work, and freelance work are the same thing in my book. I have worked "freelance" for many many high profile agencies here, most pay waaaay above normal hourly rates because you are just there temporarily, and I don't see it as a loss when they tell me to get lost, I made my money, they made theirs, everything is peechy keen.

I have looked into full time employment at one of the agencies I was doing freelance for, but I never followed through with it. I dont know what is so upsetting about only working temp for a company, who cares if they are losing money or not, as long as your getting yours.

Around here, Employees get paid the least but have benefits like sick pay and holidays. Temps get paid more, but no benefits and Freelancers get their own hours, really good pay, but no benefits.

If you are being paid Freelance rates but working as a temp, then it's not entirely a bad thing. You just doing get to pick your hours right?

Does it matter what they call it? All that should matter is whether or not you want to do it and whether they are paying you enough for it.

I wouldn't consider that freelance but rather contract or temp work. To me being freelance means I find my own work and invoice directly. If you find an agency that finds individual projects, you let us know. I don't think such a thing exists other than the joke websites out there that have you bid on jobs.

Agencies like that do exist for Illustrators. There must be one or two for graphic designers - BUT - the reason I don't know is because I know so many designers, why should I go to an agency?

You work in-house, it's usually termed "contract work"

My experience with temp work was not a real great one, and I've found these agencies are good when you find yourself desperate and/or unemployed, but it's not a good fit for a designer, and it's certainly not what I've come to understand as "freelancing" in this industry.

While sold as a "no commitment" benefit for both parties, I found the agency's clients often expected you to be there during all business hours, indefinitely, without a clear definition on how long they'd need you for, and didn't like it if you took time off to do things like interview (which of course, on the record, isn't the reason you're not there that day - it's always a doctor appointment or something).

There was a real one-sided relationship there. When I found a full time job, the firm expected the same 2-week notice as a full-time employee would give (the agency expected a week, but of course, the assignment could end without notice or go on forever). It's very possible my experience was unique, and I just wasn't lucky enough to find a good fit for my needs, but I found the agency had a tendency to build false hope and were less than honest about what to expect from the experience.

And I'm just pointing this out to reinforce my belief that they can often mislead the talent into thinking they're getting something they're not, as well as the fact that it really may NOT benefit the agency's clients by having a non-committed, unreliable temp working for them to save some benefits cost.

One assignment I had for a few weeks involved showing up on the first day and waiting in the lobby for no less than 1.5 hours waiting for the contacts I was supposed to meet there! I think it got to the point where I had to call the agency and ask "I am getting PAID for this time, right?"

I will tell you the pay was not significantly higher than finding a similar job in a full-time employee capacity, and in fact, if you land a full-time job, you often get annual reviews with salary increases, in addition to benefits, etc. The difference may have been a $1-$2 an hour more for temping, if that, but that doesn't nearly compensate for health insurance enrollment, paid vacation time, paid holidays (which REALLY sucked when the firm would close for a week at X-Mas and you're left scrambling to find work), etc. The agencies do sometimes offer benefits, but their requirements to even get health insurance coverage usually involved a prerequisite number of hours worked for them per year, which came to about 9 months-1 year of full-time work before you could enroll, and they weren't very good anyway.

My "favorite" part while temping was when I was assigned to design an internal marketing campaign about how the firm was a so good to its work force (bragging about Fortune 100 status, etc.), and to encourage employees to take their vacation time to prevent burn-out (their way of focusing on retaining their workforce in a competitive market). I thought it was a bit inappropriate for me to be doing this assignment considering I benefited from none of this and came to actually resent it a bit. I didn't say anything, of course, but the lack of common sense there was startling.

Temping is also a highly inefficient way of staffing, often providing the talent with someone else's computer or an old clunker that was lying around. Just learning a company's digital filing system alone was a learning curve, so you'd think once someone has been trained, it's in the company's best interest to make a long-term commitment to prevent wasted time/resources on training, etc. I would spend as much as several days learning a firm's brand standards, digital filing system, etc. I can't imagine the amount of wasted resources used for a revolving door position filled by a temp. Turnover is expensive for a company, and I think it's often over-looked.

I associate freelancing as being an independent contractor in this industry, calling temp work "freelancing" can be misleading based on the agency's expectations of the talent, and even worse, the deluded firm's desire to have temporary staff, indefinitely, and expect reliability.

balou- its called "Aquent"