How you built audience and potential clients as a new designer?

Hello,

I’m starting to learn graphic design from home as a hobby for now.
I don’t use in my daily life social media platforms.
I’m curious to know how you built your audience and potential clients as a new designers?

Wish you all a great week.

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Hope you have a great week too.

If you want to earn money for graphic design, you’ll need to go to school.

But if you want to do it for free for friends or pro bono for non-profits, you can get some word of mouth contacts. For free work.

Realistically, you can’t compete with trained, educated designers for paying customers, because you simply won’t have the skills. It’s hard enough when you do have them.

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You find clients through a strategic mix of marketing communication potentially including but not limited to: formal networking events, informal networking, trade organizations, trade shows, public relations, a web presence, a social media presence, traditional advertising (potentially including but not limited to direct mail, broadcast, and out of home), online advertising, SEO, cold calling, third party websites, and referrals. Oh, and you have to do great work and have a great reputation.

I hope you have a great week, too.

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I wasn’t a new designer when I started my business. I waited until I had 12 years paid experience in the field, plus a BA and MA. I had a long list of contacts I had developed over those years, and when a couple of them committed to giving me their quarterly projects, I made the jump.

Word of mouth, good reputation, and a good portfolio were essential.

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Mine is somewhat similar to Mojo’s. BFA followed by 7-8 years at various studios, agencies and in-house situations followed up by an MFA. Somewhere in all of that I just met people who needed work who knew others needing work, who knew others, etc. It’s kept a small side design business (in addition to my day job) going for a long time.

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Hi Eskin, You may want to check https://itec.media/blog. They have lots of helpfull topics.

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Networking is super important. But you need a solid background in design and good business skills.

All my work comes from word of mouth but that comes with over 12 years of industry experience. I’ve been freelancing full time for 2 years. It’s difficult for a client to trust a new designer so you really need to proof that you can do the work.

I recommend getting a formal design qualification, then a full time design position for at least 5 years before you start your journey as a new freelance designer. See you in 8 years.

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