Freelance vs $120k?
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- marychain0
Just curious what 120k gets in new york? Is that manhatten living money or what? I know your taxes are crazy if you own
- hektor9110
Hey @randommail would you mind sharing your day rate? By the way congrats on last year, sounds amazing.
- Hombre_Lobo0
@randomail
Pleased sticking with freelance worked out for you. What do you do out of curiosity? Good thread, many learn.- check out previous page, my post near the bottomrandommail
- Hombre_Lobo0
^totally agree.
Seems to be no benefits to brand as an individual freelancer. Brand as a studio and charge what a studio would charge (more).Obviously people will know that you are just 1 person (or 2 w/e) if they dig around your site, but it's no big deal.
- fyoucher10
Studio. Expect to get paid freelance rates and thought of as a freelancer if you brand yourself as a freelancer, not a studio. Big big difference, not just money (which is wildly different) but everything else essentially.
- pinkfloyd0
Freelancing was fun but I didn't have the self discipline. Was nice sometimes pulling in 17k in a month, but I needed more stability.
- randommail0
btw, also to add to my update:
2013 was pretty decent money wise, but amazing in terms of lifestyle!
Worked no more than 30 hours per week. Slept 10 hours a day. Went to the gym 5 days a week. Stayed out late on weekends. Freelancers in their 20s/30s - good life if you're confident in your work ability.
- randommail0
It's been a year ...
and I went to continue down the freelance/studio route.
It's been good money wise. Fairly close to what a salaried job would be, except the insurance and expenses. So the net income was less. But I continue to hope to grow this year.Now another question looms:
My marketing is directed to businesses, not agencies. I think the agencies will hire from time to time based on the portfolio and not my positioning. So it comes down to, should us solo companies (that can team up with others on project basis) market and brand themselves as a "freelancer" or a "boutique studio"???Curious to what you guys are doing, if you're in the same boat as me.
- numero10
So randommail, what did you decide at the end? Don't you disappear like that lol
- formed0
to the detractors...I've been running my business for over a decade now, never could work for 'the man' for more than a few months after grad school and started my own thing (a la 2000 recession).
BUT it is always up and down. You never, ever know what it will be like the next month, let alone the next year.
BIG DEAL - paid vacations/sick leave and healthcare. Sure, you can take time off whenever you want working for yourself, but not only do you not get paid, you lose money that you could have made.
STABILITY - this doesn't mean that you can't lose your job, that can happen in a blink of an eye (I know from experience here, again, 2000), BUT you do know what you will make next month, the month after, if you don't get fired. Freelance you never will know, not for sure.
GOOD - this uncertainty goes both ways, one month you could make nothing, next month you could make 10 times the amount. That's exciting and frustrating.
BAD - there is just no certainty. I suppose it is all relative. If this buy was aiming for 40k I'd say, shit, that's not much, just go have fun and make your own hours, but 120k is a decent amount of money. If you can get that with "some" certainty, that's a pretty big deal. Obviously there are a lot of factors we don't know "Premium Brand" is that Doritos or Prada? Colgate or Porsche?That's my 2 cents. Again, if it were a small amount of cash, it'd be a different discussion.
- newuser0
Premium NY brand sounds nice. Which one?
- monospaced0
Full time, in house, art director position opening at my firm.
- Wolfboy0
Maybe for an agency position, but I'd never go full time in house.
- ben_0
I just went through something similar, sold my shares of a studio I founded to a belligerent, delusional business partner - and found myself staring down two client-side offers or the possibility of continuing on freelance - I chose the latter because I have a good roster of great clients who have been loyal over the years, and fortunately decided to stick with me. This all happened in the past 4 months, and one of the positions I was offered has already been cut short for the person who took the job. I'm glad I did what I did. For now, anyway. Good luck with it!
- randommail0
re: the economy factor,
I feel like being a nimble 1 or 2 person studio has allowed/forced me to stay flexible and thus take on a wide range of projects. So even during the worst of our economic recession, I was able to stay afloat by diversifying my revenue sources. Graphic design, brand consulting, web development management, photography, etc.
But that's precisely where the stress comes in.
I guess that's why a good salary in-house appears attractive. Just do one thing, get paid regularly. But it's a catch-22.
- A020
What's hard is that in the end, this is definitely one of those things where it's really on you to trust your gut. Each side of it has equal advantages and disadvantages depending on you. The fact that the $$$ is kind of close makes this a lot more about stability and what gets you off as a designer more than anything.
For me with a kid and a mortgage, I'm loving the paid medical, steady check, etc. Granted - it helps that I like what I'm doing. I'm sacrificing working for only those I really have a passion for and what times work best for me. Honestly, I work better from like 5am to 3pm.
I'd like to go back to doing my own thing on my own terms, but I'd want to be able to really have a selection. If you're doing things on your own but most of your work is anything you can get simply because you need to pay the bills - then working FT is a bit more tempting. If you get steady work from really cool clients that you love to do your thing for - stick with it.
Whichever way yo go man.. good luck.
- d_rek0
And FYI creative and marketing services are usually the FIRST things to be chopped when times get tough. The bottom line for most businesses in the US is that design and marketing is an added expense and is not an integral part of their business culture.
That being said, it's not all doom and gloom. Smart agencies adapt when times get tough. They help re-educate and re-train their employees for different disciplines and needs. But to think that because you have a salary and a steady paycheck that you can't lose all of that too in the blink of an eye is just naive.
- On the other hand, businesses still do need creative and marketing services, even if budgets are cut. That's where freelancers come in.Continuity
- ... freelancers come in.Continuity
- < But did he say it was 'agency'? Could be direct for the brand..if so move into other areas after shared success.babaganush
- d_rek0
@formed
I don't buy that argument at all. Did you see the massive layoffs most agencies were doing when the economy was tanking in 07-08?
Stability in the corporate workforce is only an illusion. You can lose that stability in the blink of an eye. Just because it's a steady paycheck doesn't mean it's invulnerable to economic conditions.
- Continuity0
I'm at the point in my own life where the idea of keeping on Working for the Man™ depresses me enormously.
The office politics, having to deal with other personalities you might not be able to deal with, the late nights/weekends, the sacrificing personal life, the hierarchies, the feeling of stagnation, the often boring projects: all for the profit and benefit of someone else.
And that someone else is not you.
Honestly, by the sounds of it, you're rocking the freelance life in ways few of us could imagine achieving. That's a success, one you can be proud of and one can be built on.
I don't buy this argument that going off to take a regular job means you can grow your skills, and so on. I reckon if you want to start doing something new as part of your service offer, you have more than enough of a foundation to teach yourself. Yes, it's a bit more difficult than in a formal agency or in-house environment with available resources and talents of others to learn from, but it's by no means impossible on your own.
- Continuity0
'Stability. Period. That is a valuable piece of the equation. Freelance you have none. Economy tanks again and you could have nothing (not that you couldn't be let go).'
The argument can be made, though, that those who survive and thrive recessions and economic shit are the ones who have skills that can be used as a freelancer, when they find themselves and their jobs made redundant.
- but I've seen stability in freelance if you know how to sell and deliver, fulltime = random layoffs sometimes...vaxorcist