finding work (freelance)

[ja_designs]

Hi all

Im new to the forum, so be easy on me! lol

cutting a long story short, I graduated over 2years ago, and immediatley found a graphic design job within a small company. Ive been job hunting for months now with no luck.

I want to start freelancing.

thing is im not entirely sure where to begin.

how do you freelancers get your work?

bearing in mind that I do not have a built up client base yet and need to start from the bottom

regards

john

[Boss Hog]

Hi John

Welcome to the forums.

Firstly I would look to buying a domain name and getting your portfolio along with your contact details online. Then it's all about marketing, via forums such as this, locally at networking meetings etc etc.

...the most important thing before everything else is to have somewhere to direct people to showing them what you can do. Once you have sorted this we can then advise on the next stages

[ja_designs]

thanks for the reply boss

am currently in the process of designing my website now

was just curious as to how am going to direct people there.

as you mentioned, its networking.

will update once website is live

[bigdave]

Decide which area you want to start work in (eg; fashoin, atomotive blagh blagh) then create some advertising which targets that specific market. get seen through trade mags, newspapers, leaflets in chip shops, emails etc... once youve saturated the local area, pick another sector of the market to target and start again.

If you want to be freelancing for creative agencies, find out what each agency in your local area specialises in and make yourself a specialist in that area.

[JMCDesigner]

Decide which area you want to start work in (eg; fashoin, atomotive blagh blagh) then create some advertising which targets that specific market.

I think that's a very important point, you should laser target your target market and really get under their skin and appeal to them. Generalising your marketing for a load of people just won't work. I've learnt the hard way...