Here’s my top tips for saving money whilst running a graphic design business or as a freelance graphic designer.
Work from home. Use of house as business means that you can put some of the cost of home improvements and numerous other things to offset your profit and therefore pay less tax. Meet clients in swanky cafés. Try to get them to pay(!)
Don’t do colour lazers. Get your client to proof read from PDFs. They’re faster, look better and, of course, cheaper. If they need to see something on paper get a printer to do it as a sample. Buy a simple inkjet desktop printer that has a scanner, photocopier and fax (for under £100). If anyone needs to see proof of ID or certificate of incorporation you can scan it and send it by email. Email your invoices, estimates and contracts – everything – to save on ink, paper and postage.
Don’t buy Apple monitors. OK, they’re pretty but there are others that are just as good and half the price.
Don’t buy anything new. Secondhand computers are like secondhand cars – much better value. I’m running everything on a couple of souped up G4′s I got for £200 each. If one breaks down I can use the other. Work is backed-up off site by my website host. No need to spend money on the latest software. Wait for them to patch up the bugs. Use old versions of software as long as it’s compatible with the system you are using.
Don’t use Getty. Buy monthly subscriptions to shutterstock.com or other royalty free photo libraries. Download as many images as you can.
Remember the CS versions of Adobe Illustrator have a live trace tool which can re-draw any image in vector form which you can present as an illustration negating the need to commission.
Get webspace. I have secured thousands of pounds worth of business from my website, host many more and store all my work – all for under £100 a year!
The only other thing I’d spend money on is Christmas or birthday cards for clients. It’s the single best way to ensure repeat business.
Don’t get greedy. Reflect all these savings in the price you charge your client. It’ll be worth it in the long run, trust me.
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Might be in the market for a new monitor when I upgrade my Mac mini (though will prob. go for an iMac). Any suggestions on where I should be looking besides the Apple store?
I got my ViewSonic VX2025wm 20 inch widescreen through Amazon for £250. (Delivered within 48 hours, set up in 5 minutes). Half the price of the Apple Cinema and I can’t fault the quality.
But an iMac is a completely different matter with a host of other benefits. Being the slow coach that I am I’ll probably wait to see how CS3 beds down with the new Intel Macs.
I’m not a huge fan of the current iMac design, but the all-in-one thing does appeal. There are rumours of a new generation in the next few months — will see how that pans out.
Yes, I’ll have to canvas opinion from illuminaries such as yourself and post it on the site.
For relatively cheap (but quality) screens i’d go for dell. They’ve aquired a bit of a reputation for being rubbish, but they’ve improved loads and their screens are truly nice.
If anything, it’s just their tech support which is bad, which is something to keep in mind.
Actually I was a at design company that was using Dells only the other day and they were good. And obviously a saving as well.
Your website has really come on. Its great you are doing the Chelsea and Westminster magazine especially as you said recently that print work is hard to find.
I didn’t know what rasterize means!
Fenella
Hello Fenella, thank you for your comment and I’m glad you think the website has come on. Yes, it’s funny that the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital print job has come in the middle of a plethora of web jobs but I’m happy to do either.
Rasterize is not something of interest to non-designers. It is the task of taking an image described in a vector graphics format (shapes) and converting it into a raster image (pixels or dots). So now you know.