How many freelance web designers do we have here?

Marauder-

Platinum Member
Nov 29, 1999
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My cousin is one - and he's struggling to say the least. Now would not be a good time to be a web designer.
 

kt

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2000
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Every web designer/graphic designer I know are struggling right now. Only the talented ones are still holding on to their jobs.
 

Marauder-

Platinum Member
Nov 29, 1999
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Originally posted by: kt
Every web designer/graphic designer I know are struggling right now. Only the talented ones are still holding on to their jobs.

Yeah - exactly, not enough Pets.com to feed the designers.
 

SyahM

Golden Member
Nov 6, 2001
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ugh .. most ppl i know are out of jobs, the good ones are struggling with small/short contract and such.
Web design used to be my side jobs but not anymore, now i design for myself or friends.
 

rh71

No Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
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I'm a freelancer parttime and a regular at a company full-time. If I lived off of freelancing, I wouldn't be living very well at all... put it that way.

Salary for freelancing? I stay competitive and will adjust my price according to demand... which isn't very high right now. I'll do $1k websites for $500-$700.
 

ROTC1983

Diamond Member
Oct 2, 2002
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Originally posted by: rh71
I'm a freelancer parttime and a full-timer at a company full-time. If I lived off of freelancing, I wouldn't be living very well at all... put it that way.

Salary for freelancing? I stay competitive and will adjust my price according to demand... which isn't very high right now. I'll do $1k websites for $500-$700.

You do make awesome websites though :)
 

ROTC1983

Diamond Member
Oct 2, 2002
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Originally posted by: rh71
Originally posted by: ROTC1983
You do make awesome websites though :)
Thank you sir.

Ah, no problem. I need to stop being lazy and learn how to use flash sometime :) Sam's club even sells a book on using flash :)
 

ROTC1983

Diamond Member
Oct 2, 2002
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71

SyahM

Golden Member
Nov 6, 2001
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Damn rh71, your website is awesome! I rarely like flashy website but yours is an exception, BTW, good choice of music :)
 

m2kewl

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2001
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Originally posted by: ROTC1983
Originally posted by: rh71 I'm a freelancer parttime and a full-timer at a company full-time. If I lived off of freelancing, I wouldn't be living very well at all... put it that way. Salary for freelancing? I stay competitive and will adjust my price according to demand... which isn't very high right now. I'll do $1k websites for $500-$700.
You do make awesome websites though :)

yeah, rh71's site is pretty cool
 

ROTC1983

Diamond Member
Oct 2, 2002
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Originally posted by: m2kewl
Originally posted by: ROTC1983
Originally posted by: rh71 I'm a freelancer parttime and a full-timer at a company full-time. If I lived off of freelancing, I wouldn't be living very well at all... put it that way. Salary for freelancing? I stay competitive and will adjust my price according to demand... which isn't very high right now. I'll do $1k websites for $500-$700.
You do make awesome websites though :)

yeah, rh71's site is pretty cool

BTW, how long did it take for you to make that website rh71?
 

rh71

No Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
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Originally posted by: ROTC1983
BTW, how long did it take for you to make that website rh71?
Feel free to PM me questions... sorry for hijacking the thread in a way. Your answer: 2 months on-and-off. Was an experiment at first so it was all new to me too. You'd laugh if you saw my initial Geocities page. If you guys could just vote in this poll, that would help me out. Thx.
 

jjones

Lifer
Oct 9, 2001
15,424
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I work mostly on my own commercial sites; I have about a dozen sites now and am slowly building that up to probably 20 or so. I do some work for friends who promote their businesses online as well as the usual brick and mortar; and then I have about 4 or 5 regular customers that I design and maintain on a freelance basis. Most of my income is from my own online businesses and the web design only makes up about 25% of my income.

I like it and the income is good. I work from home and only about 30 hours a week usually but that has been reduced, by choice, to about 20 hours lately; plenty of time to spend with my family and play at the beach. :)
 

LakAttack

Senior member
Oct 29, 2002
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I also have a full-time job and try to do some freelance web design on the side. I haven't done a ton of work, but I'm just getting to the point that I've done enough on my own to have pretty decent portfolio with only work I've done outside of the full-time job, so I'll be launching a new site pretty soon. I have a question for the other freelancers who post in this thread though - when you do a site, do you charge by the hour, or decide on a flat price for a site? I've been charging by the hour and estimating hours up front, but I don't think that is the way to go. . .
 

rh71

No Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
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Originally posted by: LakAttack
I have a question for the other freelancers who post in this thread though - when you do a site, do you charge by the hour, or decide on a flat price for a site? I've been charging by the hour and estimating hours up front, but I don't think that is the way to go. . .
Definitely not the best way to go because you could be giving yourself the shaft if you end up working more hours. What you do is give the client that choice... lump sum (in 2 installments) or pay hourly (set rate, then count the hours). I think the hardest part of it all is justifying your prices to the client. You never know who you're dealing with... some guy/company with a lot of cash or the avg. Joe sitting at home and thinking it would be cool to have a website for cash in his cookie jar. On the same token, as a freelancer, you want as much work as you can get.
 

jagr10

Golden Member
Jan 21, 2001
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Alot of people claim to be freelance designers, but how many of them are actually good? Only a small percentage.
 

ThePresence

Elite Member
Nov 19, 2001
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I'm a freelance web designer (portfolio), with a full-time graphics job at a publishing company. I used to live off of freelancing, but it gets tough at times.
 

notfred

Lifer
Feb 12, 2001
38,241
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I do web design/development 5 days a week, 8 hours a day. I also do the same thing freelance occasionally. I charge $35/hour for freelance work, But I really don't make a lot of money off of it, because I really don't do that much freelance.