HOMEPODCAST
SUBMIT STORY

Jennifer Fryer joins Bryce Bladon to share their experiences as student freelancers. They go on to debate why every student should consider freelancing before graduating. 

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Episode Summary

We discuss:

  • The benefits of starting your career sooner than later
  • Imposter syndrome and why no one ever feels “ready” to start
  • The safety nets that come with being a student
  • The skills you’ll learn
  • How to get started
  • The value of personal project
  • The unexpected resources and connections you get at school
  • The answers to FAQs from student freelancers 

Find Jennifer on:

> Her website
> Tumblr
> Instagram

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Questions? Episode ideas?

Talk to Clients From Hell or Bryce Bladon on Twitter. Or shoot us an email! 

Clients From Hell on iTunes | Soundcloud
Subscribe on iTunes | Android | RSS


Download here!

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I was tasked with creating a promotional booklet for a client, who gave little direction beyond ‘incorporate navy blue and this logo’. I created a nice booklet with their supplied images and content.

My boss sent it off, and the client loved it, suggesting only minor changes to the text. My boss, however, arbitrarily decided to change out almost every picture (there’s at least one on each page) without consulting the client. Of course, my boss has ZERO training in design, but decided to make “an executive decision.” The new photos were low resolution and made zero sense with the surrounding content.

The client was unpleasantly surprised when they saw their “revised” second proof.

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Is there any way that the design elements can look more placed and leced smooged? Do you know what I mean?
Verbatim request. 
Is there any way that the design elements can…

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Me: You want your main character on the cover, okay. What does she look like? I need to find a model that matches.

Client: She’s a person of color.

I appreciate the sensitivity, but I might need a bit more information than that.

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After spending three months working on a new website for a financial planning company, they were required to submit it to their compliance department for final approval.

Every time I made their tiny revisions, the department would tell me that I didn’t make the changes and they weren’t live on the test server. I told them to clear their cookies and try again since they were probably seeing a cached version of the website. Finally, they asked me this:

Client: Is it possible to print out your website, including all links, dropdowns (such as your bios)?

Me: You’re asking if I can print out an entire website worth of pages, including a different sheet for each version of the “About Us” page with each team member’s bio?

Client: Is it possible?

Me: Nope.

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I needed a few 16 GB flash drives to share data with a client’s customers. The client offered to buy them for me while out running errands.

Client: (calling from the store) They’ve got some with a keychain loop on them – is that what you want?

Me: Sure, that’s fine.

Client: Oh! Wait, I found others. I’ll bring those.

Me: Okay, as long as they say “16 GB.” It’s okay if they have a higher number but I need at least 16 gigabytes.

Client: Yeah, it’s bigger than 16. Gotta go, I’m in line!

When she dropped them off I noticed that the bags were MUCH larger than they had to be. She’d bought two 1 TB hard drives, and both came with a free 16 GB flash drive as a bonus.

Me: Uhm, these may be a bit much. I can’t give these to the customers. The little one is fine, but I don’t need the big one.

Client: But look! You get four for the price of two!

Me: Well, we only need two for the price of two.

> Want to know if freelancing is for you? 

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This is an email I received from a woman who wanted to get free website building, branding, and promotion work. It’s been edited only to preserve privacy.

Client: I’m thinking that the relationship between us would be beneficial for us both even though there isn’t pay involved.  I think we can both learn from each other.  Since you are just starting out, I can help you get better - just out of sheer experience and since I’ve learned a lot in the areas of English and writing (mostly through home schooling my kids) and even with advertising (as a consumer).  I may not know what’s new and hot out there in the marketing world - or how to use it - but I know a bit about how people perceive images, and writing, etc. etc. And I know about photography - just can’t seem to get it out there because of my issues with computers!  There is a lot to learn in the area of photography.  It’s a TON harder than people think.  And obviously I could learn from you as you are actually going to school for graphic design.  It will be an honest relationship with the intent of getting better as we go - a team mentality.  We’d be working together to promote [my product] and you would be benefitting by learning how to do this for a company - by doing it!  If we get this thing going great it will look awesome on your resume. And I know that businesses don’t hang their hats much on hiring people solely because of their degree.  More than anything, they want to know that you are already doing the things in your field.  They see good work done by you - and THAT will impress them.  They want people with hands on experience and knowledge. So I think we could greatly benefit from one another.


> Want to know if freelancing is for you? 

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I was working with a small business owner in his 40s who wanted a website. He’d been sending me group pictures of his office managers, but they were poor quality images, with bad lighting, taken at an angle, and used the lowest image quality setting his cell phone offered. Essentially, they were the worst possible images he could give me for what he had in mind.

Client: I don’t like the way those look.  I look orange.  Fix them.

Me: Yeah, the skin tones are a little off.  I think it’s because of the lighting in the room you took the photos in. I have already color corrected them to the best of my ability, and there’s not much else I can do since these were taken with your phone in poor lighting.

Client: Well my skin doesn’t look that way in real life.  And the image is blurry!

Me: Is there a way you can have the photos redone?  Maybe with a better quality camera?  That would solve a lot of these problems.

Client: My phone is the newest iPhone they make!

Me: Well, I would recommend either increasing the photo resolution settings, or maybe just seeing if you could borrow someone’s digital camera if you don’t know how to change the settings on your phone. 

Client: Digital… camera?

Me: Yeah, you know - it’s a camera that stores photos on a memory card?

Client: You mean like an iPhone 4?

Me: No.  A camera.  A digital camera. Like the old cameras that use film, but this one uses a memory card?  Do you know anyone who has one?

Client: Well, I know someone who has an iPhone I could borrow….

Me: Okay, but if he doesn’t know how to change his camera settings either, taking another photo at the lowest resolution isn’t going to help much.

Client: I DON’T KNOW HOW YOU WANT ME TO TAKE PICTURES WITHOUT A PHONE.


> Want to know if freelancing is for you? 

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I responded to three emails in thirty minutes from a client, but was away from my computer for twenty minutes before responding to a fourth.

Client: Your service is piss poor and you should be ashamed.

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