Freelancing and Flash.

February 03, 2003 | 2 Comments

There is a nice little interview with Hillman Curtis over at Pixel-Conscious.

One thing he said really stuck with me:

I run my own shop now…which has it’s share of ups and downs… my worries now include things like quarterly, God willing, profit margins and writing the next 5 proposals, and most important; growing as a designer. All good things when you think about it.

The part about profit margins and writing the next 5 proposals got me thinking. I can feel what he is getting at there. I’ve had my own business, sort-of, for awhile now and it’s never really taken off. I think the reason is simply because of me and my lack of business sense or desire to work the business end of things.

I get lots of inquires and requests for proposals, people want me to work for them — it’s just that I’ve not learned all the extra stuff I need to know to make it a reality. When I think of invoices, taxes, accounting and the like I feel like I’ve hit a wall. It all seems very daunting to me.

I’ve got the talent, the work ethic, communication skills and the “work” know-how to make a viable living (or nice secondary income) freelancing — I just get turned off by the day-to-day business details of it all. I know I’m shooting myself in the foot by not diving in headfirst and just learning everything, but man it just seems like a whole lot to deal with.

I have a full time job, which I really enjoy — and as much as I like to work, it’s just that — I like to work. I want to spend my off hours working on projects I enjoy and that challenge me, not writing proposals or figuring out billing rates. Like Hillman says — I want to grow as a designer.

Ironically, I’ve just taken on a few new gigs that should be interesting and fun to work on. I’ll be doing some Flashed based promotional pieces — something which I’ve not had much chance to work with in recent months. Funny, that, seeing as how when I was with Connexion, all I did was work with Flash.

Speaking of Flash, in the interview, Hillman made another comment about not knowing where Flash was headed in the future. He mentioned application design, which I think I agree with, that is what we were working on mainly at Connexion. I also think there will always be a use for Flash in a publishing, promotional, marketing sense as well. Sometimes you need that sizzle that Flash can provide.

As much as I feel like Flash should be used where appropriate, and that designers and developers are slowly but surely beginning to understand that, I don’t think that the Flash intro, animated short, all Flash promotional site, or over designed interface for a movie or game site are going away. They have a place, if done correctly and for the right reasons, just as much as anything else on the Web.

Filed under: Web General