I need an advice

[BahTheastesib]

Hello!
I'm new here. I've been browsing tons of forums for an idea of what to do. I was laid off from my job about 3 month ago. I've been looking for a job since then, but did not even get a single interview. I worked as a web designer for a publishing company for the last 5 years. Looks like forums.dathorn.com is an active forum with active members and may be someone has some experience working as a freelance web designer. May be "DNS Nameservers" category is not the most appropriate for this question, but I want to try anyways to get some opinions before I go ahead with my life. I'm wondering if it is possible in the current economy to find work for a freelance web designer and make enough to pay for rent and groceries. I was able to find a small project on craigslist and I developed a website for a company. It was a small project and took me only a week to complete. I got paid $800 for 1 week of work which is not bad. Please people give me some ideas. I have 2 kids and my wife is out of work as well. Thank you in advance.

[Grunfeld]

Start where you live and your business community. See if those businesses have web sites if not present them with a proposal and what a web site can do for them. Same for exisiting web sites for business in your local area see if their sites are current and up to date......
The key is small businesses and part time businesses they all can be on the web...... it's their best advertisng for their dollar...
Also check with local service clubs and volunteer organisations .... see if they need a web site and do a freebie, it will come back to you in spades with word of mouth....

[ZYV]

I have no idea of the situation in the States since I live elsewhere, but from what I can see even if a highly qualified graphic designer (especially web-designer) loses his job he can find one almost instantly (well, the salary will of course decrease, you need to spend quite a while to get a better offer).

If you consider doing freelance for a while until the situation calms down or even start your own business that's fine. I know many freelance designers in the USA, but mind you that effective freelancer needs many organizational skills.

First off, think of how you can explain to the potential client that it's better to work with you instead of contracting company X. If you can't come up with a plausible explanation then nobody will be persuaded Actually the key selling points for the freelancer are price (which is reduced because there are no overheads for maintaining marketing team etc.), personal approach (companies making hundreds of websites per day just can't fit the demands of every client) and of course the superior quality for the price (because you are a qualified professional, right?).

Then if I were you I would team up with a programmer who is proficient in XHTML and can adapt some known Open Source CMS like CMSMS, MODx, Wordpress or whatever to the specific project. Nowadays everybody provides the client with a CMS so that he can make minor changes (and text-editing) himself. If you don't do that, it's a disadvantage. Why Open Source? If the client contracts a company, he will get their own proprietary CMS. While the company is around, he can contract them again to make changes for the minimal price because they know it since they wrote it. With a freelancer it's more difficult. A freelancer can disappear and client will be left on his own. You need to provide some warranties, right? So explain that you are going to take a well-known Open Source CMS which will have regular updates and many professionals know how it works, so even if you are not around there is the documentation and many competent professionals to help him. Besides you can charge a small fee for upgrades

Of course you can buy a reseller package at Dathorn and maintain the websites on your account for another small fee. I would personally avoid doing this because that means that you have to regularly collect money from the clients or ask them to pay in advance for half a year or so, but if you need money and have somebody to help you at home that's not bad either.

That's pretty much it. I find the practical advices by Grunfeld full of sense. I remember that after few years in business the clients find me themselves in all imaginable ways. A word of mouth is so much better than those zombiefying TV ads.

Good luck.