In todays class we learnt about freelancing and how that works in the design industry.
A tender is an document to the client to do a piece of work for a specific price and in a specific time period. It covers what will be achieved in the project. Tenders also protect us as designers legally, particularly when it comes to intellectual property. Being able to understand and effectively use tenders is especially important when being a freelancer, as you need to understand the business side of design. Businesses could be going to multiple other designers for their project, and sometimes legally they have to go to at least 3. This means that we have to be able to sell ourselves and give them a flavour of what we are able to do for them in the tender. It is also important to undertake research and come at the proposal from a unique angle.
A typical structure of a tender is this:
When charging clients for our products, that way that we come up with a price is by hourly rate. Since we are specialists in our industry, we would be making more than the minimum wage which is £12.21. But since we are still only students/interns, we wouldn’t be charging as much as bigger firms or more experienced designers. With the advice from our lecturer, and he suggested that we should be charging around £25 per hour.
Todays class was pretty helpful as we learnt things that usually don’t get covered in class, so I am glad we aren’t being left to figure out these things for ourself. Although I can’t see myself going down the route of freelance design yet, it was definitely helpful to learn about it and some of the things that need to be considered.