Pain Points of being a Graphic Designer

Hello and welcome to Delux Designs (DE), LLC website and blog.
If you’re a returning visitor I welcome you back and thank you for being a continuous subscriber here on our website. If you’re new here this is an art based website where we talk about all things art related. That would include designs, crafts, paintings, and marketing just to name a few topics. Today’s post is one where we are discussing some of the Pain Points of being a Graphic Designer.

If you don’t already know, my name is Keara Douglas. I am the owner, founder, and operator of DE. I have been a freelance graphic designer since December of 2010, so about 13-14 years now so far so my experience is heavy in this particular field when it comes to working for myself as a small business owner and entrepreneur. Everything has been going pretty good as a freelance designer but of course there are some bad points that many entrepreneurs and small business owners never ever speak about. I believe in transparency and being open about my journey especially with me an e-course provider for those who are seeking to purpose this particular field. Let’s dive into these pain points of being a graphic designer below.

First pain point of being a Graphic Designer for me in my experience would be Turnaround Time Dilemmas. As a freelancer, you set your own schedule and make your own time available for your orders. Sometimes you may work literally from 9-5 on a daily basis just like a traditional job position if you have many orders coming in back to back that need to be completed by a certain period, & other occasions you may just work a couple hours a week if orders are slower coming in temporarily for you. It’s pretty much up to you how much work you have based on how much work you put in for yourself to obtain new clients and continuous orders. With the freedom of scheduling, you also set your own turnaround times. What a Turnaround Time is referred to is the amount of time it would take you to complete each design project. Some design work requires less time, maybe even down to 30 minutes to an hour, and design projects may require way more time depending on how complicated they are. I’ve had some projects that have required my full attention for 3 weeks to a month. It just all depends on how extensive the project is.

My dilemmas with turnaround times, however, have come in the form of clients believing they know more than me concerning my own position, expertise, and field of work. At first I would be reasonable and try to become a robot for clients in these situations but that has overall made my job ten times worse and the project itself way more poor in quality that they should be. These have often been the most impatient clients I have had so far as well. And I get it. We all are strapped for time. We are all wanting the quickest work as possible especially if the clients are business owners themselves. But this impatience just makes the project and job itself miserable for all parties in the long run.

Solution:

As a freelancer you have to set your schedule, set your turnaround times, and stick with those set times no matter what happens. This is where boundaries come into place. You may get the comments of “this is just a quick design nothing big, shouldn’t take long”. But in reality when that happens and when that is said, it is always a big order, that is complicated and does take a long time to complete in reality but your client may not realize that — or worse they don’t care that it may take longer than they are predicting and just want the job done. This is also where boundaries are needed more than anything and any other time of your job. Never be afraid to stand on your standards, you own the business and the service, not your clients. Your job is to deliver great design work based on the standards you have set for yourself right along with making the client happy through a great customer/client experience. But if making the client happy goes against your views, your standards, and your boundaries ultimately making your job a complete nightmare due to rushing, let the client go and replace them with another new client on your journey as a freelancer. All money is not good money, all connections are not needed to achieve your goal, and your well being is just as important as your work position.

Second pain point as a graphic designer for me would be simply getting my work out there to the world. Social media makes this easier for me overall but at the same time harder the bigger social media becomes. Graphic Design and the art field in general is very competitive overall and that includes advertising your art services.

When I first began my freelance service as a designer, it was also the beginning of the social media era so I was able to take full advantage of that time period. Everything was new online, everyone was really hype about the fact that we could really communicate with anyone across the country within a matter of seconds to minutes. This made it easier for me to find new clients and to push my work. I was also much younger and didn’t have other personal responsibilities so there was much more time to promote and promote some more and more everyday.

Fast forward to now, social media has become very oversaturated with those who know what they are doing when it comes to this field and those who think they know what they are doing and are just copying and pasting continuously. There are more people to compare yourself to as well which doesn’t help with being confident in promoting yourself online sometimes.

Solution:

First off stand in confidence. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will. You are representing yourself. You don’t have that representation management as a freelancer like other traditional job positions you may have, so you have to stand in confidence knowing that you know what you’re doing and can help your potential clients with their marketing. You have to work twice as hard as the next man. Keep posting online even when it seems you’re over posting. Most of the time it takes a person to see something seven (7) times before they make the decision to purchase or book so keep posting daily. Don’t just limit yourself to social media though. Remember there’s nothing wrong with safely getting out of the house and reaching out to business owners that may be brick and mortar if they allow it. In this day and age many don’t expect physical contact so you may get lucky and gain more clients in this manner than you expect.

Third pain point, would be fair pay and I think this is a big pain point for many fields right now not just the arts field. As a freelancer, you choose your pay and set your own rates. This is great when it comes to having freedom and flexibility, but can be a downfall of gaining the trust of new clients. Some may feel like your work is not good enough for the pay you’re charging. Some may feel like you’re overpriced in general whether your work is of quality or not. The average pay for a graphic designer changes from time to time as well.

Solution:

Again this is another area where you should stick with your boundaries and make sure you take yourself serious. If you don’t stand on your prices, your clients won’t either. Make sure that you are accounting for the labor you’re putting in. Even though you’re working from a computer screen a majority of the time, doesn’t mean that the work you’re doing is not labor. Set your prices and stand on them.

Last but definitely not least, is the pain point of theft. I have dealt with the theft of my design work before behind the scenes. It’s heartbreaking when you work so hard on your design services, setting up your website, displaying your work, and servicing the public only for your business to not be taken serious but also to be stolen from all together. But it happens even to the best of us that have been in business for over 10 years.

First occasion of theft for me was a charge back. This charge back was done for an event flyer project designed for a client in the same state as me. This client actually used the Event Flyer Design for an event that I actually physically attended to show my support to them for the support I thought they had given to me. This was considered theft because the event flyer was requested, the flyer was created and was paid for, the product (the flyer) was sent to the client once the payment was received in full, and the client proceeded to use the flyer design to promote the event on a regular basis for weeks after the fact only to attempt to get their money back for the product they had used. This is considered “usage of product”. This flyer was even printed off and promoted physically around the area the event was to take place. After a week or so from the event, I received a chargeback notification from my bank where there was an attempt to garnish the pay made by the client directly from my bank account with a note that the client was claiming that they never received their products at all upon paying which was a flat out lie on their part. Sort of like a refund for already used services and products. So this situation was disheartening and learning experience for myself overall. There are designers that do scam, but there are even more consumers who scam designers out of their hard work for free as well out here.

Second theft experience was a fellow designer using my design work from my website and placing them on their website to promote their own graphic design services. Now this one I stumbled across due to a personal relationship with this particular designer. Nothing romantic, just a strictly platonic friendship relationship where business ideas were exchanged. I never knew this friend was into graphic designing at all during my occasions with them, however, until I came across their website completely randomly. As a freelancer you can not use another designer’s work to promote your services. It’s not your work. That is just straight false advertisement to the public. Your clients will have the impression that your work will be in that style of design when in reality that’s not your style of design at all and you probably can’t replicate it on your own. For this one, I simply asked for my design work to be removed and they obliged with an apology.

Third theft experience hasn’t been experienced directly but I’m watching as it is affecting other fellow designers’ ambition to continue in this field. This would be Artificial Intelligence (AI) based design systems. Many think this is just a system to create designs similar to Photoshop and Illustrator but it’s not. AI systems use real designer designs input into their system to generate new automated design work. So ultimately you’re stealing multiple designer’s work to create your own. You’re not putting in the work at all of designing. Just using a system to do the work for you which is not right. Systems like this truly put real freelancers out of business and it’s on the rise currently in this country. These type of systems give off the impression that you can click a button and create set design work in a matter of seconds (referencing my turnaround time dilemmas) which is crazy when you think about it. It takes all of the integrity out of the art itself.

Solution:

Use your discernment with who you decide to work with. Do a slight background check on the client who is requesting your services. Their reputation matters just like yours as a designer. You need to know who you are exchanging messages with along with who you are planning to receive money from. Sometimes you can see red flags before you begin business with some clients via social media so just keep that in mind. The more red flags you may find, the more chaotic the work experience may end up becoming for you and them.

Have refund policies in place. Think of different scenarios that may come up overtime and make sure you address those in your policies so if and once they do appear, you’ll be prepared upfront. It’s the more professional thing to do overall. An FAQ section may help here, along with setting up some rules per service on your website. Most graphic designers do not offer refunds because what we do is professional services that include personalized design products. Once they’re sent over, the client now has those ideas and designs that you can’t necessarily get back nor use towards other client orders so there’s not really anything to return.

You do have the option to seek legal action if you find that your work has been stolen and the consumer or designer will not remove it from their site or possession virtually, or for any other worse case scenarios. This is up to you as to whether you have a case or whether the issue is that serious to where legal counsel is needed.

That’s pretty much it for the main pain points of being a graphic designer, but of course there are always more and everyone has different situations they go through.
I hope these help along with the solutions provided as well.