Issue #56
July 26, 2007

Welcome to Inside Freelance Design (IFD), your free, bi-weekly e-letter from American Writers & Artists Inc. Every other week, you can receive this special alert with secrets, tips, and insights from AWAI's graphic design pros to help you improve your skills and reach your goal of becoming a professional graphic designer in the fastest time possible.

IN THIS ISSUE:
  • Creating a Community for Creative Professionals
  • Quick Tip: How to Remove Type From Clip Art
  • EXTRA! EXTRA! News and Job Opportunities
Creating a Community for Creative Professionals
by Barbara Saunders

When I got laid off the first time in 2000, it was devastating. The next three times (in less than three years) were even worse.

Self-employment sounds like an exciting adventure until you’re faced with it all on your own – in an economy that’s in a tailspin. Thankfully, I happened upon a small group of intrepid creative professionals who had banded together to share the ride.

As members of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), these freelancers had created a special-interest group called Self-Employed Creative Professionals (SECP) that consisted of writers, designers, photographers, programmers, and others.

Under the umbrella of IABC, SECP members met each month to share experiences, knowledge, and lend support to each other. We started a monthly email newsletter to share ideas, and our group grew by leaps and bounds. Then we developed a simple website where we could list our services.

Our alliance had two very powerful results. First, businesses began to call for referrals. And second, we could collaborate with each other and get work on bigger projects.

By 2003, we were too large for IABC to handle, so we launched out on our own with three goals:

  1. To be a community: This is our main priority. We instituted an annual trade show where we display our work. By getting to know each other’s skills, we have been able to form collaborative partnerships within the group.
  2. Business building: Our monthly meetings focus on business growth.
  3. Promotion: We work to educate the business community on how to outsource work to independent contractors, and let them know that we’re a great resource. Word of mouth has been good, but we’ve also invited trade groups and businesses to our trade shows and events.

SECP is heading into our tenth year with almost 500 members and a new set of goals. We’re now working on adding tangible benefits for our members:

  1. Back office support: Over the years, we’ve had tax pros, marketing experts, attorneys, and others talk about how to grow our businesses. They know our needs. So we’ve developed a program were they offer special discounts and do private workshops for our members. For a small annual subscription fee, our members have access to affordable support services, as well as other business discounts around town.

  2. A political voice: By organizing as a large group of creative professionals, we’ve gotten both our city and state governments to start paying attention to us.

    Self-employed people tend to go under the radar and aren’t counted when policies are made. So we’ve begun lobbying efforts to make our voices heard. We’ve made some headway in revising the city’s RFP (Request for Proposal) process for self-employed creatives, and we’re confronting the state in the affordable health care issue.

  3. Raise visibility: With some funds coming in through member subscriptions and our workshop fees, we can put more of an effort into raising the visibility of the group through PR and marketing outreach instead of word of mouth. We’re also actively working on educating the business community on what a deal it is to work with members of our group: We deliver agency services without agency overhead.

So how do you create your own local group of self-employed creative professionals? Here are a few tips:

  1. Start where you are. A few people meeting regularly is a good beginning. Invite some established (or retired) self-employed creative professionals to join you to share their experiences. They’ll be flattered that you asked.
  2. Find a place. Many libraries offer free meeting space, and some coffee shops and cafes have small meeting rooms that you can use as long as you make a minimum order. We charge $5 per meeting to cover some light refreshments.

  3. Reach out. As businesspeople, there are many things we need to know to run our businesses. You might start by calling tax professionals who specialize in small businesses and inviting them to talk.

    Over the years, we’ve had organizing experts talk about home office organizing, marketing coaches talk about presenting ourselves better, financial planners talk about options for the self-employed, and a Blue Cross representative talking about health care options.

  4. Get the word out. Get your event listed in the local papers. About three weeks before our events, we send a note to all of the local papers’ business editors and ask to be listed in their upcoming events section. It’s free and starts getting your group exposure.

  5. Capture information. When people come in, ask them to sign up for your email mailings so they’ll know about future events. Begin a regular email alert. It doesn’t have to be fancy.

    Ours began with just a notice of the upcoming event. Then we added a listing of opportunities that members had sent in. We eventually added monthly Freelancer’s Tip, Member News, and Local Events columns. (Check out a copy of our newsletter here.)

  6. Put up a website. One of the best ways to reach other self-employed creatives is to have a place for them to reach you. A website is inexpensive and is a great way to establish your presence. Have a sign-up form for visitors to get your monthly emails.
  7. Put competition on the back burner. Our motto has become “A rising tide lifts all the boats.” This is a place to share, not compete. We all have different niches, so there is enough work to go around.

[Ed. Note: Barbara Saunders is a graphic designer and owner of Newsletter Associates, and a principal member of Self-Employed Creative Professionals, based in Portland, Oregon. She is currently completing AWAI’s Graphic Design program for direct mail.]

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Each issue breaks down the DM package's design elements to show you what worked and even more importantly, why it worked.

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How to Remove Type From Clip Art
by Kammy Thurman

You’ve just found the perfect piece of clip art for your design, but you don’t want the caption that’s included. There are several ways to remove type from clip art, depending on what type of software you have and the design itself.

1. Bitmap images (TIFF, JPEG, and GIF) can be edited in image-editing programs such as Photoshop, Corel Photo Paint, and MS Image Composer. Just use the eraser tool to erase the pixels that form the words.

If that erases part of the clip art or background, you can use the clone or paint tools to replace the design or color. If the type is not hooked to the clip art, you can use the marquee or lasso tool to select the type and then delete it.

2. Vector images (WMF, Illustrator) can be edited in drawing programs like Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, Metafile Companion, and others. In these programs, select the text you want to remove (usually with the arrow tool) and then delete it using the delete key.

These editing methods change the image itself. So before you make any changes in a file, save it with a new name so you can keep the original intact.

3. Word-processing programs such as MS Word and Word Perfect – and some nonprofessional design programs, such as MS Publisher and Adobe Pagemaker – are very limited in what they can do in the way of image editing.

You can’t edit the actual clip art, but you can do some rudimentary editing if the type doesn’t touch the clip art. You can crop the image so the type or other unwanted portions can’t be seen. Or you can draw a box around the type (without borders) that’s the same color as the background to hide it.

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EXTRA! EXTRA! News and Job Opportunities
  • GRAPHIC DESIGNER – Hollister, a Boston-area placement firm, has an opening for an experienced graphic designer to work full-time at a South Shore firm. You’ll work closely with the Art Director to design catalogs, ads, and collateral materials. Send your resume as a Word attachment to creative@hollisterstaff.com.
  • GRAPHIC DESIGNER – Revolution Media Group, a political public affairs ad firm in DC, needs a skilled graphic who isn’t afraid of hard work. You must be able to demonstrate knowledge of InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Quark, and Acrobat. Send your resume and work samples to info@revolutionmediagroup.com.
  • GRAPHIC DESIGNER – Freedom Communications, a large media company in Irvine, CA, is looking for a graphic designer to help launch its new Interactive Marketing division. You’ll take on a wide array of projects, including website designs, single sales sheets, and more. You must be well-versed in designing for print, the Web, and multimedia campaigns. Apply online: http://freedom.jobinfo.com/description.lasso?adid=11629.
COMING NEXT ISSUE:
  • Specialty Stock Photo Sites
  • Quick Tip: How to Boost Layout Impact with a Scholar’s Margin
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