Working for free
There will be people who agree with this post and an equal amount who will disagree. However, so long as it helps out one person then it will have been a worthwhile exercise.
A couple of months ago, I went out seeking advice on how I should go about rewriting my CV and boosting my portfolio. Unfortunately this proved to be quite tricky because I’m sure like many of you, when you’re starting out in the web game, there just aren’t that many people who you can seek advice from. Thankfully, it didn’t really matter that I only had a select few people to turn to because the first person that I did speak to gave me a cracking piece of advice. The person in question was Mr. Bruce Lawson.
I’ve only had the pleasure of meeting Bruce twice but feels like I’ve known him a lot longer due to many emails about the HTML 5 Doctor. The fact that he was willing to give me advice even though we don’t really know eachother speaks volumes about the man. Anyway, enough praise, time to get on with the rest of this post…
One of the options we spoke about was working for free and why more people don’t do it. You might be reading that line again thinking I’m crazy, I know I did. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Let me explain
- You now have a platform to showcase your skills
- There’s a fair chance that you will be allowed to have more say, if not all, in the design than you would for a paying client
- It shows just how willing you are to show your worth
- It expands your portfolio
We all have to be realistic, it’s highly unlikely especially after just starting out that you are going to get the same amount of clients as leading industry experts such as Mark Boulton or Simon Collison. But by adopting this approach you will at least have these all important “real world” examples that future clients or employers are supposedly looking for.
To help give you some ideas here’s what I decided to do. I identified a few Scottish businesses with poor websites; I decided to choose one Scottish charity, one major Scottish business, one Scottish event and one mystery project. Upon each projects completion I’d would then contact the buisness in question and ask them if they would like to implement my new design. You could of course decide to go down a different route at this stage and charge the client if they decided to take you up on this offer, depending upon how much work you had done etc.
Of the four mentioned above so for I have launched one, Tweet in the Park. I’ll write more about this in my next blog post, if you are interested in finding out about more on this project then add me to your RSS.
As I outlined in the first paragraph, this won’t be for everyone and some people will just not be able to be in a position to do so but if you get a chance, even if it is just one site, I’d throughly recommend it. So far it’s proved to be a great experience. Let me know in the comment section below if you have ever contemplated doing something like this or indeed if you already have some published free work out there and what other people have thought about you for taking this line of action?
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Who I am
My name is Jack Osborne and I am a Glasgow–based designer and writer. You should follow me on Twitter.
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What I do
I am a front-end developer with proficiency in; accessibility, design, semantics, usability & web standards.
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Where I do it
I am currently working freelance and I am available for hire. Feel free to get in touch with me if you fancy a chat.
Hmm..
I’d be very careful pursuing this route. Way back, when I was an animator I worked on several productions which really didn’t have enough money to run.
The attitude was always “we’ll get a student to work for free”. They were used and abused and disposed of. When you’re trying to make a name for yourself you have to be careful that you’re not taken advantage of. You have to get some kind of return for the fruits of your labour – and a pat on the back isn’t one. Everything has it’s price..
That is true.
However, I think the difference with that and what I’ve outlined above is that you’re getting to choose the projects that you would like to work on. If the proposed client doesn’t like what you have proposed then at least you will always have another portfolio piece.
..as long as you don’t get into the trap of making amendments for them. In my experience if you give someone an inch they will take a mile, and beat you with it.
Good idea. But working for free should be kept for charities in my humble opinion. Or you get took advantage of.
Todays favour is tomorrow obligation and all that…
See you tonight
PS – Anyways if you want to work for free that can easily be arranged lols.
Hows about next week for a trial run…
I’ve been looking to do the same thing recently – boost my portfolio – and doing a few sites for free (or for yourself) seems to be the best option.
Can’t say I’ve ever taken the approach of doing the work and then asking the business/client if they would like to implement it. I would rather ask them before doing the work if they would be interested (so I know I’m not wasting my time), but I guess your approach would nullify their input until the implementation stage.
First of all great job on Tweet In The Park
I’ve been considering a similar approach, where choosing local businesses with websites you can improve upon and then presenting it to them. In many cases they will take you up on the offer, although you have to be careful of offending them if they made their current site themselves.
I know working for free is frowned upon by established designers however it’s not so easy starting out without a real world portfolio i.e. not just college/uni projects.
The key here is to approach businesses with existing websites and not those without or you could find yourself dealing with all kinds of hosting issues. I once demoed a site on a sub-domain on my own site and the client expected me to ‘host’ the site there.
Working for a charity is a great idea as you can consider your work a donation as opposed to working for free.
I also very much agree that you have a lot more say over what you do in these projects as the client doesn’t want to lose their free site design over a few minor details.
Ultimately you end up with three or four great portfolio pieces that can then win you other clients or a job at an agency.
I think the key to not getting taken advantage of is setting a limit on how many sites you will do for free, otherwise word may get around that you don’t expect to be paid ever.
Overall I think it’s the only way a designer can start and build both experience and a killer portfolio.
@Nick and @Steve
Perhaps I’ve not been able to get my point across entirely but I think I’ve done it well enough for people to grasp the basic idea, you are both testament to that.
I completely agree with the both of you, and hobo, when you say that working for free can become a lot of hassle and this is maybe the bit I skimmed over a little. You would have a contract in place for paying client so why not have one in place for this freebie. Sure, you built the site for nothing but you certainly aren’t going to carry out updates and maintenance for nothing. I suppose I could have highlighted this a little better, as I’m feeling that this may well be the major sticking point of the article.
However, I’m finding it very interesting to read the comments from people on both sides of the fence. From a few of the emails I’ve had, I think some people are forgetting just how hard it is to get your foot up on the ladder.
Working for free means that your work has no value, I think that working pro bono is a much better concept.