Offline designers. How can they make it online?
 

I know someone with 6 years extensive experience working as a designer for Aldo and various other big companies.

Shes looking to branch out into the freelance world, and the first thing that came to my mind was trying it out on the net.

She already has experience with Logo Design, Corporate Image, Promotional Items, Packaging, Business Cards, Catalogs, Brochures, Photo Retouching, etc etc etc, you get the picture.

Do you guys think it's possible for an offline mainstream designer to compete in todays internet world?

Would you guys recommend her to try it out online? (she is more than willing to do some work in the adult industry as well).

How should she go about choosing her path?

Also, do you guys know of any ressources for her to check out? (as a freelance designer)

it comes down to what programs she uses to create the stuff she does currently ... is she a print designer, ie, designs business cards and brochures in illustrator or quark or corel or pagemaker or indesign? If so, learning to make web pages can sometimes be a big challenge as getting the head around things like compression and file size isn't always easy for a print designer. RGB instead of CMYK. Photoshop & html instead of quark & trim marks. etc etc. Plus its a whole new set of programs and products to learn ...

but anyone can do anything if they set their mind to it so if she's keen enough she'll figure it out, but its not as simple as 'design is design' if ya know what I mean.

Online or offline ... no difference. If she can scan her work in, and she can use Photoshop, she's ready. Easy.

do you guys think she might be able to find some decent work on GFY?

what other places would be recommended?

will she work as cheap as foreign outsourced labour? if not, she should find another career. her skills probably aren't worth much to anyone online. only brick and mortar companies that aren't aware of outsourcing.

quite interesting

can anybody back this up?

It comes and goes. People who quality work done on time with no bullshit...tend to not 'outsource' to 3rd world countries. People on GFY, the 'millionaires' nonwithstanding, are generally cheap as fuck, and don't pay real world dollars for quality work done on time. 'Course, that being said, people are flaky in general, but GFY people tend to be more so.

We've had no problem getting work, both B&M and 'online'. None of comes from GFY, and I'm quite happy with that.


If she has a good portfolio, and knows how to market herself, she should ok. While there is a lot of competition in outsourced design...lots of it is shit.