Collaboration Marketing as a Freelance Web Designer

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Credit: John Morgan on Flickr

Who Am I? I’m Allan, a designer who went from freelancer who was grinding out a meager living to co-founding a highly profitable web shop, now we build our own apps, we host conferences and workshops.

Here’s the skinny… Too many designers are sitting at home, talking about the elusive “portfolio” they plan on building or waiting for word of mouth to take them where they want to go. Here’s some tough love: what good is your portfolio if no one is talking about you or visiting your site?

Word of mouth can take you a long way if people truly are referring you to their friends, but instead of waiting around for others to do you favors, try putting the words in their mouth’s for them through collaboration marketing.

You need to get out there and network. Share your work, participate in communities, and look to collaborate. Get out of the house and shake some hands, add some real value online, and make things happen.

Designers Should Meet Developers: Why and How?

• Why meet developers?

  Developers are always looking for great designers. Market yourself to them; not to the client. Let the developer reach out to clients and sell the projects. That’s their job. It’s your job to make things beautiful. Make friends with these geeks.

• Go to developer’s workshops and conferences.

  Look for development teams that you’d love to work with. Look for people that match your passion, that have projects you could make better and that stand out in the community they are in. Introduce yourself to them. You may do this via phone, email, Twitter or even by attending a conference or workshop for developers.

• Contribute to open source communities.

  Open source repositories and profiles like those provided by GitHub.com are quickly becoming the new resume for web designers. These type of communiteis allow for collaboration with coding and design projects.

  The social aspect allows for others comment on and contribute to each other’s work. It gives you the opportunity to not only speak to other designers in your field, but also to communicate with developers who may be looking for someone just like you for their next big project. Want to make a name for yourself in the web design world? Contribute a bit of code to an open source network.

As a testament to how important we believe social open source contribution is to the designer’s career, three years ago, our company released LovdByLess.com; a free, open source social platform.

This jump started our company and resulted in millions of dollars of work; work that wasn’t even related to the open source project we built. LovdbyLess brought attention to our little web shop and caused us to be perceived as “experts.” That’s what originating something will inevitably do for you.

Share Your Work

When you talk about your craft you become an expert and passionate about your craft. Becoming an “expert” will bring your value up to potential employers and clients. Here are a few case studies of people doing just that:

• Check out Pictos.DrewWilson.com. Drew offers a set of clean icons for user interface designers at an inconceivably low price. His work has spread all over the internet, making a name for himself.
• Perhaps you’ve heard of Chris Coyier of CSS-Tricks.com. Chris shares his knowledge of CSS as a means of marketing. Chris makes a living from advertising on his blog + works with Wufoo, an amazing company.
• Finally, look at Jim and Nick from doctype.tv. Jim and Nick still host a tips webisode there for site builders every week, but after their first several months of doing doctype, they had both expanded their reaches to major industry contributor, thinkvitamin.com. These few month of work, carried them into a job with an incredible company, Carsonfied.

The point is, you can’t say there aren’t opportunities. If you’re sitting at home wondering what to do next while simultaneously neglecting these wonderful communities, you’re dead wrong. This kind of marketing isn’t artificial and doesn’t need to have a big strategy behind it, just consistently participate, be helpful, look to collaborate, and good things will happen.

Sitting at Home vs. Collaboration Marketing

The mere fact that these networks and open source communities exist is evidence to the fact that there are tons of people out there who are operating on passion rather than the prospect of instant gratification. Developers are looking for designers with zeal for what they do. If you’re passionate about being a designer, you won’t be able to resist sharing your knowledge and your work with others.

This is where developers are looking, and this is where you will meet them. You have to engage the design conversation that’s taking place and look to collaborate. There’s no stamina in instant gratification–no longevity. If you do somehow miraculously find a job without networking your way to it, it will be one that doesn’t fulfill you, doesn’t grow you and doesn’t allow you to engage this exponential community of passionate designers.

Photo credit: Some rights reserved by John Morgan.