Essential Tools to Start a Freelance Graphic Design Business
and what you don’t need:
Starting out on your own and looking for resources? There’s a TON of advice out there advocating for different tools that can help you run things. I’m here to tell you what you actually do need at the beginning, and what you can skip until you’re further along.
I started Amp’d Designs at just 24 with a lot of design experience, but not much experience running a company. Since, I’ve grown it to a sustainable and fulfilling business. Now, I use a lot of software and strategies that are essential for the level I’m at, but the truth is that when I was just starting out things were pretty stripped down—and that WORKED!
*Links below marked with an asterisk indicate affiliate links.
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Here’s what you do need:
Your own website with your own domain name
Let’s face it: your own space at something like yourbusinessname.com says serious and legit, while behance.net/yourbusinessname says inexperienced and side gig.
While your website doesn’t need to be super robust to start, it should include a portfolio of recent work (bonus points for case studies), some information about you, your services and pricing, and a way to contact you.
A professional email address
It’s best to move away from your first initial + last name + birth year when it comes to professional work. A Gsuite email with your custom domain is always a plus. This makes you look like a real business owner. However, I do actually think this expense can wait until you get the ball rolling a bit. At the very least, yourbusinessname@gmail.com will suffice.
Simple project management tools
Even if you’re naturally organized like I am, managing multiple projects and clients at once will start to become a lot to keep track of. You need some way to track deadlines and how much time you’re spending on your work.
My recommended platform for task management is Asana, which has a great free plan. It allows you to group tasks by client and assign yourself due dates. I still use Asana for everything, including due dates to send clients follow-up emails or check in with colleagues.
Even if you’re not billing hourly, it will always be valuable to track how long you spend on your projects. A great free platform for this is Toggl.
Formal contracts, and a way to send them
You’ve probably read or heard that you should never start any design work for a client without a contract in place—and that is correct! You need some sort of formal agreement that covers the scope of work, pricing and payment terms, liability, and other key clauses that protect you and your clients.
Now, I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but you likely don’t need to drop thousands of dollars on a lawyer to write a custom contract for you. If you definitely want to be sure you’re covered instead of piecing it together yourself, check out the Contract Shop*, which offers lawyer-drafted contracts for creatives at affordable prices.
The next step is getting legally-binding signatures from your clients. My recommended platform for this is Eversign, which is free for up to 5 contracts per month. Usually this is more than enough, especially when just starting out.
Formal invoices, and a way to send them
When I first started working for myself, I created an invoice template in InDesign and exported PDFs for every client. This is a bit tedious, though, and doesn’t give the client an easy way to pay.
I quickly shifted to using Quickbooks Self Employed, which is what I recommend. While it has a small monthly fee, it also includes the ability to track your expenses and miles, which is also essential as a self-employed service provider.
By sending invoices through Quickbooks, clients can either pay via credit card or ACH (you’re able to offer one or both options). There is a small percentage charged if the client chooses a credit card, so I include a statement on all my invoices that ACH is preferred, as there’s no fee for ACH payments. It’s worth noting, though, that this small fee is unavoidable amongst credit card processors, it can be compensated for in your pricing, and it should be looked at as the cost of doing business.
(Note that Quickbooks Self Employed is different from regular Quickbooks and has a lower monthly cost.)
If you’re not ready to pay for Quickbooks, another option is PayPal, which is free to use. PayPal charges a small percentage for both credit card and ACH payment processing. However, I have heard many stories from colleagues about payments being held in PayPal, or payment disputes being settled in favor of clients even when they shouldn’t be, so that’s why it’s not my top recommendation.
Professional design software
There are lots of business tools that have great free alternatives for starting out—but unfortunately this is not one of them. As much as its pricing pains me, Adobe Creative Cloud* is one tool that I recommend not to skimp out on, even at the beginning.
Look, the reality is that when you go out on your own as a freelancer, you’re a business owner. Part of running a business is accepting that there are expenses that come along with that. And if we want people to invest money in our services, we have to be willing to invest in our own businesses, too.
While there are alternate programs floating around, they don’t match the capabilities of Adobe. Adobe is the industry standard for expert-level design software; when we’re positioning ourselves as experts to our clients, it would be doing them a disservice to cut corners here.
The second piece of software that I can’t recommend an alternative for at this time is Pantone. Unfortunately, Pantone color swatches are no longer included in an Adobe CC subscription, and instead require a subscription to Pantone Connect. As frustrating as it is, PMS colors are still essential in branding work, and it’s important for us to design using proper spot colors in order to provide the best service for our clients.
Some thought and intention around how you brand yourself
This is one area I wish I had focused on sooner when I decided to go out on my own! Originally I figured I’d take on any design work from any industry, and I didn’t put much thought into how I would stand apart from the gazillion other graphic designers out there. But in reality, when we get clear on who we are and who we want to work with, the way we market and connect with clients becomes so much easier.
While so much of this can—and likely will—change as you continue to grow, it’s so immensely valuable to give a bit of thought to the why behind your work (why you do what you do), a few core values that drive your forward, and your ideal client.
If you want to take it a step further, you can Google “brand strategy exercises,” pick a few that come up, and go through them for yourself.
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Here’s what you don’t need when you’re first starting out:
An office space
Fortunately as designers, even with our Adobe CC subscriptions we can have pretty low overhead! Working out of a coworking space can be nice for a change of scenery, but skipping this expense at first will save you a lot.
When I first launched Amp’d Designs I rented conference rooms on an as-needed basis at a local coworking space—and I’m actually pretty content working by myself all day, so I still do!
Proposal and presentation templates
Actually, I don’t think we should be using design templates for anything ever, because we’re designers! One great way to wow your clients when you’re just starting out is to design your own proposal and presentation templates in InDesign, Xd, or Illustrator that are branded to your business for that personal touch.
Professional brand photography and copywriting
This one may be controversial, and I do think it is a personal preference with many factors involved, but personally I believe it’s important to grow first and learn more about who your business is and who you want to attract before hiring these services.
Powerful project management systems
Work on nailing down your internal process and your client process first, then figure out what tools you can invest in to make it even smoother.
This year I’ve been working to set up Dubsado, a platform that can house and track all of my projects and automate communications, invoices, and contracts. Now that I’ve scaled to a higher price point and higher client experience level, this is an appropriate step that will make things so much easier on my end. But I don’t believe it’s necessary for brand new businesses.
Virtual meeting software subscription
Zoom is the go-to for video calls these days. While it’s an excellent platform for collaboration, you can avoid the pro membership by using free platforms like Google Meet.
Everything 100% figured out
Above I mentioned the importance of giving some thought to basic brand strategy. That’s still imperative, but know that you don’t need to have it set in stone! Don’t let uncertainties or imperfections stop you from starting.
Your first year in business will see so much change. As you start to work on projects, you’ll gain a much clearer sense of the type of work you enjoy, the type of clients you like working with, how better to structure your services, and how to make your process and policies smoother. Your interests, brand personality, and goals will shift so much—and that’s completely normal! As your business continues to level up, the tools you use will level up to match.
If you found these tips helpful and are looking for more, download my free Client Kick-Off Meeting Questionnaire! This guide walks through how to prepare for the meeting, and every question to ask to uncover what you need for design.
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