Back to All Events

The Freelance Frontier: Things We Wish We Knew Before Self-Employment

with Alyssa Phillips and Eric Vasquez

Freelancing as a designer is wonderful! — Until it’s not.

There’s loads of content out there about the beauty of self-employment: freedom to make your own schedule, take vacations, curate your client list, work from coffee shops, the list of benefits goes on.

But it’s not butterflies and roses all the time. Freelancing comes with a host of challenges, mistakes, and lessons learned.

The truth is, freelancing IS amazing and rewarding, and it IS challenging at the same time. 🤩😰 In this conversation, we’ll be talking about things we wish we’d known before taking the plunge.

Whether you’re just beginning your self-employment journey or you’re a seasoned freelancer, this talk will leave you with valuable insights and practical tips to help you thrive as a design business owner.

We’ll be covering:

  • Instagram vs. reality: the biggest misconceptions about freelancing and how to overcome them

  • Conquering challenges: strategies for tackling difficult situations so that those bumps in the road don’t last too long (or happen again)

  • Mistakes we’ve made: we’re spilling the tea on our biggest blunders

  • Work-life balance: how we set boundaries and remember to take care of ourselves

  • What’s not in the textbooks: the advice we wish we’d been given before we started freelancing

Watch the recording:


Meet the speakers:

Alyssa Phillips is the founder of Make Your Design Matter ®, helping ambitious self-employed designers nail their processes, wow their clients, and grow their businesses with confidence.

Along with providing detailed, actionable resources for creatives, she loves flipping the script on common perspectives and examining how to build a business that is sustainable & fulfilling while rooted in integrity & professionalism.

Alyssa is also the owner of Amp’d Designs, transforming businesses through branding and web design crafted with intention, strategy, and style. Outside of design, she loves music, cooking, baking things with chocolate in them, and experimenting in the garden.

Eric Vasquez is a freelance Key Art and Brand Designer from NYC. He has a YouTube Channel called Eric Vasquez Design where he shares his experience, passion, and freelance  journey through his videos to inspire and educate others who are interested in entertainment design and branding.

Over the past 15 years, Eric has worked with some of the biggest names in sports and entertainment including: A+E Networks, Discovery, Food Network, HGTV, Lifetime, Major League Baseball, Nickelodeon, NBC, Oxygen, SYFY, Showtime, and World Wrestling Entertainment.

Previous
Previous
March 27

Picture Perfect: How to *WOW* with Website Photos

Next
Next
April 26

How to Sell with Brand Story