|
Warm greetings to all those reading this. I'm approaching my senior year in art school at the University of Florida and within this year (2017) I've been finding myself becoming more and more involved with paid graphic design/illustration freelance work and I've been loving it. Gainesville, Florida is a tiny town with a big-city feel if you spend enough time downtown, and alongside this, there's a growing and thriving start-up tech industry that's been forming here for the past five or so years. New buildings and office complexes are being built every year to house more and more tech-based start-ups and companies. I took some initiative at the beginning of the year to get better at illustration and graphic design at the same time by coming up with my own project where I convert my hand sketched doodles into very simple and colorful icons. It's been really fun and rewarding in it's own way and I enjoy being able to pick up the project and put it down again whenever i feel the desire to do so. Anyways, by sharing my work constantly with friends, I was able to land a sweet freelance gig with a local audio engineering start-up through the grapevine of my friends networks. Referencing this forum constantly, I was able to design a t-shirt for them that they loved and we signed a royalties agreement about it once they start printing units. Now I'm working with the same company to come up with fun illustrations for their website, and I was also able to get a referral to another local tech start-up who builds mobile apps who has now taken me on unofficially as their in-house graphics guy. I helped make logos, a sexy business card template, and a couple of branding decisions for them and now they too want me to help come up with fun illustrations for their website! Being able to broach the small-but-growing tech sector in Gainesville has been a treat so far and I've been feeling great from the creative fulfillment I've been experiencing working with these guys. However, I've got some itches that need scratching. Gainesville is small, and one thing I've talked with a lot of people who live here about is the fact that there are certain industries in this town (like graphic design) which have very low ceilings, which for a freelancer, in my perception, means trying to be a big fish in a small pool. I love this kind of work and I'd love to make this occupation my full-time job as I'm currently working a day job which is just tolerable at best. I'm very new to this whole scene (I still have yet to make a website but I do have a portfolio put together) and I've been experiencing some success but I want to know how can I keep this snowball rolling and getting bigger and better? Are there any places in the US that I can move to that would help me to pursue this field of work more heavily? Somewhere more metropolitan? Maybe somewhere with cheap rent too? I like working but the appeal of low overhead living expenses is a luxury I'd love to have. I'd love to share my portfolio with anyone curious but I don't have PMs. I can be reached via email at sreyes1111@gmail.com Cheers!
|
#
¿
Jul 9, 2017 16:02
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 16:23 |
|