Looking for a new client? The FreelanceSwitch job board is a great resource of freelance gigs and opportunities. These opportunities are in various fields, from development to writing to design, and come from a wide range of potential clients. The job board is hand-moderated by dedicated staff and volunteers from the freelance community.

Each week, we’ll feature a selection of the best job opportunities posted for the week. This week, we’re featuring jobs in Motion Design, UX/UI Design, Flash Design and more!

To apply for any of these jobs, simply pick up a FreelanceSwitch membership for an affordable $7 a month. See something you like? Join now!

Multi skilled Motion Designer

Budget: $1,000 to $2,500

Hi Freelancers!

Our motion graphic agency has recently been getting a lot of new projects and we are looking for freelancers or creative teams to help us out. We make motion graphic for all kinds of purposes, but the core of our work is based around:

Title sequences for TV
Info graphics
some VFX

We are looking for a confident designer with sufficient skills in both 2D and 3D animation to handle a project form pitch to finish. Hopefully you are somehow organized, know how to communicate and handle flexible deadlines too.

We appreciate creativity, wacky ideas and surprises. We want work to be fun and tend to take on projects that can be visually interesting rather than corporate streamlined ones (not always true, but we try to make the corporate ones look good too).

Learn more & apply!

UX / UI Designers

Budget: $5,000 to $10,000

Worry Free Labs is looking for a highly experienced UX and UI designers. Highly qualified remote candidates will be considered. Work with a leading team of User Experience and Interface Designers making our mark across devices with notable clients from across the country.

About You

You have 3+ years of experience in UI/UX design for iOS, Android and/or web.
You know yourself and the design process well enough to set and keep deadlines.
You’re interested in responsive design.
You’re eager to teach and learn.
You can think of the client, the user and the developer all at the same time.

Learn more & apply!

Interactive Family Tree Flash Application

Budget: $500 to $1,000

We would like to build something similar to this application for displaying an interactive family tree:

http://www.webexhibits.org/greekgods/

We want the same animation and general concept.

The system should allow us to :

Add Person details: First Name, Second Name, Last Name, Date of Birth, Date of Death (optional), Bio (brief info) and a field to add a link to his personal website or email.
An option to add photo but it should be optional and if a photo is not added a default thumb should appear instead.
A way to define the mother and father of the person and spouses. Maybe using a drop-down list. The selecting method should be easy and simple.
The person may have more than one spouse. 5. In the design we can use colors to identity the relationships (e.g. son, spouse, brother). So for example, the node of the son may have a blue color.
The animation and graphics will exactly be the same as the example above. But the colors need to be changed. We would like you to propose two color themes for the overall design.

Learn more & apply!

Freelance product demo video development

Budget: $500 to $1,000

I need a product demo developed for my startup mobile application. I have all the script ready for the video I just need someone who can do animation and illustration work for me. I am looking for high quality product demo videos. Please get in touch if you feel you have necessary skills to develop the video.

Learn more & apply!

Flash CS6 Tutorials – Design and Write

Budget: $1,000 to $2,500

I am looking for someone to assist in updating 6 tutorials, and designing and writing two new tutorials for Flash CS6. These forty or so-page tutorials are currently written for CS5 so this is a substantial upgrade since we have skipped CS5.5 and are going straight to CS6. I use the word tutorial, but in reality they are step by step projects, written for students who are new to the application, including screen shots along the way and explanations of the how and why each step is being completed. Students receive resource files that accompany this tutorial so that they can work on their own to create the finished project.

Learn more & apply!

One of the fundamental principles of productivity is that in order to get things done, you gotta focus. And that necessary focus requires that you eliminate as many distractions as possible — not always an easy task with the Internet, coworkers and busy phones calling to you from every direction.

Here’s how to block out the Siren’s call of distractions, in 10 steps.

First, let me say that there should be room in your life for distractions. Work should be fun, and without a few distractions, things can get boring. That being said, when it’s time to do a task, there’s no reason to do it while handling a million other things. You’ll never get things done that way. When you’re ready to work on a task, block out all else, and really focus on it. Do your best on that task, and get it done as quickly as possible. Then reward yourself with distractions.

That’s all easier said than done, I know. So here are 10 of the best ways I’ve found to eliminate distractions and really focus on a task.

Note: A few times a month we revisit some of our reader’s favorite posts from throughout the history of FreelanceSwitch. This article was first published in June of 2007, yet is just as relevant and full of useful information today.

Turn off email notifications. And IM and Twitter and phones and other ways people communicate. Instant communication is great, but when you’re working on a task, they are nothing but interruptions. And constant interruptions means you’ll never be able to really focus on what’s before you. Batch process your emails and phone calls, set a time to be on IM or Twitter. Other than the times you set for these communication tools, stay off them. It’s hard at first, but once you give it a try, you’ll realize you can live without them.
Turn off Internet. If you don’t absolutely need the Internet to do the task before you, disconnect. Literally pull the plug. This may sound drastic, but really, the Internet is the biggest time-waster ever invented (which is why I love it). It will suck you in and never let you go. It’s like crack, but with an educational value. Turn it off.
Utilities. If you absolutely need to use the Internet (for “research”), you don’t need to have access to every time-wasting site on the interwebs. Try a Greasemonkey Script (you’ll need Firefox and the Greasemonkey extension) such as Invisibility Cloak or Kiwi Cloak to block out predetermined time-wasting sites (and yes, you know which ones they are) until a predetermined time, or use Time To Go to only allow you to surf a site for a certain amount of time. Great choices for those of us who have no self control.

Headphones. Music is a great way to block out the cackling laughter of your co-worker in the next cubicle as she reads joke emails from her sister, or the loud bragging of your ultra-buff boss as he talks about how he bench pressed a bull this morning. Put on a pair of headphones, and crank up the Radiohead. Or, if music is a distraction in itself, just put on the headphones with no music. It will help block out the surrounding sound, while making people think you can’t hear them. When cackling cubicle neighbor comes over to ask if you got her forwarded email about why men are like monkeys only uglier, pretend you can’t hear her. Bob your head up and down like you’ve never heard Jimi jam like this before.
DND Sign. Make a Do Not Disturb sign to put on your desk when you need to concentrate. Let co-workers know that for those times when you have the sign up, you really need to focus and can’t be disturbed. Then be sure to take the sign down and be available when you’re not focusing on a task. Don’t be a smarty and leave it up the whole day.
Clear workspace clutter. For me, visual clutter is distracting. I like to clear my desk completely, along with all the piles that used to surround my desk and the papers tacked to the walls around me. Now I work in a Zen space (sans the sandy Zen garden). Here’s how to do it: take down everything from your walls except the photo of your kid with ice cream all over her face; put all your papers on your desk (and on the floor around you) in your inbox (if you don’t have one, get one, or create an “in pile”); now process through that pile of papers: trash, delegate, file, put it on your to-do list to do later (and in an “action folder”), or do it now if it takes 2 minutes or less. Process quickly through your inbox, and your desk is clear. Do this once a day to keep the desk clear. Also throw out those funny knick knacks on your desk. They’re just silly.
Clear computer clutter. Take all the icons on your desktop and put them in a folder in My Documents (or something similar). Sort them out later. Now close all unnecessary programs. Turn off any notifications and widgets and other distractions. Only have the program open that you need for this task. Be sure to come back later and sort through the files in your “to be filed” folder.
Handle interruptions. Even if you do all of these things, there will inevitably be interruptions from time to time. Learn how to handle them efficiently and get back to your task. If someone interrupts to make a request or give you information, quickly jot tasks and information in a notebook to be processed later. If others want to chat, stand up (to stop them from sitting down), politely tell your visitor that you are in the middle of an important task, and let them know you’ll get back to them when you’re done. If the interruption is unavoidable, write down where you were in your task, so you can come back to it with the least possible effort.
Use minimal programs. I’m a fan of minimal word processors, such as DarkRoom , JDarkRoom , WriteRoom , Writer , Google Docs or Abi Word . There’s something about these programs that force you to focus on your task. You can always format later. Use them in full screen mode, so everything else is blocked out. Then crank it out.
Distraction time. Have a time for distractions. You can either schedule times for your email processing, reading your feeds, and other distractions, or set aside 10 minutes at the top of every hour, or give yourself 10 minutes after every 30 minutes of focused work.

View engaging conference lectures, interesting how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.

This week we look at How To Find Good Clients by FreelanceJam . Freelancers not only need to know how to find clients, they need to know how to find good clients. In this episode, the FreelanceJam duo Brian and Dave break down the strategies that have worked for them over their years of freelancing. From working the job boards when you’re starting out, to building a strong referral network, and marketing yourself so that great clients come to you.

In March, I wrote a blog post about the importance of making your social media persona as true to real life as possible—especially when looking for work.

These days, people are more likely to lie on their resumes than they are on their LinkedIn or Facebook page. A recent study by Cornell University found that 92% of college students lie at least once on their resume. Can it get them into trouble? YES! In fact, it can cost them their job.

That’s exactly what happened to Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson after it was found that he padded his resume with an embellished college degree. Thompson’s snafu was outed by an activist shareholder group called Third Point, which owns just under 6% of Yahoo.

False statements about Thompson’s degree stretch beyond his time at Yahoo, which began in January. References to a “computer science” degree also appeared in his online biographical information on PayPal’s website when Thompson was president of the eBay subsidiary. —CNNMoney

The discrepancy was flagged by Loeb, who discovered that Stonehill, a private Catholic school near Boston, didn’t begin offering computer science degrees until four years after Thompson had graduated. —LATimes

Thompson had been CEO of Yahoo for four months before this scandal broke and he stepped down.

Here’s the thing—Thompson probably had enough going for him that padding his resume with “additions” to his undergraduate degree probably didn’t even matter! I’m not sure how old Thompson is (judging by his photos I’d say he was in his 40s) and I’m almost positive his “computer science” college degree wasn’t the reason he was hired in the first place.

This scandal got me thinking—what are some safe (ie: truthful) ways to make your resume stand out from your competition? Here are some ideas that won’t get you fired:

Education Isn’t Everything

Many people incorrectly believe hiring decisions are made based on the candidate’s education, and they feel compelled to stretch the truth in order to compete with their degreed counterparts. The reality is that education, though important, isn’t the driving force behind hiring decisions unless, of course, your profession requires a degree (e.g. doctors, lawyers, CPAs, etc.). —WriteResume

Your experience speaks volumes—so let it! Would you be more likely to hire someone who graduated with a bachelors degree in history but who has a stellar photography portfolio or someone who has graduated with a degree in photography but has no relevant work experience to show?

Sell Yourself

To write an effective resume, you have to learn how to write powerful but subtle advertising copy. Not only that, but you must sell a product in which you have a large personal investment: you. —RockportInstitute

Learn to toot your own horn, as a resume is a perfectly acceptable channel where you can toot toot toot and not look like you are full of yourself.

Another idea is to put yourself in the shoes of the person reading the resume. Let’s be honest, most resumes are actually scanned, not read, so you need to make the best information about you easy to find. Why should the person hire you for this project? What makes your skills and expertise better than the next persons? A cleverly crafted resume can make the difference between a phone call and nothing.

Highlight Other Freelance Work Wisely

This section can get a little crazy depending on your experience. One suggestion I found that sounded like a good idea is to split the work experience section of your resume into sections based on employers or types of content.

For example, one copy of my resume includes a subsection about the companies I’ve contracted with, a subsection about the various kinds of web content I’ve provided, and a subsection about my blogging experience.—WritingSpark

Perhaps you’ve written extensively about health-related issues for several publications and businesses. Tackle this strategically by creating subheads for the different content: print , web , and marketing materials , for instance.

Include Links to Your Work

Don’t make it hard for the person receiving your resume to see samples of your work. Include links in your resume to your stories online and include shortened links, too, by using a program like bit.ly). Don’t have an easy way to showcase your work? Create a website where all of your writing samples can be found, or, if your niche is design-oriented, consider creating a digital flipbook that you can link to in your resume.

Making it easy for the person on the receiving end of your resume is key. If you are going to email the person, attach the resume to the email, as well as copy, and paste it into the body of the email. Some people have a serious aversion to attachments and you want to appease, not annoy.

In this issue of Ask FreelanceSwitch, we look at getting clients and taking the leap. Ask FreelanceSwitch is a regular column here that allows us to help beginners get a grip on freelancing. If you have a question about freelancing that you want answered, send an email to askfreelanceswitch@gmail.com.

Question 1

I’m so interested in freelancing and just don’t know how to find clients. I know about sites like Elance but it’s tough competition as well as getting noticed. What advice would you give to someone just starting out, needing to find clients and to stand out from the crowd.

My specialties include desktop publishing, social media, and internet research.

Getting clients is the most important part of freelancing: without them, we literally don’t make money. At the most basic level, a freelancer has to be able to show the value of her work in order to land clients. In my opinion, it’s very hard to do that on sites like Elance — not only are a lot of other freelancers trying to do the same thing, but there are a lot of inexperienced freelancers there.

Instead, you need to think about what type of clients you want to work with. You listed three fairly different skill sets, but you may find some clients who want all three. Who are those clients? What sort of projects do they need completed? Where do those type of clients spend their time? You need to get your name and portfolio in front of the right kind of prospective clients. If you know where they spend their time, you can contribute to the publications they read, meet them at the right networking events and even attend their industry conferences.

In the meanwhile, since such a client strategy can take some time to build up, check out what agencies (public relations, advertising, web design and so on) are in your area. Ask if you can schedule some time with them to show what you can do for their clients. Agencies are often in search of a spare pair of hands that they can bring in when things get busy. You want to be that spare pair of hands.

Question 2

After living a life as an indoor designer and part time freelancing, when do you know that you are ready to go ahead and embrace your freelance life? Additional info: I have a wife and two very young kids.

In an ideal world, you know you’re ready to freelance full-time because you have built up plenty of savings to see you through the transition and you’ve already got a couple of clients ready to hand you projects. That sort of set up is enough to reassure most freelancers that it’s going to work out, especially when they need to take care of their family.

If you don’t have that sort of cushion, there can be other indicators. Personally, I started freelancing full-time after a depressing job hunt, followed by a brief stint of even more depressing employment. If I had stayed at that job, I would have lost my mind. But I knew I could freelance, so I jettisoned the job that was making me miserable, despite not having any savings or more than one client lined up. It worked out fine, though the first couple of months were rather lean.

Freelancing full-time is a personal decision. Some people just have a hard time feeling comfortable taking care of all the details that go along with freelancing and find that they’d rather let an employer do the hard bits. Other people start freelancing full-time and realize that it’s the perfect fit for them. If you feel it’s the best option for you and you feel comfortable with your finances, I’d say go for it — at least try it out.

Summer is knocking on your front door, begging you for attention. Living in New England, where summer never lasts long enough, it’s hard for me to say no. But with a full-time job and my freelancing work, saying no means procrastinating. It’s hard to enjoy yourself in the summer sun when you know there is a heap of work waiting for you.

I have recently told my boss that I will be going from full-time to part-time starting in October. It was a hard decision but one that, ultimately, I had to make if I wanted to stay sane .

It’s a risk—leaving your full-time job for freelancing. But this is a risk I was comfortable taking. I had two big reasons for deciding to make the leap : I am now the co-owner/publisher of a twice-annual publication and my husband and I are expecting our first child this summer. Cutting back my hours at my full-time job just made sense for us.

I started wondering how other people came to the conclusion that it was time to back out of their full-time jobs and focus on their freelance careers or small businesses. I found two women who have made the switch and thought I would share their stories. Perhaps they’ll inspire you to think about taking the leap.

Hailey Tash

Hailey Tash was asked by a friend of a friend to take some engagement photos of her and her fiancé in November 2010. Photography had been a hobby and passion of Tash’s for years, but up until that point she only took photos on the weekends of her friends, family, and nature. She had no idea that accepting this portrait job would change her life.

“I started a Facebook fan page and started posting some of the stuff I had been shooting on the weekends, along with those first engagement photos,” she says. One of her mother’s friends saw her page and hired her to take photos of a wedding, even though she knew Tash had never photographed one before.

Through word of mouth, Tash started picking up more wedding and engagement portrait work. She started a website and started building a portfolio.

During this time, Tash was working 30 as a behavioral health professional. “I longed to do photography full-time, but I was in a panic,” she says. “I graduated college in August 2011 and knew that I’d have student loans soon.” Along with all her other bills like her car payment and rent, Tash was planning her own wedding. “I had a lot of expenses, and while my business was growing, I knew it couldn’t support me.”

So she stayed at her job. “It was incredibly tough,” she says. “I’d work most of the day and then stay up late editing photos. I took longer than I should, which wasn’t fair to my clients.” When she started booking weddings for the 2013 summer season, as well as engagement sessions and senior portraits, Tash saw a light at the end of the tunnel. “I followed an international wedding photographer’s advice on how to keep your prices competitive based on your number of bookings, and eventually raised my prices enough to survive.”

When her boss asked her to increase her hours for the summer, she knew there was no possible way she could work as a behavioral health professional and handle all her photography work. “I knew those hours at home working on marketing and answering emails would benefit my business and help me grow—so I took the jump,” Tash says. “I knew if I didn’t, I would just keep waiting and waiting and it would never seem like the right time.”

This was last month, and Tash is now working full-time at her business, Hailey Tash Photography .

Courtney Balestier

Courtney Balestier has been a full-time freelancer for just over a year, hopping on the freelance bandwagon in April 2011.

“I had been on the editor track for about five years and had always wanted to eventually freelance full time and focus on writing,” she says.

Soon after graduating with her master’s in journalism, Balestier took a full-time job at Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine and soon realized that a full-time gig usually meant leaving the best writing assignments to someone else.

“I started to get frustrated assigning out fun stories that I wanted to do myself. It was still quite early in my career, I hadn’t risen far enough up the ranks to get invested in a high-stakes editorship, and I wasn’t making so much that the temporary hit in income would affect my lifestyle.”

Balestier still writes regularly for Every Day with Rachael Ray and is still on the books part-time while they make some new hiring decisions. She’s 100% happy with her decision and can’t imagine her life any other way. “Making the leap, cheesy though that expression is, is the biggest mental hurdle to get over,” she says. “After that, it comes together. Of course you have to work hard to make it come together, but it’s the most satisfying work.”

For Tash, it was the desire to open her own business and follow her passion. For Balestier, it was the desire to write the kinds of stories she was interested in writing. For me, it’s a new business and a new baby. What are the reasons for you to ditch the full-time job and go freelance?

Photo credit: Some rights reserved by xilius .

Freelancers often underestimate how they can use LinkedIn to build relationships with clients and colleagues. As a global professional network, boasting over 135 million people, LinkedIn becomes a virtual Rolodex of contacts making it a great way for freelancers to exchange information, ideas, and share and explore relevant issues.

As a business networking tool, it’s a natural social network for freelancers to explore. While you may associate social networks with time wasting sessions on Facebook or Twitter, LinkedIn’s value as a business generating tool is worth exploring.

Here are four ways to tap into LinkedIn for your freelancing business:

1. Engage your “Connections” for help.

LinkedIn can be useful for freelancers looking to outsource aspects of their business or seeking collaborators for projects. If you’re seeking someone with special skills, the first place to look for experts is on LinkedIn.

The site provides a trusted way to find the right people who fit your needs– a kind of digital word-of-mouth when you’re doing a search.

The site provides a trusted way to find the right people who fit your needs– a kind of digital word-of-mouth when you’re doing a search. For example, if you’re looking for someone with social marketing skills to help you market your freelance services, run a search of profiles on LinkedIn in a zip code or location near you. Narrow down your search with keywords and professional affiliations. LinkedIn’s advance search feature lets you filter searches by group affiliations, companies, location, seniority, company size, and so forth.

LinkedIn is also an excellent way to do a quick background check of your clients and other freelancers you work with. You can track what people have done and corroborate material on resumes that cross your desk.

2. Give clients a “big picture” view of your professional background.

A LinkedIn profile offers more substance than the usual brief bio that’s on your website. Letting you build a searchable and comprehensive professional profile is where LinkedIn really excels as a tool for freelancers. I use it as a central place that has links to my website, portfolio, blog, and Twitter account. It also has my full CV in case curious prospective clients want to see a more extensive profile of my work experience.

Remember that human resources, head hunters, and other businesses frequently browse LinkedIn, too. Depending on your industry, you may find yourself being “checked out” by larger companies looking to hire contractors.

3. Expand your clientele.

When engaging with clients, even if you don’t end up doing a project together, add them to your network. If there’s someone you’ve been meaning to contact, check your “‘Connections” and see if your existing network shares a link to that person. LinkedIn can be a great way to make inroads to future clients.

If you’re looking to score a contract with a company, find out who the key decision makers are and check out what LinkedIn groups they may belong to. If you join one of them, send them an invitation to be your Connection and cite your common membership in the group. Establish a professional rapport this way and build up your relationship until you’re ready to pitch your services.

4. Build and show off your expertise.

Under the “More” tab, you can view and browse through topics that people are interested in. Just select a Category that’s most relevant to your industry and work interests, then see if there are questions that you can answer to show off your expertise. Answering questions is a great way to position your freelance business as an authoritative resource. Consider the free advice you give out as a marketing tactic.

Learn more about how to use LinkedIn to grow your freelance business.

Photo credit: Some rights reserved by demention .

As a journalist, I sometimes write columns and blogs that people don’t agree with. Sometimes I feel so lambasted when people leave comments about what I’ve written that I literally can’t read them. I have a pretty tough skin, and I am aware that I’m not always right—but still, sometimes I get angry and hurt.

My goal in writing something controversial is to never regret writing it. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, and I try to be as explicative as I can when I know I’m writing about a touchy topic. I don’t have all the answers to everything, but I know that posing the question to readers is usually the most important thing.

I feel really good when something I have written gets a ton of comments and shares—even if most of them are from people who completely disagree with what I have said. That’s what blogging is all about! Creating a dialogue with my ideas is the ultimate goal, whether I am praised or shunned . It’s good to have strong opinions, and having an outlet to share them is a wonderful thing.

I bring this up because of the recent TIME magazine cover with the young mother breastfeeding her 3-year-old son. You’ve probably heard about it as bloggers and columnists and mothers around the world are speaking out about it. And most of the stuff I have read is not praise.

This is most definitely a case where a photo is worth 1,000 words. And from now on, photographer Martin Schoeller is going to be known as the photographer who took the controversial cover photo for TIME magazine where Jamie Lynne Grumet, a gorgeous California mom, is breastfeeding her son who is standing on a chair.

“When you think of breast-feeding, you think of mothers holding their children, which was impossible with some of these older kids,” Schoeller said in an interview on TIME.com. “I liked the idea of having the kids standing up to underline the point that this was an uncommon situation.” —Time.com

Breastfeeding is a controversial topic in the United States. It’s much less so in other nations. Here’s the kicker—the article doesn’t even feature Jamie Lynne Grumet. It’s a piece written by Time staff writer Kate Pickert about Dr. William (Bill) Sears and his book about attachment parenting.

TIME knew exactly the effect this cover would have on the nation and it succeeded beautifully. News shows are all over it, Twitter is abuzz and it’s the top story in every paper. Mothers verses mothers, once again. Well played, TIME, this will surely be one of the best selling issues of the year. —TheHuffingtonPost.com

Here are some snippets from other news outlets about the cover photo:

Time magazine’s breastfeeding cover story asks: “Are You Mom Enough?” But it might as well ask: “Who Says Print Is Dead?”

The magazine is the talk of the nation this morning, dominating the morning talk shows, the radio shows, social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, and that gold standard of relevancy, Google. It’s the No. 1 search term there today. —LATimes.com

Time clearly picked this provocative cover image to sell magazines and attract media attention. The actual story inside the magazine is titled The Man Who Remade Motherhood and it’s about Dr. Bill Sears, an internationally recognized pediatrician who’s known as the leader behind the attachment parenting movement that calls for extended breastfeeding (as well as co-sleeping and baby-wearing).

But the grey-haired doctor isn’t pictured on the cover. Jamie Lynne Grumet, a 26-year-old California mom, and her breast-sucking son made the cover instead.

Makes sense from a need-to-sell-magazines standpoint. A mother nursing a preschooler is more arresting—and bound to spark a heated debate around the topic of extended breastfeeding. —SFGate.com

So, clearly, controversy is good for business—especially in this case.

Whether you agree with the topic or think a mom breastfeeding a preschooler is weird, it’s selling magazines. What has it done for TIME’s reputation? Good question. What has it done for the reputations of the photographer and writer? Well, they’re a heck of a lot more well-known now.

What I am happy to see is that the photographer isn’t getting thrown under the bus in anything I have read pertaining to the cover photo. Which is good, since Schoeller was just completing the assignment. I would say this cover photo is a feather in his cap and has clearly gotten him tons of press and publicity.

So being controversial isn’t always a bad thing, as long as you can stand by your decisions and live with them. If you are going to take a stand, like Time did by publishing this cover shot, you can’t waiver. You have to stick to your guns and take whatever flack comes your way. Apologies will just make you look weak. Stand by your decisions!

Signage, stationary and forms, oh my! Businesses can easily create enough visual material to fill up an ark. There’s a logo, of course, and everything it gets applied to, such as: brochures, catalogs, websites, print and e-newsletters, Facebook pages, ads, uniforms, vehicle graphics, and more.

When a company is successful, it grows and expands. As it moves from infancy to adulthood, its visual armaments grow as well. One location becomes three, then twenty and so on. Each one brings with it more of everything. More signs. More stationery. More forms. This can avalanche out of control. Hopefully, someone is keeping an eye on things. But, that’s often not quite the case.

Enter the design audit. “Audit” might be a word that puts the fear of the taxman into you, but don’t sweat it. This kind of audit is a good thing. And it’s an opportunity for freelance designers to expand their service offering.

What is a Design Audit?

A design audit is nothing more than a peek and perusal of all the visual materials used by a company, along with its core message to its customers, clients, vendors and other audiences. Okay, it should be a bit more than a peek and perusal; that’s what this article is all about.

A design audit is an analysis of all the visual elements used by a company. Beyond its visuals, also central to an audit is the company’s core message, sometimes called a slogan, value or branding statement. You can think of a design audit as something like psychotherapy – a type of headshrinking, but for a business. Without a process in place to monitor a business audiences’ touch points they run the very real risk of projecting an unfocused personality.

A design audit reviews visual style and message with a concern for uniformity.

A company’s visuals are indispensable. They play a key part in how a company’s audience and market view it’s brand. The public sees the face of the company as the logo and the clothes as its visual style. Quality customer service, ethical decisions, and other business issues work together with visual style to create a corporate identity.

While big businesses need design audits, so do small business. Successful companies, of any size, need to strategically align their business culture with their brand. It’s essential that companies manage their materials and message, so they control their identity, which is crucial in a competitive marketplace.

A design audit reviews visual style and message with a concern for uniformity. What does the overall identity look like? Are the design, color palette and typography consistent throughout all materials? What do the visuals communicate and are they reliably on target? Is the level of design and production quality where it should be? Does everything make sense or is it jumbled and confusing?

When a company’s brand fragments, there is an opportunity here for freelance designers to provide a much needed service. Let’s look deeper into this problem.

So, What is the Problem?

As companies expand, they often find the need to have materials created and printed in remote locations, rather than its main location. The next thing you know, a company has 15 or 20 versions of its letterhead and business card. It’s similar for other design elements. For the owner of a small business a mistake often occurs, though at a smaller scale. They may have business cards reprinted with the wrong font or not carefully apply colors consistently across their marketing materials.

Is this a problem? Definitely. When visual style is lost, so is branding, positioning, as well as mindshare and sales. Clients will get nervous if things keep changing. As this problem slides downward, they may not recognize the business as its brand cohesion slips.

An effective brand needs a consistent visual style. When you go into a Starbucks in Seattle, it’s looks the same as one in New York. The colors are consistent and the typestyles are the same (within the confines of its, signage, menus, etc). That’s comforting to people.

Research suggests that we humans communicate very little by spoken word — about ten percent. Most communication is made through body language, which accounts for roughly sixty percent. The rest is made up of our posture, clothing and such. For a company, it’s the same. What they say with words can often amount to little. What usually sticks in the customers’ minds is its logo, colors, sounds and sometimes even aromas.

If one part of the company has one message, while another is communicating something else, you’re left with discord. It’s the same if visuals don’t match the message, or if visuals aren’t consistent. Companies create anxiety in their target market when they stray from their message and drift from their dependable visual style.

Design Audit Deliverables

How does a design audit begin? It’s starts by gathering all the visual and brand elements a company creates. Then the designer, writer, or marketing consultant (often all three) study these and an analysis report is created.

The reports, along with the materials, are then presented to the client’s management. Many businesses are shocked when they see the visual elements together, as one fragmented, Frankenstein-like monster.

The point is to document it all and never, ever, under any circumstances, stray from it.

After all these inconsistencies are out in the open, it’s time to structure a plan to ensure that the company, its visuals and its message are presented in harmony.

You should place this harmonious style plan into a Standards Manual. This document shows how a company’s logo is designed and how to use it in different contexts. The manual documents the brand’s color system with exact RGB and Pantone colors. It gives specifics about the typefaces to use and often much more.

A Standards Manual can be just a few of pages for a small company or a large volume for a multinational. The size of the document depends on how large the company is and the number of variations in the style application involved. And frankly, it can depend a lot on money. A large company will need to show literature; stationery; website; Facebook; signage applications; uniforms; vehicle applications and several others. A small business may only need to show its logo, colors, stationary and a few forms. The point is to document it all and never, ever, under any circumstances, stray from it.

And, yes, when logo redesign time rolls around the process starts all over again.

Design Audit Opportunity

So, now that we know about design audits, what’s the benefit for the freelancer? It gives you one more service, a valuable one at that, to sell or use as a promotional tool. Many designers, both graphic and web, offer audits as a stand-alone service. As a matter of fact, larger firms and consultancies provide them as stand-alones, can charge hundreds of thousands of dollars, and take months to conduct them. Implementing changes, developing a Standards Manual and fixing what was found are usually extra. Do I hear a “cha-ching”?

The freelancer who offers design or communication materials audits can quickly move up the ranks from being a provider of hands on a keyboard to that of a highly valued consultant –- a partner, in many ways, with their client. That is, naturally, if they do them well and provide sensible recommendations.

As a freelancer, you might not realistically land a multinational in need of an audit to the tune of a half million or more. But, one never knows. Freelance teams can be as effective, if not more so, than an expensive — and sometimes sluggish — consultancy group. Nonetheless, odds are, you can find a few small and medium-sized businesses whose visual identity and message are in chaos. It just takes a bit of looking around.

If you’re a designer, you might consider teaming up with a writer and vice versa. The designer handles the visuals. The writer handles the words. Both work together to craft a sound strategy and set of recommendations for the client. You both make money and the client saves itself from potentially losing sales and share of mind. Plus, when it’s all over and done well, the client will likely enjoy a stronger market position.

Another approach is to use a limited audit as a complimentary promotional tool. Sure, you’ll need to invest some time, but you also would for any other marketing tool. For example, how much time is social media sucking up? Or, designing that promo brochure that never seems quite finished? An audit for a small company of, say, fewer than ten employees, could probably be knocked out in an hour or two, once you have the process down.

At the complete of a design audit, your client will have a set of standards in hand, they will be armed with a consistent identity, and be able to meet the market with a stronger brand. You’ll be in an ideal position to work with them. Having a strong standards manual will save you time and aggravation when you prepare additional designs for that client in the future.

Graphic credit: Some rights reserved by Reclameworks .

I got a telephone call today at the office from the wife of a certified public accountant. She was pitching me on a story that her husband had just written about the benefits of creating an LLC versus an S-Corp. I listened politely, then told her why I couldn’t run her husband’s obviously wonderful story.

I can’t tell you the number of times I get pitches that we would never publish—not because it’s a bad idea but because it just doesn’t fit in the pattern we have already created.

The magazine I edit is a regional publication that has a pretty narrow focus. We only publish stories that fall within our already established sections. I can’t tell you the number of times I get pitches that we would never publish—not because it’s a bad idea but because it just doesn’t fit in the pattern we have already created.

I often get advance copies of novels and CDs from publishers, authors, and musicians, asking us to please consider reviewing them in our magazine. We have never, in the six years we have been in print, reviewed a book or CD. Never. Yet I keep getting these lovely gifts in the mail on a monthly basis. And I always feel badly—these publishers and public relations people are clearly wasting money on sending me stuff.

In the case of this lovely woman who called me on the phone, I explained to her that we currently don’t have a place in the magazine where such a feature would appear and that we decide upon our editorial calendar 8 months to a year in advance. She proceeded to tell me how it would be a benefit to our readers. I didn’t argue that point—it very well might—but I can’t reinvent the wheel. I suggested that she contact the local daily and weekly newspaper, as they have much more flexibility to publish articles than I do.

Our company also does not accept unsolicited manuscripts—but I didn’t feel like I needed to get into that with her. She was clearly not used to pitching story ideas to the media.

What I wanted to tell her was that if she was going to pitch people her husband’s already-written story, to take a look at some back issues of said publications to see if it’s a good fit or not. If she had looked at ours, she would have seen that we don’t publish stories of that nature. I also wanted to tell her to not introduce herself as the wife of the CPA who wrote this wonderful article that I should publish in our magazine. It’s unprofessional—and of COURSE she thinks it’s a great article…her husband wrote it!

I did a little research online about the relationship between people who work in public relations and journalists, and I found this recent blog post on PracticePR .

Public Relations is about having a good relationship with journalists/bloggers, offering them material they might find useful and helping them get their work done. It is not about your brand, your business or your message. It is about them. Your aim is to give them something they will like and they will be able to use. If your product or story gets mentioned, that is super news. —PracticePR

Now I know a lot of wonderful PR professionals that I thoroughly enjoy working with. If you are trying to get some coverage on your own , there are some things to consider when it’s just not working out for you:

You are not sending them information in a timely manner

The magazine I work for has a great calendar of events section. People love it. And since we are a monthly magazine, we hit the newsstands in the second week of each month. For example: Our May issue was on newsstands in mid-April. The amount of events I get emailed to me for an issue that has already gone to print is astounding. I understand that sometimes things come up that you can’t plan for, but I can’t publish something for you when the magazine is already printed. Plan ahead as much as you can.

You are not sending them information they can use

There is a lot we don’t publish. I mentioned some of them above. When I get things that don’t fit our demographic, geography, or mission, I delete it immediately. If I continue to get things that are not useful to me, I politely ask the person who keeps sending it to me to please stop. I’m sure many people have a master contact list of journalists that they send blanket emails to, but perhaps 1 in 10 of those emails are meaningful to me. Once that name keeps coming up in my inbox over and over again with content that doesn’t pertain to my publication, I stop listening.

You’re not making it easy

Don’t fill your press release or query with a lot of jargon. Keep it short and sweet and tell me what I want to hear. Focus on the five W’s and H: who, what, when, where, why, and how. Why is this story important to my readers? In what section of the magazine do you see this piece appearing? If you are pitching a story about you or your business, what makes you stand out from everyone else that does the same thing? And please, do not send in the story already written for me. When people write stories about themselves it often sounds like a very long ad. If your story is worth telling, the editor will figure out how to share it with their audience.