The rest of the article is well worth the read. Click here to check it out.

About the author: Laura Spencer is a freelance writer from North Central Texas with over 19 years of professional business writing experience. If you liked this post, then you may also enjoy Laura’s blog about her freelance writing experiences, WritingThoughts

“I want to be my own boss.” How many times have I heard that? So many people fantasize about saying, “Take this job and shove it,” to their employers. They envision freedom through owning their business. But what’s the reality of going freelance? Being a freelancer means you’re not just doing what you love in addition to graphic design, you must wear all the hats of a business owner

Freelancing Roles

Here are just some of the hats you will wear as a freelancer:

1. You’re the office manager. If you have a favorite pen, you can order all you want and not worry about co-workers stealing them. But if the printer runs out of toner on deadline, it’s no one’s fault but your own. As a business owner, you’re responsible for all the behind-the-scenes work to keep it going.
2. You’re the rainmaker. Just because you hung up your “open for business” sign doesn’t mean the clients are going to beat down your door–you need to find ways to bring them in yourself. Marketing is often cited as the least-enjoyable part of freelancing, because you want to huddle down with creative work, but instead you have to sell yourself. Not only that, but you have find the actual time to promote your work.
3. You’re the taxman. Every year in January, companies issue W-2 forms to employees, who often do their own taxes based on that one form. But freelancers get more than a W-2. Not only must you keep track of all your payments from each client but you also need to retain receipts in relation to your business since they are potential deductions.
4. You’re the IT person. Just because you know the Adobe Creative Suite inside and out doesn’t mean you know how to install memory into your computer or troubleshoot VoIP when it goes down. I love working independently––setting my own deadlines and surging through projects without interruptions from people. But the second my Internet turns sluggish or I get locked out of my computer, I am at IT’s door whining like a two-year-old for help. When I work from home and my computer acts up, I can only follow the advice of “The IT Crowd” and try turning it off and on again.

I’m not trying to scare anyone off–rather, people should realize what they’re getting into before swiping all the paperwork off their boss’ desk as they stomp out the door.

The Positives of Being a Freelancer

And there are positives to have all the different responsibilities, too:

1. Nondesign tasks break up your day. Sometimes you’ll hit a creative block, and rather than waste time forcing ideas, take a break and tend to administrative tasks. A school of thought is that working in chunks of time is a good way to stay on task and not burn out. It’s like having multiple deadlines throughout the day, which is how many people thrive.
2. You’ll be more marketable if you re-enter in-house life. I once blew a job interview because I failed the Excel test. It didn’t matter that I write, edit and design–nope, this was a job at a small nonprofit that needed everyone to pitch in and perform admin duty. Having skills beyond design prepares you for the real world, and depending on how long the economy takes to recover, you might find yourself counting on those extra skills to earn you a paycheck.
3. You have more opportunities for networking. Whether you’re shopping for office supplies, visiting your tax preparer or working in a cafe, you never know when you’ll bump into your next client. Being out and about allows you to meet all sorts of different people, and the more you chat them up, the more opportunity you have to pass on your business card.
4. You can do what you want. A company whose politics you disagree with approached you for a job? You can turn it down. A struggling business wants to hire you, but can’t afford your rate? You can halve it––just for them. If you’re a night owl, you can work into the wee hours and sleep all morning. As long as you make your deadlines and return phone calls and e-mails, clients shouldn’t care––or notice––the odd hours you keep. You don’t have to shower or wear a tie. Heck, you don’t have to wear pants.

Related articles

• The Freelancer’s Dilemma (psychologytoday.com)
• How to be a Successful Freelancer? (socyberty.com)
• The Components of a Successful Client Relationship (freelanceswitch.com)

Press Release

Epson America has announced the Epson Stylus Pro 7890 (24-inch) and 9890 (44-inch) for photographers and proofing professionals, offering Epson’s latest technology achievements in the sub-$3,000 and $5,000 price categories. These new printers combine eight-color Epson UltraChrome K3 Vivid Magenta ink technology with auto-sharing Matte and Photo Black inks, and Epson’s MicroPiezo TFP print head to produce high quality prints at speeds about twice as fast as their renowned predecessors – the Epson Stylus Pro 7880 and 9880.

“With every new generation of printers, we continuously strive to reach new levels of performance,” said Reed Hecht, product manager, Professional Imaging, Epson America, Inc. “For years, the Epson Stylus Pro 880-series has been the industry benchmark for which all other printers were compared, and with the introduction of the 890-series, we have once again raised the bar, redefining the future of wide-format printing.”

The Epson Stylus Pro 7890 and 9890 offer the same leading technology found in the Epson Stylus Pro 900-series, including ePlaten automatic media loading, spindle-free roll media loading, a roll media tracking system, front control panel with 2.5-inch color LCD, rotary cutter, fabric catch bin, and robust printer stand. The printers also feature Epson’s latest ink-repelling coating and auto nozzle verification technologies to virtually eliminate clogged nozzles, and use nine individual high-capacity ink cartridges up to 700 ml. In addition, these new models are capable of handling virtually any media type, in roll or cut-sheet. Both models are available with an optional SpectroProofer spectrophotometer.

More about the Epson Stylus Pro 890-Series
The Epson Stylus Pro 7890 and 9890 provide advanced features, including:

- Epson MicroPiezo TFP Print Head: High precision eight-channel print head with auto sharing black ink channel produces variable-sized droplets as small as 3.5 picoliters to greatly decrease print times while optimizing photographic quality; latest ink repelling coating dramatically reduces nozzle clogging
- AccuPhoto HD Screening: Advanced screening algorithm produces extremely fine blends and photographic transitions with accurate highlight-to-shadow details and ensures consistent color balance, resulting in prints with superior color and clarity and incredibly sharp text and line art
- Epson UltraChrome K3 with Vivid Magenta Ink: High density eight-color pigments with unique formulation of Magenta provides extremely vibrant blues and purples for an expanded color gamut; three-level black ink technology significantly improves gray balance while eliminating color casts and provides outstanding highlight-to-shadow grayscale accuracy for smoother tonal range
- PreciseColor Manufacturing: Evaluates and adjusts each printer’s performance at the manufacturing stage, ensuring consistent color output from printer to printer and print to print, eliminating the need for internal calibration devices
- ePlaten Media-Loading: Simplifies the roll and cut-sheet media loading process with automatic media loading, movement, skew adjustment, and tracking, including electronically controlled roll back tension and automatic roll media rewind upon release
- SpectroProofer: Developed in partnership with X-Rite, the optional SpectroProofer is a high-performance, in-line spectrophotometer that, when driven by the latest front-end RIPs, can automate virtually any color management process in commercial or flexographic proofing workflows

Pricing and Availability
The Epson Stylus Pro 7890 and 9890 will be available in December 2010 through Epson Authorized Professional Imaging Resellers for an MSRP of $2,995 and $4,995 respectively. They are supported by a standard Epson PreferredSM Limited Warranty, a one-year program that includes toll-free advanced telephone access Monday through Friday and usually next-business-day on-site service in the unlikely event of any hardware failure. For additional information, visit www.proimaging.epson.com.

He’s back… Watch the Print Fanatic and his team passionately express the power of printing. Printing’s alive! Printing saves lives! We can’t live without printing!

I read a lot of industry produced articles and papers on branding, all have one thing in common, the message is confusing, they use a plethora of “tech talk” and what I can only describe as gibberish, so let’s start a new, first off a logo is not a brand; a logo is a symbol or mark used to represent a company or person usually simple in design and flat in colour, although this generally does not hold fast in our day and age, the word logo derives from the Greek word Logo-gram, ‘logos’ meaning ‘word’ and ‘gram’ meaning ‘what is written’. The word ‘Logotype’ is its proper form, but through time and the nature of language it has been shortened to ‘Logo’.

But the important thing is a logo is part of an identity system, so when you hear the term Logo banded around, what people really mean is trademark. Your trademark lets the consumer know through consistency and familiarity, who the service or product is from and if they can trust it, because as humans, we are intuitive and emotionally driven, trust is the foundation for any brand; think about Coca-Cola, what do you think about? maybe it’s the trademark we all know and love, maybe the iconic bottle, most probably it’s that great taste, but the important thing is that when you pick up a bottle of Coke you know that you can trust it, you trust that it’s going to taste like coke, you trust it’s going to make you feel good and quench your thirst, why? Because you know the brand, it’s been a part of all our lives for so long, you know what to expect and it always meets your expectations, and as long as the guys at Coca-Cola keep meeting those expectations they will remain the premium in their market.

Secondly, packaging does not make a brand, packaging much like the trademark is there as an identifying system used to bring harmony and conformity, and it also offers additional information on products and services. This brings us to products, which also is not the brand,  rather, it is your offering to the world, what will bring differentiation to your company, because unless you have a new invention, most products already exist, but you will set your product apart from another by carefully considering the things that make it unique. This of course is a very brief overview of different systems within a company but demonstrates that the things you probably first think of are not the brand itself. There are a multitude of other systems we could discuss, but it’s not the purpose of this article, so let’s cut to the chase… what is a brand?

A brand is a person’s emotional response, Marty Neumeier, a well known brand collaboration expert, said it’s the individuals “gut feeling” about your company, product or service.

And it really is about individuals, you may have a demographic or target market, but individuals make up the masses, and when a multitude of individuals come to the same conclusion about your company, product or service then you have yourself a brand and “Brand Management” is about controlling this non tangible human feeling/emotion. This is what builds all of the strongest brands we know today. Take Apple for instance, they captured peoples imagination’s and hearts with not only their great products, but with the advertising and packaging, look at their iconic silhouette dancers advertisement that adorned not only printed materials but television ads as well, for the release of their original iPod, before Apple came along advertising technology was about technicalities and specifications but Apple threw that out the window and created a product you wanted, not one you needed. Getting individuals to ‘Want’ your products is a feat that all brand managers should be aiming for, because when you ‘Want’ something it’s an emotional response, it’s a purchase out of emotion or an impulse, not one made on necessity.

So a brand is about controlling the emotions and feelings of your consumer’s or the people you want to be your consumers, being able to come up with a campaign that’s going to capture the heart, or the imagination of people, and one of the only ways to manage brand is by expert use of not only the strategy behind a clever or intelligent campaign but the execution of design within the campaign, basically the concept has to be just as great as the execution. This is what will be discussed in the next article…

WHATS A BRAND? is a post from: GoMediaZine

Go Media is a creative agency based in Cleveland, Ohio. Besides the GoMediaZine, we also work for clients and sell stock artwork and design files on the Arsenal.