So, what are the benefits of designing for a cause, working with non-profits, or doing pro bono design work?

Firstly, working for a good cause helps you to make a positive difference, when you may not otherwise have time to do so, as a student. If you have never done design work for clients before, or have never worked with a non-profit organization, freelancing for these organizations and causes is a huge networking opportunity (many supporters, organization board members and the public are involved too, and may also see your work). And of course, this all builds to experience and adds to your portfolio, while helping out.

A list of some of the plus-sides of doing pro-bono work was produced as part of RGD‘s (Association of Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario) Designer’s Guide to Pro Bono Work. This document was created by members of their Ontario Provisional Committee in 2007 to assist designers and non-profits to work together on pro bono projects that benefit the community:

Creativity: It is refreshing and inspiring to work with dedicated staff who believe in what they do.
Networking: Non-profit or charitable organizations’ Board of Directors and other volunteers are great people to network with since some of them are business owners and prospective clients.
Philanthropy: What is better than using your talent and knowledge to help effect change and support something that you believe in?
Portfolio: It is a way to explore areas of design that are not yet prominent in your portfolio and develop creative and innovative new work

Although this is only one resource, and refers mainly to “pro bono” work, it is very relevant to the benefits of Designing for Good – whether it be officially documented for a registered charity or non-profit, or simply for the benefit of society and the greater good in general.

In many cases, school projects are set within unrealistic timeframes and lack real-world connection. Students should always be looking for opportunities to get involved while in school – with formal organizations or other groups, and there are many out there – to create something and practice the skills they are being taught. As a student freelancer, it is simple to use your skills (even as you’re still developing them – because even professionals are constantly learning) for the greater good.

A Designer’s Guide to Pro Bono Work is available for download at this link.

For more on Designing for Good, visit DesigningForGood.ca.

There stands the ultimate decision: continue freelancing or find a part- or full-time job.

No matter which one you chose, the fact that graduation has happened/about to happen will change how you go about your freelancing. But exactly what could change? While some of the below is obvious, others may be things you haven’t thought about before. Let’s talk about them.

Having more available time on your hands

No matter if you decide to continue freelancing or seek employment, you inevitably will have more free time on your hands. But what can you do with all that free time? It depends on what your long-term goals are.

For instance, if you are planning to continue freelancing and want to make it a nice-sized business, then you could spend some of that time looking for new business, learning new skills or becoming an expert in the ones you do have, or even learning more about the business side of freelancing. Anything you can do to help your freelancing business, now that you are out of school and need to start making a serious income, can only help you accomplish your goals.

But what if you have decided that freelancing as your sole source of income isn’t your thing, but wouldn’t mind taking on freelance projects in addition to your new-found employment status? Things you can do that will not only help your freelancing but your new employment as well is continue to develop your skills, possibly even until you become an expert at that particular skills set. Not only will that help you in your new-found employment (if your job is doing the same thing you do freelancing), it will establish you as an expert in the freelance world, making it easier for you to find clients to work with.

Changes at home

I’m sure this has crossed every graduate’s mind, but there could be changes at home now that you have graduated that could change how you freelance. Are your parents wanting you to move out now? What about all those student loans that will start asking for repayment in six months? These are things that are major changes to your life that impact your freelancing.

If your parents are wanting to you to find your own place, can your freelancing support that or will you have to get a job to help pay the rent? If your student loans start kicking in soon, will you be able to build up your freelancing business enough to pay for an additional bill?

Taking yourself more seriously

With graduation behind you (or soon to be behind you), now you are able to make decisions and focus more on your long term career. How will this change your freelancing status? Most any decision you make now that school is no longer a concern will affect most of the other things in your life as well, including your freelancing.

Now that you see clearly your future career, you will more than likely start taking yourself more seriously as a professional. Where it comes to your freelancing, this can only help your career, as you become more focused, more driven, and more able to achieve your career goals without the worry that school starting back in the fall will kill that momentum.

Money

Mostly everything now that graduation is done with will come down to money. Can you make enough freelancing to support yourself? Will you need to get at least a part time job to help pay the bills while you continue to build your freelancing? Or is freelancing something that can be done on the side while you develop your career as an employee?

All these questions and many more will be driven and answered on the basis of your income and what you estimate you could make. Something else that may make those questions even more complicated is time. Do you have alot of time to make your freelancing business a full time one to help pay the bills, or do you have very little time to start making serious money because you are needing to move out of your parent’s house soon? Decisions decisions…

Ultimately every situation is different, and graduation changes all of that. Especially for the student freelancer. While freelancing may be the answer to alot of questions, is it feasible for what you are wanting to achieve, and with your current, very dynamic situation?

Lastly, congrats to all the recent student freelancers who have graduated or will graduate this year!

“It’s Our Time” Giveaway!

There is no better time than now than to start your freelancing career. Rather it be something you intend on doing just while you are in school, or you plan to turn your freelancing into your own business after graduation, now is the best time to start!

So to help with that, one lucky student freelancer is going to win an amazing prize package tailor-made to start their freelancing careers right, and five other student freelancers are going to win prizes that will help them get a jump start on their freelancing careers.

The Grand Prize!

One student freelancer is going to win a dream prize package made perfectly for a student freelancer!

Lifetime Pro+ Subscription to Myows Online Copyright Protection!

One of the amazing men behind Myows, Max Guedy, has offered an amazing deal for one lucky student freelancer: a lifetime subscription to their Pro+ Account to help protect their copyrighted works, which has a value of $240/year!

Myows is a great service for freelancers and creatives in general who offers online copyright protection for designers. Simply upload either a JPG screenshot, the written text, etc to Myows and it is instantly protected. If you find someone using your work without your permission, Myows can step in and help you have the work removed from the infringers’ website. You may have heard me talk about it before because it has helped me do that very same thing.

They say it better on their website: “Myows offers a professional one-stop copyright management solution from registration through to issuing take-down notices. You’ll get access to a global copyright savvy creative community as well as expert legal information and great advice! Thousands of members use Myows every day to protect their intellectual property and show others that they take their work and their rights seriously.”

A Lifetime Pro+ Account features 100 New Ows Per Month, along with superior protection of your copyrights for freelancers who may need to upload 25 or more OWs a month. Perfect for designers, bloggers, and photographers.

One Full Year of Membership to Tuts+ Premium!

A $180 value, the awesome people at Tuts+ Premium (a site from Envato) has graciously offered to give a year free membership to their amazing site full of resources to help you learn everything you need to know about your freelancing field of choice!

As they so perfectly describe on their website: “The best way to learn creative and technical skills like design, web development (and lots more). Get access to your very own library of courses, tutorials and eBooks, available whenever you need them. Join a community of over 15,000 members and start getting better at the skills you care about.”

50 Personalized Bottle Openers/Keychains from Amsterdam Printing!

The lovely people at Amsterdam Printing in New York has graciously offered 50 customized bottle openers (a value of $124.45), personally engraved with your name or logo or however you would like, shipped for free to your doorstep! These are great promotional giveaways you can give to prospective clients, and are always a big hit!

(This prize is only for U.S. residents due to legal restrictions of the sponsor.)

250 Stickers provided by PrintRunner!

The awesome people at PrintRunner online printing company has offered to giveaway 250 custom stickers for one lucky student freelancer! The prize includes 250 standard stickers, 3.5 inch high by 2 inch wide premium sticker stock, either full color (4 color process) or black and white, 3 business day turn around, and free standard shipping!

PrintRunner.com was established with little more than a small press and a dream. Ten years later our company became one of the foremost quality printers in Southern California. Our commitment to provide the best value and high quality full color printing at affordable price made our company grow. PrintRunner is a full service high quality printing company located in Chatsworth, California.

(Due to legal restrictions, this prize in only available for U.S. residents, 18 years or older. Disclaimer: I did not receive any compensation or product from the sponsor of this giveaway, however I will receive the same prize the winner receives after the giveaway has closed.)

An Advance Digital Copy of “Student Freelancing 101″ presented by Students That Freelance, to be released Summer 2012!

As you may have heard, I have written a book for student freelancers! More like a course, it is written and designed so that student freelancers can pick up and run with it to start their freelancing careers!

One lucky student freelancer will win a free advance copy of “Student Freelancing 101″ before it is released! They will be able to get a running start to their freelancing careers before the book is released on the site!

Five Other Prizes for Five Student Freelancers!

Five freelancers are going to win one of the following prize packs!

Lifetime Freelancer Subscription to Myows Online Copyright Protection!

Again, Max Guedy has amazingly offered five lucky student freelancers lifetime freelancer accounts to Myows, a value of $60/year! Each student freelancer will be able to upload 9 OWs a month which is great for the web and logo designers who create less than 10 OWs a month. Be sure to read about them in the description above.

A Free Digital Copy of “Student Freelancing 101″ presented by Students That Freelance, to be released Summer 2012!

Five student freelancers will receive a digital copy Students That Freelancing’s own handbook, “Student Freelancing 101″ for FREE when it is released this summer! They will be armed with the perfect guide at the perfect price to help start their freelancing careers off on the right foot!

How to Enter

So I hope you are anxious to enter, but how do you? Follow the steps below to enter into this giveaway!

• Comment on this post, explaining what you would do with all the prizes if you were to win them–be specific!
• Like us on Facebook and Twitter! (if you don’t use one or the other or both, please tell me in your comment above)
• Post on Facebook and/or Tweet on Twitter the following: “I just entered to win the “It’s Our Time” Student Freelancing Giveaway on StudentsThatFreelance.com! @studentsthatfl” and include a link to this giveaway post! (on Facebook be sure to make sure it tags our Facebook Page or I won’t see it!)
• You must do all of these things by May 20th, 2012 at 11:59 PM CDT

The All-Important Rules

In order to win one of the prizes, you must meet all the of the rules below:

• One person will win the grand prize: One Lifetime Pro+ Subscription to Myows Online Copyright Protection, One Full Year of Membership to Tuts+ Premium, 50 Personalized Bottle Openers/Keychains from Amsterdam Printing, 250 Stickers provided by PrintRunner, and an Advanced Digital Copy of “Student Freelancing 101″ presented by Students That Freelance, to be released Summer 2012
• Five people will each win a Lifetime Freelancer Subscription to Myows Online Copyright Protection and a Free Digital Copy of “Student Freelancing 101″ presented by Students That Freelance to be released Summer 2012
• In order to win the grand prize, you must be at least 18 years old and a U.S. resident. This is a requirement by two of the sponsors of the giveaway due to legal reasons.
• ANYONE can enter to win one of the other five prizes, no matter country or age!
• You must supply a valid email address. If you do not and you are chosen as a winner, your prize will be automatically forfeited.
• To claim a Myows prize, you must have a Myows account. You can get one for free now by signing up here: https://myows.com/signup
• You do not have to have Facebook or Twitter to enter, however you must mention that you do not have them in your comment

How you will win!

I will be picking at random the winners by using the order of the comments to this page. I use a random number generator and will pick the grand prize winner first, followed by five other prize winners. If the number picks a winner who does not meet all of the requirements and did not enter properly, a new winner will be chosen at random numer generated.

BEST OF LUCK TO EVERYONE!!!

You may have noticed the site has been inactive since October, and that is my fault. Us busy students tend to have very full plates, and mine has been full with school work and trying to wrap up things to graduate, an exploding business with a new business relaunch for it, and several family events have had my hands busy over the last several months.

But I am in my last couple of weeks of my college career, and I promised myself I would dedicate more time to this site so I can help other student freelancers start freelancing and not get so busy like I was (or if you do, how to properly manage it).

So what is coming up next?

I have been busy behind the scenes here in the last couple of months. This week you will see all new content get posted to the site. You will also get to have the chance to win an amazing prize pack.

What? Did I say win a prize pack? Yes! I have been in touch with some amazing companies who have agreed to give away their products to readers of this site. I can tell you that these prize packs are worth HUNDREDS of dollars. You will not want to miss a chance to win one of those bad boys.

But that isn’t even the best news of all! I have been slaving away writing what I hope is an amazing handbook that will help student freelancers like you start freelancing from start to finish. Designed like a college course, it will help you get the highlights of student freelancing and plan your freelancing career. This I am wrapping up and hope to release in the very near future.

Excited yet?

I hope you are! I have been excited about this relaunch, but have been keeping it under wraps so that I can make sure it was all perfect! I hope you join me in what exciting things are to come on the new Students That Freelance 2.0!

Stating the obvious here, but most student freelancers start everything under their name. I did that when I first started freelancing too. But social media is one of those things that you should really keep separate identities for.

Students often use Facebook and Twitter for personal usage: posting pictures of their friends, parties, events, etc. As a student freelancer, however, your clients aren’t interested in what you dressed up as for Halloween, or that you won a game of Beer Pong. Actually, your clients could be very put off by these things and go as far as to not hire you to work on their projects.

Thus, the solution to this (and this works if you are trying to get hired as a full time employee as well, even part time employee in some cases) is to keep separate identities in social media for different purposes. Keep your personal Facebook, Twitter, etc., but set them to private so only your friends and followers can see your posts and pictures. This will keep outside viewers from seeing your content and misconstruing what they are.

As for your freelancing identities, create a Facebook page and set up a new Twitter handle (and the equivalencies of these in other social media networks) that you will use only for freelancing, and of course keep these public. Post only professional content that you wouldn’t mind your clients (or potential employer) reading and making judgments based off your content.

Keep your friends/followers updated

It’s one thing to have social media accounts in various places, but it is quite a different thing to use them. One really great way to use social media is simply to keep your friends and followers updated. Post what projects you have been working on along with some images. If you are learning a new skill, brag about it a bit.

When you start to use social media in this way, always keep in mind that you are marketing yourself with every status and tweet you post. Those that are following these social media identities are wanting to know more about you on a professional level, so give it to them.

A word of caution: TOO much updating, and you start to become annoying. Be sure to not overwhelm those who follow you because they will quickly stop following you or stop being fans of yours on Facebook. And you don’t want that. Those that use social media alot tend to judge your presence by the number of followers and fans you have on social networks (even though this is a highly inaccurate way to judge such presence), so keeping that number on the rise can help your credibility and your reach as far as marketing yourself.

It’s all about community

Social media is meant to be social. It’s great if you have alot of followers and fans, but you should really build up those that you like on those social media networks as well, and talk to them from time to time. Follow some of your favorite freelancers or designers, or anyone that influences you. When they post something that really interests you, show them love and retweet/share it and send them a message letting them know how much you enjoyed their content.

This can work to your benefit later on. The larger the network you build through your professional identities on social networks, the larger that network is when you need help with something. I can’t tell you how many times I turned to Twitter to get advice on something I was working on, to ask a general question about freelancing, or needed to know where to find something. Most of the time I got really great help and was able to cut down on my time in struggling to find an answer. But always remember, reciprocity is a beautiful thing.

In what other ways can a student freelancer use social media?

Time

This is probably the #1 thing I tell any student before they start freelancing. Do you even have the time to put forth into gaining clients, maintaing projects, billing clients, and all of that admin work like taxes and invoicing? Most students are taking a full load, with some other major obligation (a part time job, campus job, athletics, clubs, etc), so finding time is tough. It is so much easier to hang out with friends instead of looking for a new client.

Do you have the time to dedicate to your freelancing? If I had to put a rough number of hours you would have to spend a week to make freelancing viable enough to replace a part time job, you would have to work/put in roughly 20 hours a week minimum. Sure it is possible to freelance and only work 5 hours or 10 hours a week, but when you run out of projects, then you start scrambling to find that next project, which eats alot of time if you haven’t been doing it all along.

Resources

Resources ranges from current income, proper equipment, and other things like a portfolio and necessary business skills. Don’t have your own computer and you are a web designer? You could see where that would be problematic. You can’t start freelancing and rely on a school’s computer to be able to do the work. 

Income is a major situation that varies from student to student, as we all have different situations. Are you living on your own or with your parents? If you are living on your own, then you will need to keep whatever job or source of income you currently have, or you will end up eating crackers. If you live with your parents, and depending on the situation at home, you may be able to float for a few months to a semester with very little income. Whatever the situation, you want to evaluate your income and what you can and cannot get by with for at least the first six months after you start freelancing.

Knowledge

Closely related to resources, do you have the knowhow to do what you want to do? Chances are if you are a freshman in college and haven’t taken any classes yet related to the field of freelancing you would like to do, and haven’t had any job experience, then your freelancing endeavor will be a dud.

Take some time and make an inventory of the skills you currently have, and the skills you need to complete client projects. One way to do this is to pay attention to things you are doing in your classes. Are you struggling with software to complete projects? Do you find it hard to finish projects to the best of your ability? If so then you may want to take some time to sharpen those skills. Once you can fly through school projects and get them done earlier than most students, then that is one indicator that you have the skills necessary to complete client projects.

Motivation

Last, but certainly not least. Motivation keeps you going. You have to be motivated on the start, and stay motivated. There are alot of reasons in freelancing to cause you to get discouraged or make you unmotivated. Heck, there are reasons outside of freelancing that could make you unmotivated, but it is important that you keep that motivation that you had to start throughout your entire freelancing endeavor if you would like for it to last.

Final note

These are just the high points of consideration you should think about before starting to freelance. There are thousands of considerations, but these are the main ones for student freelancers. Most freelancing blogs and books also cover some things to consider, but are usually catered to those that have full time jobs, a family, and other obligations. Take some mental notes about your current situation and the demands of freelancing before you start.

Hopefully this was more of a motivation post than a discouraging one, but research and enlightenment are beautiful things. Freelancing is one of those things that require time and energy to fully enjoy, and I hope every student gets the opportunity to freelance, with the right expectations in mind.

What are some other factors one should consider before starting to freelance as a student

This was not easy to judge at all. I went back and forth between the images I had and the same quality images that were on Dribbble to help narrow them down. I also looked for conventional design things such as color, line, details, typography, etc to help as well. I still ended up with the 9 images below that I felt were very strong. I then picked a couple out of the pack that stood above the others and made sure they followed all the instructions given in the original announcement post.

One stood out to me however, and they are the one who I will be drafting later today. However, all of the finalists below deserve Dribbble invites in my opinion. I wish I had 6 more invites to give away because all of these people would have been drafted by me today. With that said, if I ever hear of anyone giving any invites away, or if I get more in the near future, these are the people who I will help promote to get an invite.

Below will give all the finalists (in no particular order) and the winner is announced below!

Fahlur Rozzi

Caleb Pardick

Brittani Franco

Sittitsak Jiampotjaman (Notjiam)

Juan Camilo Prada Ojeda

Daniele Di Stanio

Simon Jackson

And the winner is…

Congrats Brittani! I will be drafting you later today to Dribbble!

I picked Brittani’s mainly because of the attention to detail in her work. In the particular image above, she really looked at every element and made sure it was well designed. Overall great color scheme, outstanding typography, and really gave me the feeling that I was at a coffee shop. I can’t wait to see more of these shots on Dribbble.

Final Words

As I said above, everyone had amazing work and it was so very hard for me to pick the winner. SO HARD. Being a judge of design work isn’t easy, even for designers who love critiquing other’s work. Every finalist had really strong work, and that is why I posted the finalists.

Overall I am so thrilled that we had so many people enter and so much great work submitted. I never thought it would be so highly competitive, but there are alot of great designers and illustrators out there, and many of which should be on Dribbble.

(Lovely Dribbble cookie image credit: hellogeri on Flickr)

That is where I come in. I was lucky enough to be drafted about a year ago, and I am here to return the favor. For those who have been following me personally on Twitter and Facebook, you know that I had already given one invite away to someone that I know who has awesome work. This go around (since I had two invites), I am opening this one up to anyone.

So without further delay, below is how you can enter for your chance to be drafted into one of the best online design communities!

Here is how you enter

In order to be considered for this giveaway, you must do all of the below steps and follow all the details. Please note I am a stickler for directions, thus following them to the “t” is what will increase your chances!

1. Like Students That Freelance on Facebook. I get an email every time someone likes the page.

7. Post a comment here, stating what articles you would like to see more of on Students That Freelance.

How the winner will be chosen

Dribbble is invite-only and they do this to keep the quality of the shots posted to very high standards. Thus, everyone who invites someone is responsible for the quality of work that person will be posting.

What I will be doing is taking all of the eligible entries (those that followed all of those steps above to a “T”), and putting all of the images in a folder (this is why it is important to follow the instructions). I will then look through the images and find the one that blows my socks off. Who ever name is attached to that image will be drafted by me on Dribbble. If the competition is really tough, I may bring in a few extra people to help me judge.

Giveaway duration

Since I can’t leave this thing open forever, I will be closing the giveaway on Sunday, October 16th, 2011 at 11:59 pm CST and will be announcing the winner here on the site Monday, October 17th, 2011, with the winner being drafted shortly after the announcement.

So good luck, and let me see some awesome work!

This means that the second commenter won, which is Laura!

Congrats Laura! I will be sending you an email tomorrow with information about your prize!

This isn’t the only giveaway I have in store for our readers! Stay tuned next week when I announce a very exciting giveaway that will sure to be something you will want stick around for!

List your skills;

The first step in any professional portfolio is to list your specific skills. After all, these skills are primarily what the customer is looking for in the first place. If the client is searching for a freelancer that can provide quality web design services then they will know that they are looking in the right place if the skill for web design is listed at the start of your portfolio. Your skills will be the hook that will draw the attention of the client in and don’t be afraid to give a long list of skills. In this section the more skilled qualities you have the better. If you can speak more than one language then here is the place to state this as it will catch the attention of internationally based clients.

A short biography;

The purpose of a biography in a portfolio is to give a snap-shot as to who you are and provide a face behind the work. However, the best places to give an in-depth biography are personal blogs and websites, where you can list your favorite hobbies and talk about your interests to your heart’s desire. Therefore, in your portfolio you should keep your personal info to a minimum and instead focus on your professional attributes. A name and location will typically suffice for details that need to be shared. Nevertheless, if you DO want to write a short introduction to you and your services keep the text short.

Build trust;

As a graduate freelancer there may be clients who are unsure as to the quality of your services and would rather hire the services of a professional agency with a recognized name and track history. Don’t worry, as a young freelancer you have the chance to show your potential clients that you can bring the personal touch and one-to-one services alongside your enthusiasm and expertise that the agencies cannot hope to provide. Nevertheless, to shore up your credentials provide a copy of any technical qualifications you have or relevant certificates that you have achieved. Another way to build trust is to include positive testimonies from any previous clients that you have had in the past as this will increase your credibility and reputation as a freelancer.

Show your brilliance;

Provide examples of past work and projects that you have undertaken. If your speciality is creating quality logo designs then it makes sense to include samples of your work into your portfolio. In fact, if you are a design freelancer then try to showcase a variety of past work including logo designs that you may have designed for companies or sports teams to show your diversity of talent. Now, if you are a student freelancer or have just graduated then it’s highly likely that you haven’t got a wide-ranging portfolio of previous work because your career is only just starting. Nevertheless, if you’ve only worked on a small number of projects then at least describe these projects in detail and give more in-depth examples of the type of work that you carried out in these projects, after all it’s quality that counts, not quantity.

Get your Portfolio out there!

As a student or graduate you probably won’t have a large budget with which you can market yourself and buying a website or outsourcing the task of its creation to an expert is expensive. That’s where online freelancing platforms like twago can come to the rescue. On this platform you can create an online portfolio of yourself and start bringing your talents to the people who need them most. The playing field is level and if you can make the most considered offer, emphasizing your talent, value for money and passion for your field of expertise then there’s nothing stopping you from success.

Author: David from twago, Europe’s largest online freelancing platform for experts in app programming, PHP development, graphic design, web design, translation and SEO.