Create A Better Portfolio
Whether online or in hand, your portfolio is the primary means of landing a job or finding clients. Art school graduates have focused on developing
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perceptions
ARTICLES.
Tips and Insights on Mission, Mindset, Mechanics, and Marketing for Freelance Creatives
The Internship Epidemic
It is the responsibility of design professionals, teachers and school administrators to value the next generation of designers so that the profession is respected, appreciated and thrives. Unpaid internships won’t accomplish that.
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Your Website’s Magnificent 7
Like any design, websites are experienced. Your goal should be to provide the best experience to the largest percentage of people who visit your site.
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5 Stages of Customer Loyalty
To be meaningful, design needs to connect on five successive levels of significance…
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Understanding Your 1099-K Reporting Changes for 2022 and Beyond
We’re on a mission to cultivate a business mindset in support of our creative work. If we want to profit from our creative work, we
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Freelancing in the Age of AI
Technology fosters challenges and opportunities, and the freelance creative needs to address both in their creative process and business systems.
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Why You Can’t Have My Font Files
Business and creative culture now runs on creative rights and intellectual property. Theft, abuse and alteration of intellectual property is as rampant as ID theft,
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How To Write An Effective Creative Brief
Creative freelancers can save time and avoid miscommunication when working with their if they use an effective creative brief in their process. Simply talking about project expectations
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Debt, Taxes and Your Freelance Business: 2017 Tax Reform Bill
I’m a sole proprietor working with businesses and organizations, and so, like you, I had some concern about how the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs
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Is It Time To Get A New Rope?
For freelance creatives facing changing markets and uncertain futures the end of the rope is an immediate reality. When doing what you’ve been doing is not going to work anymore, getting another rope becomes necessary.
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Firing A Non-paying Client Is Not Burning A Bridge
From the Freelance Road Trip mailbag: A Freelance Road Trip (FRT) member shared an experience with a non-paying client. The member gave me permission to
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Use the Socratic Method to Close the Sale
A key principle in successful use of the Socratic Method is that your work product is not the thing — the objective. It’s the thing that leads to the objective the prospect wants to make happen.
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Does Formal Design Education Matter?
Aesthetic sense and talent are raw materials. They amount to nothing without discipline. Education forces you to add skill, discipline and expertise to your talent. And in order to meet project deadlines, you learn to steward your time.
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How To Overcome Overwhelm
Did you know that most freelancers struggle with time management, project management, and getting things done — on time? With margin? We deal on a
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Five Ways To Say “No”
How to nicely turn away the wrong clients to say “yes” to the right ones. by Alvalyn Lundgren Having completed more than 42 years of
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A Philosophy of Branding, Part 1
Of Influence, Time and Trust Branding is a popular discussion in my circles, and in the course of those conversations I gain great insight into perceptions
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Advice for Freelancers: On Being an Owner
Ownership is simply the idea that something belongs to someone. In the case of your freelance business, you own it. It belongs to you. You
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How To Budget For A Design Project
To answer the question, “How much will it cost?”, the question, “What do you want to accomplish?” needs to be asked first. Clients are often in the dark
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Set Goals, Not Resolutions
Have you made resolutions for the new year? What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to change? Where do you see yourself
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Why You Can’t Be My Client
Since I established my design studio over thirteen years ago, I have worked with clients large and small, designed for sole proprietors and for publicly-held
Alvalyn Lundgren
7 Pointers to Rock Your Social Media Marketing
To begin with, social media is not about selling, but about conversations and providing value. Be knowable, likable and trustworthy. To make the most of
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4 Onboarding Steps For Successful Client Relationships
So you have a brand-new shiny client that you’re excited to be working with. You’re looking forward to helping them achieve their goals. They’ve accepted
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Risky Business
© Alvalyn Lundgren. All international rights reserved. Risk. It’s a small word with big impact. Taking risks involves change and the unknown. We’re usually not
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Being Remarkable
My friend, Mary, was in a community theatre production of The Mikado, and was asked to write her bio for the printed program. This being her first theatrical
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