Finding Work Without a Portfolio

Key Takeaways

if you don't have a portfolio but you still need to get clients on this video we're going to talk about the steps you need to take stay tuned everybody what's up welcome back to flux my name is ron segal we're going to talk about freelance today so a lot of designers don't have a portfolio up and if you don't have a portfolio up that's basically one there's probably one of two reasons that's happening one you've got some works but you're just like you're not sure how to design your portfolio you're not sure about the platform you're you're just you never got to it if that's the case there's just no excuse look there's so many click templates today platforms free stuff paid stuff and even though if you've been watching my channel i always talk about you know webflow and doing custom stuff but come on if you don't have anything let not webflow the fact that you don't know webflow where you don't know development be an excuse just go and do something with a template you can always improve it later on so just no excuses go and do something if you don't have works that's where you have to actually do some work before you can put it in a portfolio right if you don't have a work that's where you need to focus on you need to do some work and that work can be for yourself for pro bono what i would do today there's a lot of ways to approach this if right you want to demonstrate and you want to demonstrate that you can solve problems using design one way to do this is you can go into websites that would give you kind of fake client briefs and we'll link a few of them in the description below that kind of gives you the experience of working on a real brief and not just doing kind of a spotify redesign which is i feel like it doesn't really demonstrate how you would solve a problem from scratch right so one thing is you can go and do these kind of demos projects for fake clients that being said if i would have to do it today i would probably not just make a fake project i would actually try to help someone already with working and even if they don't pay me even this if this is pro bono i would frame it as if i want to help you i believe in you i'm excited about what you're doing right now so that can be a local business where you're working that's struggling right now because of yeah it's 20 20 everybody's struggling that can be a non-profit that you look up to and you you're you can tell them hey i'm looking to volunteer i'm looking to do some project and help you um by by doing this project for you or you can just do something and then gift it for somebody but i feel like by doing this for an actual client you would not only benefit from working on a real problem but you also get this relationship that's built up by actually showing people that you can do something without taking their money those people might either hire the you later on or maybe recommend you all check out this great designer he did this for me for free and not for free in terms of he's cheap or he's willing to work for free but just because he's passionate and he chose to do it for free there's a few different kinds of free there's free where your clients doesn't want to pay you that's because of them and they don't value design and there's free because you're passionate and you want to do something for other people and that's why you're not charging them this is your decision versus their decision and if you do that kind of free work i think you can get design experience and build a relationship and improve the world by helping businesses with your skills so i think that's the fantastic way do one two three you don't need more than one two three four max and then you can put up your portfolio and then you're set up to finding really starting finding clients charging for it and kick starting your freelance career if you'd like to know more we do have a full-on kind of free intro to freelancing workshop here on youtube that'll be linked below or here somewhere you can check this out to learn more about freelancing and we'll catch you on the next video