First Time help

[Curry Burns]

Thoughts have been entering my head of setting up my own small business, something to do alongside my current job, a hobby if you wish.

I've done quite a bit of leaflet design and getting a bit of a knack for it and rather enjoy doing it.

Whilst thinking, stepping into leaflets first would be a little bit too much.

I have found some software for creating logos and business cards and I think this would be a nice start.

I've got no experience in setting anything up and I'm looking for any advice at all...

Do I need to do a course in graphic design or marketing before doing this?

Thanks in advance.

[ShadownINja]

Depends on the sorts of designs. If you're doing stuff for carpet cleaning or kebab shops, anything that's clear will do!

[StevieBee]

Graphic Design.

It's not a skill that can be taught but one that is "honed". You are either creative or you are not. End of.

No software compensates for a lack of natural flair and anyone that thinks it can is deluded.

I haven't seen your work so you may indeed be creative and a skilled designer but in any case, that is only part of it.

To make any (decent) money from leaflet design, you'll need to organise (buy) the print and distribution and so take on quite a bit of risk. Plus, you need to understand the basics of print as well - digital, litho, web.... How would you set the leaflet artwork up for a 100,000 run on a B1, 5 colour perfecter? What paper specification would you use? How would this affect distribution cost?

Most printers will offer a free design service to get the print so to compete with them, you'll need to offer a spectacular level of creative skill and to be honest, if you are that good, I'd go get yourself a job as a designer in an ad agency or design studio. You'll earn more money and less risk.

Sorry to put a downer on this but as a designer by trade myself, I get frustrated at what is becoming a regular thing of people thinking that they can become designers if they have the right software or "did OK" at Art at school. They can't. It's an art, skill, gift....

Given a bit of time, despite not having a musical bone in my body, I can, using Garage Band loops create a song that might be called passable. But no matter how good I get using Garage Band, I will never, ever be a musician and never make a bean from it.

As I say, post a few examples and I'd be happy to be proved wrong in your case.

[lawrence hello]

Why not give something like 99designs.com a try. If you really do have some ability in design you'll start making some cash from that. Also seeing as most companies just want some simple 'Web 2.0' style graphics, I would disagree that you can't at least be hobby level successful just with the right software and after reading a few guides to the techniques of it.

[StevieBee]

lawrence hello said:

Also seeing as most companies just want some simple 'Web 2.0' style graphics, I would disagree that you can't at least be hobby level successful just with the right software and after reading a few guides to the techniques of it.

If only!

Required software: Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign,etc.. possibly Quark as well.

Need a good suite of fonts.

A decent Mac and decent colour printer.

That's around £6,000 for starters.

Bloody expensive hobby!

If you charge a bargain bucket rate of say, £15 per hour (pro studios charge between £65 and £150 per hour), you'd need to do 400 hours of work to cover capital costs alone.

There are bits of software that provide design templates but they are designed to be used by companies who don't want to use a designer. So why would they pay someone to use something they can do themselves for free?