Freelance advice/tips

[mmikee]

Going to start doing some freelance stuff and am not sure where to start.
I know that probably sound rediculous. Any tips or advice about fees, portfolios, etc, would be apriciated. Not sure even what kind of advice to ask for.

Regards,
Mike

[jacksc02]

right, heaps to tell you.

where to start though.........

Is there any one thing you want to know?

[mmikee]

Thanks for the reply.....Any thing that you think might be relevant. Ive never done any freelance work before. Im a total freelance noobie.
I own viz 2007, Vray, and some other minor things. I have a decent amount of knowlege in modeling, lighting, texturing, etc. I definately want to stick to arch viz.
I dont have any idea what the going rates for arch viz are,and I dont want to undercut anyone else when it comes to fees, if you know what I mean.
Any advice would be usefull to me.

Thanks,
Mike

[jacksc02]

do you have a website or a portfolio?

[mmikee]

Its under my sig. Its only temporary...my brother is an HTML guru. We are working on the site as we speak. The images up on the site were chosen by my brothers son.
I dont have a portfolio yet. Not sure what I need for it. Im going to look at as many portfolios as I can, to get some Ideas.

Mike

[jacksc02]

do you have any contacts at architectural practices? or property developers?

[nvanherpt]

http://www.cgarchitect.com/upclose/DW/default.asp

no better place to start

[jujubee]

I disagree with that guy in his articles on a major point - websites are VERY important.

It's not bad if you already have a list of clients you work from and can go 'word-of-mouth.' But starting out this is important and can differentiate you from all the rest.

That one point aside, his articles are an excellent guide.

[jacksc02]

nice one juju, contradict yourself!

[jujubee]

Huh? I just said his articles are great except for one item. He makes many valid points and suggestions overall...

[DaForce]

[nvanherpt]

[jacksc02]

[rpc212]

I don't get how juju contradicted himself?

And I agree that a website is important. At least you can tell a potential client to go look at your stuff online and go from there. I really like those articles along with the Graphic Artists Guild Pricing and Ethical Guidelines. Good business info on how to treat a client and how you should be treated. Nothing worse than a bad client who treats you like crap! (fire them ASAP!)

[Dynedain]

A website is bad in this way:

You can easily get lazy and say to a potential client "Go on my website and look at this, this and this". It is also very easy to not keep your website up to date.

The problem here is that your website may not have the latest information, won't truly show off the quality of your work if you're working towards print-quality renderings, can be out of date, etc.

If a potential client calls you, and you refer him to your website, you have just squandered an opportunity to make valuable face to face contact. Nothing is better than meeting the potential client, showing them good quality printouts of your work, and answering their questions. If a potential client calls you, you should be scheduling a meeting immediately, not refering them to your website. If you make them do the work to find out more about you, you'll lose clients. You have to be proactive in putting yourself out there.

Also, unless you really know what you are doing with websites (or are hiring someone who does), it's better to have a very simple website than a fully-featured one. If someone searching for archviz finds your website, they will leave and move onto the next one on their list if your site doesn't work flawlessly. One technical glitch that prevents them from seeing your content, and they'll just move on to the competition.