Design Domination helps freelance designers gain confidence, clarity and a competitive edge in a crowded marketplace. Adjust your mindset, become more business savvy and sharpen your creative skills, so you get more respect and command higher rates. If you're a logo designer, print designer or web designer looking to make a successful living freelancing, you will benefit from Colleen's real-world expertise in branding, publication design and layout, website design and design business. You'll also hear from other design dominators in the industry. Design Domination is hosted by award-winning designer Colleen Gratzer, principal of Gratzer Graphics LLC and creator of Creative Boost. Colleen provides her insights based on almost 25 years of graphic design expertise and almost 20 years of having a successful creative business. Website: https://creative-boost.com Music: https://www.bensound.com
#164 One way to make your documents and website content more accessible is to use an accessible heading structure. Find out some common mistakes when styling headings, easy, actionable tips for how to create accessible headings and tools to check them.
#163 Chris Hinds of Equalize Digital shares their story of going from generalist designers to web accessibility specialists, giving them clarity and a competitive edge, winning clients more easily, improving their processes and making marketing efforts easier.
#161 Do you spend a lot of time explaining what you need to clients? Tired of clients sending you the wrong files or not following your processes? Find out how to get what you need from clients to make for a smoother client relationship and more profitable projects.
Is having a website worth it? Where should you create your design website? Where should you post your portfolio online? If you’re serious about building a freelance design business, find out why you should have your own website.
#159 Do you design or remediate accessible documents and find some of the PDF work to be tedious and time consuming? Find out five Acrobat preflight fixups that will speed up your accessible PDF workflow when it comes to artifacting, hyperlinks and more.
#158 Find out the top 10 logo design podcast episodes from Design Domination and other podcasts that talk about understanding more about logo design, how to design a logo, how to price a logo, how to get clients and which file formats to create for a logo.
#157 Thinking of going out on your own as a freelance graphic designer or web designer? Find out the pros and cons of being a full-time freelancer versus employee and some points to consider before working for yourself full time.
#156 The web accessibility community is in an uproar about the AudioEye lawsuit against 30-year accessibility champion Adrian Roselli for his criticism of their overlay product.
#155 Learn how to work more efficiently in Adobe InDesign with these time-saving 10 tips about features that most graphic designers don’t use. The more you know InDesign, the easier it is to incorporate accessibility into the layout process too.
#154 Providing good customer service doesn’t mean you have to be at the whim of every client request or that the client is always right. In fact, if you do that, your business will suffer. Find out why people pleasing is bad for your creative business.
#153 Ensuring that hyperlinks are accessible for all website visitors increases the accessibility and usability of a website. There are functional, cognitive and visual factors to consider. Find out 9 tips for creating accessible hyperlinks on websites.
#152 A design brief, or creative brief, helps you get more respect and be seen as an expert as a designer. Find out how to write a creative brief and how it helps not only you but the designer-client relationship and the design process.
#151 Learn how to leverage the About page on your website so that you stand out and increase your chances of getting new clients. Find out tips for what to include and how to write a good About page even if you find it hard to talk about yourself.
#150 Having a client who makes up a large portion of your income is a blessing and a curse. They keep you busy, but you lose focus on your freelance business. Find out if you have any gorilla clients, or high client concentration, and what to do about it.
#149 Are you looking to have the accessibility conversation with clients or coworkers but not sure where to start? Have you tried but gotten resistance? Find out 10 common objections to accessibility and how to overcome them to get others on board.
As a graphic designer, you may run into a situation where the client wants more than one of your designs. Should you provide the design free? Should you charge for the additional design? Find out what to think about and how to figure out how to price it.
#147 Many freelance designers struggle with creating and enforcing boundaries with clients, taking on and putting up with bad clients. But setting boundaries means you're in charge, work with good clients and have a more profitable creative business.
Graphic designer Adrienne Johnston shares how she went from being stressed out and overworked in a $60k-a-year creative business to working less and without stress making more than $200k a year by focusing on presentation design in PowerPoint.
Improve the accessibility and usability of the websites you design by adding a skip navigation link for keyboard users. Find out why skip links are important, who they help, how to check for a skip link and how to add one to an existing website.
#144 Raising your prices as a freelance graphic designer is vital for a viable, profitable creative business. Find out when you should raise your rates, how to raise them, how much to raise them and what to do if clients react negatively when you do.
#143 Google reviews are a free tool designers can leverage to make the marketing and sales process easier. They help you get new clients. Hear how Google reviews have helped John Falke's design business and how to get Google reviews from clients.
#142 Want to make $100,000 a year as a full-time freelancer? Find out what I did and what you can do to make 6 figures as a self-employed freelance designer, even in your first year of freelancing full time. Also find out what to do before you do it.
#141 As a graphic designer, document designer or web designer, understanding the WCAG color and contrast accessibility guidelines will help make your designs more inclusive and accessible to sighted individuals with or without a visual disability.
#140 Medical insurance for self-employed freelance designers can be cost prohibitive. Find out some affordable health insurance alternatives that will save you money along with what to consider before going with one of these options.
#139 Pantone color books are being phased out of Adobe Creative Cloud, greatly impacting many graphic designers. Access to all Pantone libraries will require a paid Pantone Connect subscription. Find out what you need to know and what options you have.
#138 Getting content from clients is definitely high on the list of complaints from graphic designers. Find out 12 ways to motivate your clients to get you content, so that you get projects done on time and profitably.
#137 Many graphic designers give away their advice, expertise and ideas in the sales process for free. Learn what to stop doing on consultation calls and how to get paid for discovery calls, so you get more respect and are more valued as an expert.
#136 Just because graphic designers put up a portfolio website doesn't mean potential clients will find it or contact you. Learn strategic steps to get people to your site, keep them on your site and taking action, so you build a profitable creative business.
#135 Find out what books are on my list of top creative business books for freelance graphic designers to help you with starting your own business, sales and marketing, getting clients, positioning, pricing and profit, confidence, mindset and more.
