Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Signe Roswall

While starting out as an independent designer, I realised there’s an entire minefield of “underpaid and free work” I had to navigate. Here’s why I think you should turn around, leave that field and go chill out with yourself by a nice, big tree instead.

I’m not earning anything on my bank account right now while I’m sitting here, writing this in my pyjamas in the middle of the day. I’m drinking bad frozen coffee while flipping through the pages of a book called ‘Great Coffee’. And the irony of that just hit me.

I entirely brought this upon myself when I decided to become an independent designer at the end of 2016, so I’ll be the last person to cry about it. This is my life as it is — right now.

The past month I’ve been “in between projects”. From the end of april to now, the start of june, I’ve only worked one client project, even though I’ve had offers. I haven’t been doing much, and part of me wants to tell myself, I should feel bad about that, and I actually also did at first.

Most of what I’m doing right now are personal projects and working for myself. Writing, reading, learning. Experiencing. Growing my creativity. It’s not like I’m going to always be working for myself; that’s really not possible because ours is a material world. So instead of feeling bad for not doing anything, maybe I should just appreciate it a little bit.

I’m prioritising this, working for free for myself, above some of the work I’ve seen out there, and today I present to you, the reasons why.

Obviously, we first have to talk about money

I didn’t go independent without any financial means whatsoever, I’m not that bold. At the beginning of 2017 I had saved up 80.000DKK (around 12.000$) from working, my birthday presents, plain old saving up every penny, everything went into that.

And I decided to spend that money on me.

Not stuff, not a motorcycle license (even though that would’ve been nice this summer.)

But honestly, my savings are also disappearing into that big black hole of consumption despite me drinking only shitty coffee and eating oatmeal all the time. It’s not a lasting solution, of course.

I remember my mother at my birthday party saying “Let’s hope something comes along for you soon,” and she sent me this comforting, nervous smile. (I knew I should never have told her the adjoint birthday party my sister and I threw together was our birthday present to each other. That made her feel terrible I’m sure.)

She doesn’t know my inbox is full of people who wants to work with me, or how the web is actually full of work you can just do, “logo design 50 bucks.”

She doesn’t know I’ve turned down around 5 or 6 possible projects and work opportunities in this month where I’ve been “in between projects”. I’ve tried explaining it to her, she doesn’t really get it. I totally understand her.

“Why would you turn down a job?” She would say. “Money is money, right, just a little bit is at least some?”

And I really do consider offers before saying no, of course. I investigate them and I’m genuinely interested in the people who contact me. I think it’s great they want to create things and start businesses. But sadly, even though some of them may have sparked some interest and involved great, potential clients, they mostly didn’t offer enough money.

It seems as a creative, especially as one who’s independent, I’m expected to run on some kind of magical fuel (frozen coffee, maybe?) which I can apparently live off instead of getting paid. I actually even at one point felt expected or obligated to take on all the risky, low-paying jobs at first, only because I didn’t really have anything else. What kind of reason is that?

At one point in all this, I felt like a complete nobody.

It’s taken me so much to get to a point where I can turn down projects because of the salary. I had a lot of help from Andy J. Miller on one side, the great pep-talker as well as Chris Do on the other, the hardcore businessman and design ninja who made me realise I should price my services better.

And luckily, it seems that some clients won’t even acknowledge you’re not accepting a job because of the money (which I always try to do in a diplomatic and professional, but also firm way mind you) so you might just as well.

I talked with a person on the phone who contacted me about a project, and I said “I‘m not really in a situation financially where I can say yes to this big design project for free”. He couldn’t offer me any pay, but he could offer me part ownership in the company — maybe. A company which might not even turn into anything.

He then said “Oh well, if you don’t have the time for it, then that’s that.”

I told him; I do have time. But I don’t have the finances for working on a project, for free, no matter how large a part you can offer me. I simply don’t have the money for it. And then, he actually wanted to discuss if I would take a one-time payment instead, then. It didn’t go any further than that. He was working a full time job himself already and starting the business up on the side. Zero risk for him, a lot of risk for me. Now there was a mine that could really have blown up in my face had I let it.

Because, as I see it: why not wait for the awesome clients, whom I know are out there, who actually do want to pay me? Those who appreciate my work and are a joy to work with also? Those who don’t make me feel like a slave?

So I chose to turn down projects even though I’m slowly but surely turning piss-poor because I have a whole business to start up myself, also.

And I realised this; I already have this huge design project, it’s called me. I already have that full-time, currently non-paying position.

Maybe some you of out there are thinking you don’t have the ‘luxury’ of the kind of savings I have, but I didn’t get it just by sitting on my hands, either. I worked hard for that money. I worked so hard to be able to pay myself for working for myself one day, and I wasn’t even getting paid that much because I was an apprentice back then.

It took years.

But I saved up to be spared of all the risky bad-match projects while I started out by myself and while building my business and growing my career. And to be able to wait until someone comes along whom I’m going to love working with!

Instead of being too busy for them with all of these risky high cost/low gain projects that are out there.

The other obvious reason, I tend to forget, is you. Yes, you. Your self-esteem and your well-being.

As mentioned before I’ve been listening a lot to Andy’s podcast Creative Pep Talk and he talks about this exact issue with earning just a little bit. He says, when you work for only a little or no money at all, you’re just surviving. You’re not thriving. You’re just barely getting by.

Because surviving, Andy says, is just one degree above death.

That’s not somewhere nice to be, that doesn’t boost anything for me personally at all. That passion and motivation I have for what I do, it doesn’t come out of nowhere, and it especially won’t stick around while I’m beating myself up over someone else’s project. My clients won’t appreciate work I hate doing, either. I’m certain of that.

So having saved up money has spared me from taking on the half-hearted and low-paid jobs which I’ve heard a lot of people talk about as “how they started out” and “something you just have to do when starting out”.

And I feel terrible about them saying that. Because I can imagine how projects like those would make me feel like, sucking the very creative spirit and life right out of me. Completely diminish my passion for my work, as well as my personal and professional self-esteem because those are in fact connected. I wouldn’t be able to do that work. I wouldn’t be able to go out and sell myself on that. And all this without filling my bank account, too.

I might as well be working any other low-paying job, then.

I’m giving myself time to focus inwards instead of always being focused outwards on others

Working for myself, I’ve begun a personal project about a very hard time in my life, which has granted me more insight into who I am and what I want to do with my future. I learned how I actually want to work the “good” projects, those that help people. I’m also learning what strengths I have and how I can use them in my work. And what weaknesses I have and how to tackle them, how to deal when things get rough. And they do get rough.

I’ve gotten to know myself better. I go for walks with my cat, but mostly I sit inside and work, draw or write. I don’t go out and have huge, creative epiphanies on museums or anything, those happen in the comfort of my office chair at home, and that’s totally fine with me. I try to remember why this “in-between-project” period is really a positive thing.

I recently published a redesign project that I did for fun here on Medium as an article, and it’s gotten an amazing amount of attention. That was a personal project with took me over an entire week to complete.

Today I got an email that I’m a Top Writer in Design on Medium. I couldn’t be-fucking-lieve it, haha. Like, who me? This email must’ve been sent to the wrong person, oh it has my name in there and everything. I’m getting great feedback and people are contacting me with questions. I’ve even gotten new business contacts and more offers.

And now, the offers are starting to look like something. My value is growing as I grow as a creative person and become better and wiser.

Lastly and most importantly; saying no to free or underpaid work raises the total value for all creatives in the whole creative and independent field.

Great offers would never have happened if I didn’t focus on myself, take the time to create something that reflects my passion, something that shows what I can do when I’m thriving instead of just surviving.

And it won’t happen for anyone else, either, if we keep giving the bad offers attention! As a designer, I’m really only as good as my last project. Those good projects are very scarce in a sea of the straight-up insulting ones.

I’m not saying you should just turn away from every project you encounter which is non-paid or underpaid. I always think you should investigate and try to sell your work and your business, explain to the client why your work is worth the money, and also why you really can’t live without getting paid (just like everyone else) when they grill you about your prices. Say your coffee isn’t magical, sadly. I tell them about my financial challenges, all the expenses I have as independent. Some of them come around then, actually, like ‘oh right, just like the ones we have ourselves’. I usually ask for a budget first or say my price. And I myself still think my starting price is extremely embarrassingly expensive. It’s not. Really.

I’ll re-reconsider taking on a non-paid project if it’s for a non-profit or non-commercial organisation and the cause is something I feel with and think it could be fun doing something for, because that would be doing a little good in the world. And the world sure could use some more good in it.

But simply making the connection to people and potential clients, I’ve learned, is important still, and so is practising my selling skills because they’re still kind of bad. But I actually experienced how someone I turned down ended up recommending me to someone else. Knowing what I do want to work for, and what I don’t, that’s just being a professional.

In conclusion, working for free for myself has given me so many plusses on my personal account even though nothing is ticking into my bank account.

I don’t feel like a nobody anymore.

I feel like I’m worth the good projects and the money. I have some great personal work and articles coming up, I can’t wait to show you. I feel like the best work I have to do yet, is still inside me, and I can’t wait for it to come out. I get very excited thinking about the clients I’ll be working with. But all that inside needs room to come out, it needs me to thrive.

So I’m still here on the highway to Broke with 90 mph, and I’m having the best freaking time of my life.

Thanks for much for reading 🙋

Why you should work for free for yourself 💁💸✨ was originally published in Prototyping: From UX to Front End on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Why you should work for free for yourself ✨

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