The Aspiring Designer’s Guide to Finding Clients (Pt. 2)
Choosing your Design Niche
June 8, 2009 by Gary Simon
Chances are if you’re starting out, you probably won’t have a specific niche. The issue of specializing in specific niche(s) with the design industry can be somewhat tricky when you think about it. On one hand, specializing in logo design allows you to focus specifically on improving in that area, and allowing you to ultimately attract more logo design clients. On the other hand, you also limit yourself to other potential projects such as full web design.
Personally, the majority of my income comes from logo design at http://www.garysimon.net, but I also keep my doors open to other projects by accepting web design orders through a separate web site http://www.propsd.com
One question you may be asking yourself is “Why limit myself by only accepting orders through one or a couple niches?”, and it’s a good question. But the decision is made more difficult when you realize that specializing in one niche makes it easier to attract those clients. It’s a known fact in web marketing that the more specialized, personalized and “niche’d” out a page is, the better it performs in terms of converting website visitor to customer.
Ultimately my advice is this, if you have gained a preference to logo design, print design, or web design, stick with it. Believe it or not, you can even get as specific as solely designing banners. As you improve your skills in those niches, you can open more doors for yourself by tackling other niches.
If design is something that is completely new to you, I suggest starting as I did. I took on full website design and everything that came with it, including logo design. After some hard work and persistence, you will establish your own style and your own preferences.
Once you know your design niche(s), then it’s a matter of establashing yourself, which will be covered in the next post.
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Comments
Clint B.
June 10, 2009
As a beginning designer, I’m looking forward to the rest of this guide and any hints you may give. Thanks for your effort and look forward to the coming installments.
Tyler
July 28, 2009
Dude you need to update more, Once a week at least. I used to hit your site 2-3 times a week, now I only visit when im randomly clicking through bookmarks. Hope to see more soon.
Brandon
June 8, 2009
Wonderful, I love your insights. Thanks for continuing sharing the knowledge.