Photoshop Workshop – Emma Poster

Here are some photo’s from the workshop we held over the weekend.

I must say I felt like a proud parent when the students started to remember the Photoshop shortcuts and commands we had taught them in class and were able to “create new layers” and “deselect”.

I’m so proud of all of them. Check out their student works above.

Freelancing Life

I don’t think I mentioned this in my previous post but I’ve quit my day job and started to do some freelance work. Freelance design, drafting and authority liason work.

How has it been?

To be honest… It’s been an adventurous month and a month where I learnt alot about myself and working in one’s own time. For example, I found that I need to learn to balance work, family, volunteer work and KOREAN DRAMA time or else I end up trying to catch up on work in the middle of the night. Haha. So if you’re thinking of freelance, you need to work on balancing out your time and having the self discipline to reach your deadlines.

It took me awhile (although I should probably had done more research on freelance life beforehand) to realize that it’s not easy and it means having a pretty unstable life for awhile. Until you actually build up your client base, you may go months without income. So start planning!

How?

Well, some advice I found really helpful was:

1. Tell everyone you know that you’re going freelance and what kind of jobs you want to take on.
2. Advertise yourself / create a brand to market yourself.
3. It helps if you have experience in the field that you choose to freelance in.
4. Plan your days/ week ahead so that you are able to reach your deadline and have the time in between for other things.

I read up blogs online that gave awesome advice and especially loved the one on Career Foundry on Secrets To become a Successful Freelancer! It opened my eyes to some of the things I wish I had done before I started!

If you’ve been freelancing yourself or just started, I’d love to hear about your experience and tips! Leave them in the comments below!!

 

 

Freelance and Sacrifice

We all need to make sacrifices in life. One of them for me lately is freelance work. Not just design but also managing a website for someone. To be honest, it’s hard. And it really gets to me sometimes. Especially when all my clients tend to be so demanding. But also I guess partly is because I also want to do so many things all at the same time that by the end of the week I am just exhausted!

Someone told me recently that in life nothing comes easy. If we want/need money, we need to put in the effort. Ah, but its draining. So sometimes I feel like going on strike and just not doing what i should be doing. Like watching korean dramas or daydreaming about some unreality. Haha.

But yeah, we all need to make sacrifices. I need to learn to face up to mine. Life isnt easy and we should and need to work hard to get what we want. With less self-tantrums and more discipline I can make it!

You can do it, Mel!