Since this week has mostly been about clients, seems to me the resources need to point you in the direction. Baring that, getting work, a job, anything to do with increasing your income. In preparation for this Resourceful Friday, I filled BoDo’s resources with all things clients.

Client related articles

AIGA: A Client's Guide to Design
AIGA: Working with a graphic designer
AIGA: The design brief
AIGA: How to write a design brief
Creative Latitude: How to Hire and Work with a Graphic Designer (Part 1)
Creative Latitude: 10 ways to keep and get clients
Creative Latitude: How to Choose a Graphic Design Firm
Creative Latitude: The Kind of Designer Your Client Needs
Creative Latitude: What you need to know before hiring a design firm
Creative Latitude: How to Hire and Work with a Graphic Designer (Part 2)
Creative Latitude: Are You Choosing the Right Clients?
Creative Latitude: Including the Client in the Design Process
Creative Latitude: When, Why and How to Fire a Client
Creative Latitude: Handling Tough Questions
Creative Latitude: Getting Clients to View Design as Investment
Creative Latitude: Finding the right clients
GAG: A Practical Guide to Working with Graphic Designers
HOWDesign.com: What Clients Want
HOWDesign.com: Be Your Client's Best Friend
Ideabook: The Design Constitution
Inc.com: Hiring a Web Designer: Advice from Award-Winning Sites
Seth Godin: How to live happily with a great designer
Under Consideration > Speak Up: Qualifying Prospective Clients
will-harris.com: How to (and not to) work with a Designer

Getting work articles

Creative Latitude: Remotely Working
Creative Latitude: A Simple Way to Get Clients
Creative Latitude: Pitching and Winning Assignments Online

Where to find clients / work

37signals | Job Board Tech Jobs: Design, Programming, Rails, Executive, and more
Authentic Jobs Full-time and freelance job opportunities for designers and developers
CHIMBY The web’s first search engine for finding career advice
Create Magazine Job Bank
Creative Hotlist Job Searches, Portfolios and Recruiting for Graphic and Web Designers, Writers, Photographers and Illustrators
CrunchBoard The Job Board for the Tech Industry
Design Quote Find Graphic Designers, Graphic Design Jobs, Custom Web Design and Programmers
GigaOM Jobs The GigaOM Job Board
HOWdesign.com Job Bank: Graphic Design Job Search, Post Your Resume
Indeed one search. all jobs.
Krop Creative & Tech Jobs
MNteractive Jobs: Contract, employee, volunteer
Read/WriteWeb Job Board Job opportunities for Web Technology and New Media professionals, at startups and tech firms all over the world.
Vitamin's job board A place to advertise jobs, or search for a new position
YorZ.com Access to the best career opportunities for top professionals

You could say I’m a bit of a resources junkie, so if you have any to suggest, go ahead and send them over. Depending, I’ll add them to our resources and BoDo’s del.icio.us.

Until the next
Resourceful Friday,
cat

Welcome to BoDo:
The Business of Design online launch

Introducing Alina’s In-sights

Ah … the security of a steady paycheck. Benefits. Paid vacation time. Real live humans close by to bounce ideas off of and share thoughts. Yup, this is the in-house world. But, it’s also the world of commuting traffic, office politics, challenging bosses, nutty deadlines and the likes.

In Alina’s In-sights, our in-house connection, Alina Hagen, will be sharing her triumphs and tribulations of working in the corporate environment, along with ways to keep your sanity during the crazy times … both good and not so good.

In addition to generously sharing her not so available time with BoDo, Alina also authors Creative Latitude’s Graphic Make Overs and is a “regular” on the About.com graphic design forum, where she contributes her insights and experiences to help out others in the industry.

You can read more about Alina on BoDo’s visiting authors page.

The BoDo Team
cat - nt - jay

Should I work for a design firm, in-house, or freelance? What are the differences between the three?

This depends on your personal preferences and needs. Some people want the security of a regular paycheck and benefits possibly at the expense of less interesting work. Others thrive on the independence of running your own business. Follows is a brief description of the three types of working environments:

In-house: This will probably pay more than a design firm and have better benefits as far as health insurance, holiday and sick time, and retirement plans. The work, however, is apt to be very repetitious and narrow in scope as you will be doing the same type of projects over and over, always adhering to the corporate graphic standards originally set up for the firm. You will more or less have regular hours and will have to be located in an office environment 40-60 hours a week.

Design Firm: Working for a design firm or ad agency is highly competitive, long hours, high stress, and tight deadlines. However, there is more creativity and variety involved. It varies, but the pay could be lower than in-house, though some people are able to make very good money at ad agencies if they are good. The benefits will probably be there, but may not be as strong as working in-house.

Freelance: It’s all up to you. It’s highly advisable that before you do freelance, you get several years experience working for a design firm or in-house. There is so much you need to know. Working in a corporate setting will familiarize you with doing design in the “real” world, get you up to speed and experience, and give you some idea of what your strengths and weaknesses on. Once you freelance, you will be adding the jobs of marketing and accounting to your lists of hats to wear. There will be slow times and frantic times. It won’t be steady. You will need to be marketing yourself all the time; not just during slow periods. And, you will need to set up your own health insurance and retirement plans.

Alina Hagen | Visual Communication Designer
Alina Design | Creative Latitude | BoDo Author | Alina’s In-sights

(Where Should I Work? first appeared on Creative Latitude’s Holy Grail )