Comments on: Agency vs freelancer – your take

By: David Airey

David Airey — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:36:07 +0000

Me too, Rob.

Douglas, you could inspire an army of designers to avoid underselling themselves—a far too frequent occurrence.

By: Rob Cubbon

Rob Cubbon — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:59:02 +0000

I have to say I liked that comment, Douglas, funny and insightful!

By: Douglas Bonneville

Douglas Bonneville — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:40:54 +0000

It is also interesting to factor in politics. Some marketing directors choose an agency because of a personal friendship, need to impress a CEO, need to score brownie points with a firm they might join someday, etc. One other big one is the need for corporate marketing departments to HAVE to spend the budget they are allocated or they lose funding in the succeeding fiscal year. There are so many layers, but agencies serve the needs of corporate marketing departments because they make it possible to spend large amounts of money and keep the wheels greased. This isn’t bad per se, it just is a simple fact of how things at the corporate level work. One project I worked on as an employee working with another design agency had a flash banner of seven rotating images that cost (I saw the invoice) close to 5 figures because it involved “project management”, several meetings (that we didn’t need), several rounds of changes (because the agency interactive department didn’t follow the 3 bullet points I laid out), etc. etc. But hey, that Flash banner fed a lot of people that week, and is the reason the hot dog vendors on the streets of NY can stay in business, parking valets can make a living off of tips, and restaurants booking business meetings can keep the single working mom’s in the kitchen employed. Strange how these things work. But I could have made that banner in half a day (with blog breaks) for piddley-cents on the dollar! Maybe I should stop thinking like that, and start thinking about how my more-inflated fees might just help working-class :)

By: Stephen Nthiani

Stephen Nthiani — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:24:14 +0000

Interesting discussion that went on/ now going on here…..I’m encouraged, VERY, as a freelance designer to read the views..
……my take, END PRODUCT…..if I can be able to do it tons better than an agency, good, if I can’t handle the brief satisfactorily, even after calling up my people, then the agency will have the cup, howbeit only for that time, as I have TIME to constantly keep improving my skill, and all else that will make me able to handle such briefs.

By: The Floating Frog

The Floating Frog — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 10:18:54 +0000

Great to hear the views of the community. Personally some of my best work has been as a freelancer. I feel less pressured when freelancing, I get thinking time which doesn’t seem to be allowed in an agency ‘your not paid to think, your paid to do’. Maybe the bigger agency forge a strong project team that spend a lot of time researching and brainstorming ideas, generating concepts a sole freelancer would find hard to achieve. I however haven’t experienced this in the 7 years I’ve worked for agencies. Targets, deadlines and budgets set the reality in agencies which hinder any creativity.

By: David Airey

David Airey — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:14:54 +0000

Hi Rob,

The lack of any commute is a big factor in my preference for self-employment / working from home. Makes a huge difference for me.

By: Rob Cubbon

Rob Cubbon — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:29:21 +0000

It’s an interesting discussion, David. Thanks for the mention. I’m with Rob Hernandez, freelancers are “just as capable while being much more competitive” than agencies. Let’s stop spending hours commuting and working away from our loved ones and all work from home!

By: David Airey

David Airey — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:57:37 +0000

I’ve not been around my comment areas much during the past week, having just moved house. The heavy lifting is over now, which is a relief!

Glad you’re enjoying the comments, and thanks very much for letting me know.

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:59:44 +0000

I really enjoyed this article. I am in business with a friend of mine. We specialise mostly in web design. Although there is only two us we have branded ourselves very much as a firm.

We are also very young in comparison to a lot of the designers that run the show.

It’s interesting to get all the different reactions from clients who assume we are a standard agency, when in fact we are like freelancers and run many job descriptions.

In the end I think the decision is based on the project size, the experience of the designer(s), and the quality of work. Price is always a factor, but I have seen plenty of freelancers charge the same as an agency. Sometime you can get a lot of marketing just from having a famous agency or freelancer do your project.

Do you ever get contracted by design agencies to do work?

By: Justin Miller

Justin Miller — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:16:58 +0000

Octavio,

I’ve worked at agencies and as a freelancer. Scott is right, depending on how big the creative staff is there are a lot of people to go through before the work gets to the client.