Building your career as a professional graphic designer, you basically have two options: Either you work as a freelancer and manage clients on your own, or you work for an agency that will manage clients for you and allocate your work on a weekly or monthly commitment. Both are good options if you want to focus on this career. But which one suits you the most?
Well, choosing a career path is mostly a personalized thing. I’ve worked both as a freelancer and for agencies. From my experience, I can share some pros and cons in both areas with you, which might help you choose a path.
Freelance Graphic Designers
- Flexibility and Time Freedom: This is the most lucrative feature for a freelance worker. Time commitment is a big thing that most creative people struggle with. Ideas don’t always click just because you are focusing hard, right? You often get ideas when you are just walking or taking a shower and then implement them in the project. Or you can work whenever and wherever you prefer. This offers you a great work-life balance.
- Variety of Projects: As a freelancer, you have a chance to get projects from different niches. Let me tell you what I mean. One day you might be working on a fashion project, and the other day you might get a project for a food business. See? You have the reach to a variety of businesses, and this will help you grow a diversified portfolio.
- Direct Client Interaction: It is really satisfying when you directly communicate with the client and try to understand what the client actually needs. Although some agencies keep team leads in client meetings, in most cases, you get the briefing from someone in your agency. Also, when you deliver the product, it’s all up to the person communicating with the client. If that person communicates well, then you are in good hands; otherwise, you might face some trouble.
- Self-Marketing: It is obvious that you’ll have to promote yourself when you are working as a freelancer. You have to build your own profile in the marketplaces, including finding clients, managing business operations, and finances. This can feel hectic sometimes, but this is the process you have to go through when working as a freelancer.
- Lack of Benefits: Working for an agency comes with benefits of the company policy, and you can get festival bonuses, paid leave, or sick leave based on the plan. But when you are working as a freelancer, you are on your own! You have to manage your finances to allocate them based on your needs.
Agency Graphic Designers
- Steady Income and Benefits: Drawing the points from the last discussion, working for an agency comes with a ton of financial benefits. You are guaranteed to have a steady income in agency life, whereas as a freelancer, you are not guaranteed to have clients all the time. You might see months with no income as a freelancer. But as an agency employee, your salary is guaranteed.
- Team Collaboration and Big Projects: If you want to work on a big project and earn big scores, you need to work in a team. Big clients who trust you with their big campaigns want a dynamic team onboard so that they can get the best outputs. That’s why big clients usually go for hiring agencies instead of one-man freelancers.
- Learning and Development Opportunities: When you are working in a team, you always have guidance and a learning platform. This gives you the opportunity to learn faster and improve your skill as you work on multiple projects as a team.
- Limited Flexibility: It is one of the major drawbacks of working for any agency. You have to commit a significant portion of your day to the agency. It doesn’t matter if you can work fast or not. You have to join at a specific hour and commit the time for a fair day’s work.
- Overwork: In the designer world, there is nothing time-specific. In fact, it is possible for every sector in the IT world. Your client may reach your agency at any time for a sudden change, and your agency may want you to fix that while you are already off hour. This practice is often seen in every agency as they are bound to give service to their clients. So keep this in your note.
Here I’ve shared my observations from a neutral lens. I won’t directly tell you that Freelance is good and Agency is bad, or vice versa. Both sides have unique benefits, and both have their drawbacks. It totally depends on how you want to build your career and get your fair payment for a fair day of work.