In mid-2008, Charfish Design became an actual, legal, tax-paying company. I’d like to tell you how my time in the trenches has been so far, and what I’ve learned along the way.

What you’re about to read isn’t stuff I read in some book or overheard some lawyers talking about in a coffee shop. These are just a few things I’ve picked up on this sometimes winding and bumpy road of owning my own business. Hope you enjoy these points and get something out of them!

Communication is the key

I’ve said this a million times on this site and IgniteLiving.com, but if you don’t communicate, you’re not gonna make it.

It doesn’t have to be …

Let me tell you a story…

At the end of 2007 I gave away a free ebook to my customers over at IgniteLiving.com, another site of mine. At the time, the site was only a couple months old and had exactly 17 RSS subscribers.

My plan was to offer a great ebook that would attract some visitors and possibly some business. So, I wrote the book and designed the hell out of it. I gave it a slick cover, nice fonts and typography, a cool color scheme and made it available for free download.

When the post went live, a whole lot of nothing happened. Which is sort of what you’d expect of a …

I‘m not a designer for money.

I run a design business for money, but that’s a different thing. The money has always come as an incidental, as an effect and not the cause. I design and often people want to give me money for it. That’s a healthy relationship and a good way to stay alive.

But I design because I love it. I design because when I don’t, odd things happen inside me and the world takes on a certain pallor.

I’m a designer because when I walk around in the city I can’t keep my eyes off storefront signs, sandwich boards, even newspapers in their stands. Everywhere I look is typography for me to study and I often wonder …

There are two things I’ve discovered that waste more time than anything in freelance work.

Doing crappy work
Starting before you know what the client really wants, leading to crappy work

We all know what doing crappy work is so no need to elucidate here. It goes in the trash.

As to starting a project before you clarify milestones with the client, same things applies. While you may make them the most incredible logo or website ever, if it’s not what they wanted it’s still crap to them. It goes in the trash too.

Now, I know that freelancers in many fields have a tendency to blame the client when things go wrong. And yes, we all know there are tough personalities and clients who don’t pay and such. I’m …