Working for free: Friends, good causes, and publicity

One of the problems of being a designer is that I get asked to work for free very frequently. The following are the only situations that I would consider offering my services on the cheap.

Designing for friends and family

Friends and family can be tricky. Sometimes its acceptable to quote your full rates, sometimes a partial rate, and sometimes you’re working for free.

My good friend, Greta, is an illustrator/painter/designer. She needs a proffesional portfolio o show potential employers.  I think it is practically impossible for her to get a design related interview without an online portfolio, so I wanted to help her out. She designed her site and I coded her design and set her up so that she can regularly add new portfolio pieces.

Also, she cooks an awesome meal for me once a week, so I owe her for that. 

www.GretaDohse.com  (Work in Progress)

On the other hand, I’ve been working for my aunt and uncle designing a website and some items for their baseball team. I’ve been working for them at a “family-discount” rate. I feel comfortable charging them money for two reasons.

•  They were already paying someone else to get this design work done, so they understand that there is value in my work.
• I’ll be doing regular design work for them.

I am still working for family, so I’m working for less than I would normally charge a client.

Designing for charities and other good causes

For my senior project at Purdue, I worked with 2 other guys, Max and Andrew, to create a promotional campaign for a young boy named Roberto.  Roberto has a disease called CIPA, which prevents him from feeling pain or perspiring. He’s a very happy and fun little boy, but he just did not know the damage he was doing to his body.

Admittedly this was a school project so I had to do it for free, but even now, this is the type of work that I’d consider doing again. 

I recently found out that the charity was able to raise enough money to get Roberto the help he needs, and its a great feeling to know that my web experience and abilities were required to get the charity running.

Designing for publicity

Designers hear these phrases and other similar requests very frequently…

I have this great website idea that I know will be really popular! But I don’t have a web design budget. I’ll let you put a link to your website!    

I need a new, creative logo. I don’t have any money to pay you but I bet it will look fantastic in your portfolio!

Normally, I turn down these requests, but occasionally an opportunity comes through that will actually produce great publicity and generate some solid word-of-mouth referrals.

I’m currently designing several custom Wordpress themes to be used by my fraternity at chapters around the country. Its actually a pretty big deal, most fraternity’s have pitiful websites, so this will be a great way to help my fraternity stand out!

Sure, its great that I’m helping out my national fraternity, but the main reasons for my involvement are the following.

• Publicity

  These templates will be used nationwide and implemented on over 20 websites. It also lets every brother know that I’m a web designer.

• Wordpress Experience

  I’m looking to use Wordpress as a CMS for most of my future clients and this is a great way to get some experience and portfolio pieces.

If you have some free work that doesn’t fall into one of those 3 categories don’t bother with me! I’ve got bills to pay and drinks to buy! However, if you’ve got work that does fall into one of these categories feel free to contact me.