: How can I do some free design work? I am a designer that wants to do some free design work for people, but the problem is, how do I find people to do free work for? Is there any place

@Jessie844

Forgive if I'm rude here.

Design is one of the profesions that has prostituted the most. Why do anyone has to pay a penny if there are always new insecure people who has no previus clients?


"so this would look good on my portfolio"


Your portafolio will look good if it has good work. So why don't you concentrate in making good work to show?

You say you are a designer. But I don't know if you have an idea what design is for. Do you belive in design? Do you belive that a good motion design video will help your client sell more? An impresive web page? A great business card will make a good impression?


"I don't have any clients"


But you don't belive it becouse you are not making any video to sell the idea of making videos. You are not making a web page to sell web page design.

One method to sell is "Look this are my clients". But the best selling argument is "Imagine what I can make for you". There are a lot of people willing to pay talented work. Period.


"By free work, I mean that the clients don't have to pay a single penny for the work that I do."


We know what that means. But new designers have no idea what overall perception that makes! Design is worthless.

I have a question. Does your work worth one penny or less? Or it is good enough to recive real money.



Make a series of wallpapers with an idea of a clasical author, Ilustrate a poem, animate a folkloric tale, make a political statement, make logos out of plain words, make your corporative image and webpage and fool everyone to think is the greatest design firm.

That will get you clients.

Vote Up Vote Down

@Shelley591

There are better options than doing free work for clients.


Open Source projects
Personal projects
Student projects (come up with your own design brief and design to that)


The problem with soliciting for free work is that you tend to get clients that don't value design work to begin with. And for design to be good, you need both a good designer, and a good client.

That's not to say it's never done, though. Ad agencies, for example, are notorious for 'pitching' work. But even then, they're doing essentially a 'student project' that they then hope to get paid for later. You can do this easily yourself. Find a local business that you feel could use a design overhaul. On your own, come up with a design brief and design a solution around it. Now you have something in your portfolio. You may even want to chose the business what you did, but I wouldn't expect anything out of that other than perhaps some feedback.

Vote Up Vote Down

@Welton168

I started out much like you my friend, I had a lot of talent and skills and no real knowledge of how to put these things to use, obviously I had a little bit of learning to do so what I did in my spare time was contact companies in my local area that I was interested in, and either did some work on my own, and brought it in to ask what they think, or id reach out to them and simply ask them if they needed any work done. This will go a long with in both establishing a client base, or atleast a group of people who are familiar with you and who can provide your name to someone they know needing the services in the future and it will also teach you a lot about how to work with clients, and probably the best part of all, you get to meet new people in your community and lend a helping hand!

Vote Up Vote Down

@Alves566

Have you tried offering your services to your community? Places always in need of graphic designers include:


Religious communities (churches)
Community centres
Amateur theatre groups
Support groups (i.e. AA)
Schools
Immigration welcoming groups
Senior communities
Condominiums


By the way, you can always do these things without saying explicitly "hey, I am a graphic designer and I am looking for graphic design tasks". Just volunteer to do things that are graphic design by nature like posters, websites, flyers etc. As a bonus, you will get experience on how to handle clients: even if you do it for free people can get very demanding and opinionated.

Mind you, the more we offer or work for free the more people think our work is worth nothing. It is always good to give back to the community, but it is also important to educate the world. We do what we do for a living, not just for the love of it.

Vote Up Vote Down

@Lengel450

I suggest that you contribute to an open source project.

Vote Up Vote Down