What is the atmosphere behind most material that teaches you about freelance design? Is it intimidating? Who does it include and exclude? In my thesis, I am creating a community resource that horizontally educates and shares information about what it takes to be a freelance designer. I want this resource to feel welcoming, exciting, and accessible. I want to challenge the status quo of what the face of design often looks like, and create a space that designers of color can turn to for advice that looks and feels like us.
Through this project, The Freelancer's Journey, I want to make the freelance design space more approachable to beginners. Especially students of color, queer students, and low-income students, who often already deal with high levels imposter syndrome, lack of mentorship, and networking opportunities.
In the website that I created for this project, I use warm and welcoming colors alongside soft and rounded fonts to make things feel less harsh and clinical. The aesthetics of this project are especially important because it not only shares information that has traditionally been gatekept, but allows the reader to feel that they are in a welcoming space to learn that information. I know from experience that a guiding voice or helping hand that would have saved me so much frustration when I first began to freelance. I want folks in the future to be able to have that and utilize their talent to its full potential.
You can see a brief walk through of the UI design of the website created through Adobe Xd below.
One of the other ways I approached this was by creating a guidebook for interacting with clients as a young freelance designer, along with a planner and tote bag. I wanted to create a sort of "tool" kit for young, freelance designer of color to be able to use to feel more confident in the work they are doing. So much of the design industry is gatekept, and I want my thesis to begin to break down those race and class barriers by sharing any and all experience I’ve gained freely and abundantly.
