Designing has become a very popular career choice. Ever since computer and internet technologies became widely available to everyone, this field has expanded and the job market has grown a lot. There is a constant increase in design jobs and the sheer number of designers coming into the job market.

One of the reasons for this is that design is one of the most popular freelancing jobs. A lot of people choose to be freelancers and there are good reasons for this.

1. Work variety

Being a full-time designer in a company means that you will probably be working on the same type of projects constantly. No matter how much you love doing something, when you do it over and over again, it simply becomes too repetitive, and all of the creativity gets lost.

As freelancers, designers get to choose the projects they will work on. So, if you are bored with designing logos all the time, you can easily switch to something else and apply for a different kind of work. This is how you can constantly work on something that interests you and widens your skill set. You can design social media graphics, websites, illustrations, etc.  

2. Flexible working hours

All freelancers enjoy the perk of being able to choose their working hours. Not all of us are cut out for working 8 hours every day. With most freelancing jobs, you can do your work whenever you see fit. The contractor on the other side doesn’t care; all they care about is getting quality work on time.

If you have 5 days to finish something, you can do nothing for four days and finish everything on the fifth day if you can; it’s all up to you. There is nobody around to force you to work and you can rely on your professional responsibility alone.  

3. No more commuting

Being a freelance designer means that you will be working from home most of the time. There is no need to get up early in the morning and travel to work. No crowds, no annoying people, no rush, just relax at your home office and focus on the work you have.

Let’s face it, traveling to work every day can be very annoying and even if you get bored of working at home you can easily go out with your laptop and work on our laptop anywhere you can catch WiFi.

4. Better rates

Freelancing has become so popular and it has advanced so much that today there are full-time professional freelancers who made their careers this way. This has brought many changes into the market as companies can hire freelancers that have a lot of experience and knowledge in their field of work.

This means that freelancing is no longer there to make a few bucks on the side, but you can make real money as well and, if you play your cards right and work hard, you can make more than what you would make as a designer in a local company. This is especially true if you are from a less developed country where standards are lower.

5. You setup your own timetable

Organize your day the way it suits you and do the job the way you like while making sure that your work pleases your contractors; this is all that matters. Everything else is up to you. You can forget about having to depend on anyone but yourself.

For example, you can work on your current project then take a break from it and create your design class online, or work on something of your own needs and then get back to the project once you are ready.

6. Vacation starts when you say so

When you are a freelancer, there are no contracts or obligations you have to fulfill outside of finishing projects. Additionally, nobody is forcing you to look for more work if you don’t have to. This means that you can stop working whenever you feel like it and go get a well-deserved vacation.

Of course this doesn’t mean that you should always avoid work. Simply put, work hard and, when you feel like you need rest or you think that you have enough money to do some other things, go on a vacation and enjoy yourself.

Conclusion

Being a freelance designer is no longer a part-time solution. Many people have been doing this for a long time and were able to organize their lives to perfection. If you think that these perks would suit you, go for it and try to build a career as a freelancer.

Milan is a part of team from DesignContest and you can follow him on Twitter here.