How do you get your clients?

I’m just curious as to where everyone gets work from? I’m having a hard time getting myself out there.

1. 

   herman said 4 months ago

   submit your designs through various competitions and emptees. Tons of clients go through those sites.

2. 

   Joey said 4 months ago

   emptees works great. so does asking them.

   im not sure if that sounded like an asshole or not, but seriously you’d be surprised how much just asking people works.

3. 

   edword said 4 months ago

   yeah I started doing contests last year. this year I’ve done more commission stuff, mostly because of emptees.

   I know alot of people here do tons of work for clients on my space.

4. 

   image620 said 4 months ago

   .Myspace
   .Craigslist
   .Contacting clothing lines via e-mail
   .Handing out Business cards
   .Networking
   .Submitting designs to tee contest sites.

5. 

   LitoQ said 4 months ago

   

6. 

   edword said 4 months ago

   Joey said: emptees works great. so does asking them. im not sure if that sounded like an asshole or not, but seriously you’d be surprised how much just asking people works.

   yeah I’ve done that a couple times. I start something, maybe a quick sketch then think hmmm which line or band might this work for. then drop them an e-mail, it works!

7. 

   jsheldon said 4 months ago

   emptees
   contests
   portfolio site

8. 

   sittingduck said 4 months ago

   in the words of george carlin ... you make with the head.

9. 

   a killer wombat said 4 months ago

   contact agencies you admire, sometimes they will bounce you a project or two. Thats how I got started.

10. 

    Reilly said 4 months ago

    Word of mouf.

11. 

    faithbydesign said 4 months ago

    a killer wombat said: contact agencies you admire, sometimes they will bounce you a project or two. Thats how I got started.

    This means bombard thomas with emails about work. Take at least 10 hours to do something and use all stock vectors.

    oh...and send money. He’s poor

12. 

    Mr.Stan Geek said 4 months ago

    As a client many times lol, I look here on emptees first for a designer you can’t go wrong when people see your work and the way you talk to people around a site

13. 

    Kevin Doom said 4 months ago

    Joey said: emptees works great. so does asking them. im not sure if that sounded like an asshole or not, but seriously you’d be surprised how much just asking people works.

    Yes. It’s weird how often that works. When we started we just emailed every label and management company we could think of. It may have annoyed some of them, but it also worked.

14. 

    dcastle8183 said 4 months ago

    Just websites such as this one, friends and word of mouth.

15. 

    Randomentity said 4 months ago

    chloroform and neurolonguistic programming works for me.
    Hunt myspace for bands and labels that have shitty designs and tell them you can help.

16. 

    easyonthecut said 4 months ago

    Randomentity said: chloroform and neurolonguistic programming works for me. Hunt myspace for bands and labels that have shitty designs and tell them you can help.

    Do you just tell them "your designs are badly done, i’ll do better ones" or something like that. Because that sounds a little offensive to me.

17. 

    Simply Complicated said 4 months ago

    emptees not much

    but i get tons from hypebeast

18. 

    Cole said 4 months ago

    i tell them if they dont hire me i’ll titty fuck their daughter till she pukes on the carpet.

19. 

    Jon Kruse said 4 months ago

    I don’t think anybody has said this yet. Putting Designed by "your name" at the bottom of websites you’ve designed.

20. 

    quakerninja said 4 months ago

    Cole said: i tell them if they dont hire me i’ll titty fuck their daughter till she pukes on the carpet.

    Job shadow this guy

    http://www.coroflot.com/

21. 

    a killer wombat said 4 months ago

    Jon Kruse said: I don’t think anybody has said this yet. Putting Designed by "your name" at the bottom of websites you’ve designed.

    seriously!!! We do this for our myspace pages and with every one launched we get a wave of new emails. I am not a huge fan of doing it on websites that we do because we usually put it in a meta tag but almost everytime the client wants you to put your logo in there somewhere. Its all about getting your name out there as much as possible. Just think about it, if you didn’t see a coke advertisement everywhere how much would it really be on your mind. Name repetition all the way.

    ... and for some reason coke has become my my company to reference as of late, no clue why. I don’t even drink soda anymore. Now thats branding, my mind is subconsciously craving it.

22. 

    skull with hair said 4 months ago

    give shit-tons of HJs

23. 

    Killer Napkins said 4 months ago

    Door-to-door...

    i don’t get many clients though ...

24. 

    bandwagonmerch said 4 months ago

    skull with hair said: give shit-tons of HJs

    that could work.

    Doing good work gets clients. Return clients are best. They talk about you, thus creating more business. Thats probably pretty obvious but thats how we’ve done it. I love having clients that keep coming back. It creates a cool bond. You get to follow one another’s careers. I love it. Lets all hug..

25. 

    MICHAEL SHANTZ said 4 months ago

    i get clients because i know what im doing. design wise and consultation wise.

26. 

    sockmonkee said 4 months ago

    bandwagonmerch said:

    skull with hair said: give shit-tons of HJs

    that could work.

    Doing good work gets clients. Return clients are best. They talk about you, thus creating more business. Thats probably pretty obvious but thats how we’ve done it. I love having clients that keep coming back. It creates a cool bond. You get to follow one another’s careers. I love it. Lets all hug..

    or even play cod4 with you and set up merch booths within in the game...hahaha

27. 

    quakerninja said 4 months ago

    Seo helps and freebies, like the go media vector samples.
    I prowl the web for any place I can sign up that I think might help.
    Trying not to suck has helped me a great deal. Still have a ways to go, but pushing yourself is part of the artist mind. Be professional, I need to work on this, I have a potty mouth and often butt in with my two cents when I should be paying attention.

    here is a round table discussion about clients thats a good listen, Some nice insight from working pros

28. 

    jaynajaynajayna said 4 months ago

    skull with hair said: give shit-tons of HJs

29. 

    Cole said 4 months ago

    hired.

30. 

    derekdeal said 4 months ago

    skull with hair said: give shit-tons of HJs

    howard johnsons are gross i wouldnt recomm.....oh i get it

31. 

    Danimal! said 4 months ago

    
    "This isn’t the Howard Johnsons"

    if any one knows what movie I am quoting here has my undying respect.

32. 

    beth said 4 months ago

    street corner

33. 

    skull with hair said 4 months ago

    Danimal! said: "This isn’t the Howard Johnsons" if any one knows what movie I am quoting here has my undying respect.

    Top Secret!

34. 

    explodingtoes said 4 months ago

    we got a client b/c they are in a neighboring building and they picked up our wi-fi, which is named our company name. they were curious, looked us up, saw what we did, and called us.

    craziness.

    i also do dumb things like when i get a sandwich at which-wich, i write my company’s URL on the back of my bag so as it goes down the line, the entire restaurant sees it.

    just get creative.

35. 

    skull with hair said 4 months ago

    explodingtoes said: we got a client b/c they are in a neighboring building and they picked up our wi-fi, which is named our company name. they were curious, looked us up, saw what we did, and called us. craziness. i also do dumb things like when i get a sandwich at which-wich, i write my company’s URL on the back of my bag so as it goes down the line, the entire restaurant sees it. just get creative.

    which-wich is str8 nasty!!! everything i’ve ever gotten there tasted like melted plastic. how the hell do you screw up a turkey sandwich!?!

36. 

    Randomentity said 4 months ago

    easyonthecut said:

    Randomentity said: chloroform and neurolonguistic programming works for me. Hunt myspace for bands and labels that have shitty designs and tell them you can help.

    Do you just tell them "your designs are badly done, i’ll do better ones" or something like that. Because that sounds a little offensive to me.

    i’m not exactly known for my tact...that being said, i don’t use those exact words. it’s more of a "hey i noticed you guys do a lot of shows and probably need flyers, here’s my portfolio, give me a shout." or something along those lines. i never tell them that they suck. well, one client i did. and he knows they sucked, cuz they were cheap.

37. 

    collisiontheory said 4 months ago

    I don’t live in the US, don’t know any cool bands, not on myspace, etc. so I rely solely on finding work online. Here’s what I’ve used the past year.

    1) Emptees.com!!!

    Getting TOTD helps quite a lot. Seriously, I’ve pushed myself harder because of this site and the amount of talent here. There are merch companies and clothing lines here and everyone’s an email away.

    2) Random/cold emails to clothing companies:
    This works. Choose clothing lines that you think fits your style.

    3) Designbyhumans.com
    Winning works!
    
    4)Coroflot.com, Behance.net, Styleportfolios.com:

    I’ve put up my folio and have networked with other artists and designers. This has led to some good leads and actual freelance work.

    5)Craigslist.org, Guru.com:

    Contrary to popular belief, you can find some decent clients over there who pay well. But it’s a matter of rummaging through the crap to find the good ones. Kinda like going through myspace.

38. 

    LaurieShipley said 4 months ago

    Can I ask a question? Whats the best way to turn down clients? This has been bugging me, it’s kind of a waste of time responding to a bunch of emails to basically say "no" but I don’t wanna be a bitch!!!

    *this is a serious question...

39. 

    skull with hair said 4 months ago

    LaurieShipley said: Can I ask a question? Whats the best way to turn down clients? This has been bugging me, it’s kind of a waste of time responding to a bunch of emails to basically say "no" but I don’t wanna be a bitch!!! *this is a serious question...

    i’ll type this out so you can just copy/paste it into whatever emails you get where you want to turn someone down:

    "Fuck you bitch-fucker dick, you suck ass-balls shit ass fucking fuck. shit on my ass-dick shit mother bitch!"

    just send them that and they should be really understanding and not think you are some crazy bitch who doesnt want to work for them

40. 

    LaurieShipley said 4 months ago

    Haha Ok thanks. So basically I should just keep responding to emails. I’ll refer them to you, k?

41. 

    Boycott Christian HC said 4 months ago

    I refer them to other people. Give contacts for artists I know. Or just offer to give contact info.

42. 

    quakerninja said 4 months ago

    LaurieShipley said: Can I ask a question? Whats the best way to turn down clients? This has been bugging me, it’s kind of a waste of time responding to a bunch of emails to basically say "no" but I don’t wanna be a bitch!!! *this is a serious question...

    Swh is correct in a way, just type a nice rejection letter and send that off.
    I have a few samples I have gathered over the years. You might know the ones I’m talking about.

    Dear so and so

    I appreciate the blah blah
    but something about at this time and no thank you.

    Followed by Something about the future

    sorry
    Thanks again for your interest in blah
    name of asshole.

43. 

    LaurieShipley said 4 months ago

    I suppose copy and paste is the answer b/c sending out emails is time consuming and I hate it. Again, I appear to be a bitch but I am really not!!!

44. 

    collisiontheory said 4 months ago

    LaurieShipley said: I suppose copy and paste is the answer b/c sending out emails is time consuming and I hate it. Again, I appear to be a bitch but I am really not!!!

    Whoa just send them over to us lowly ones who don’t have clients to work with haha. Seriously though, that’s a good problem to have.

45. 

    Matthew88 said 4 months ago

    collisiontheory said:

    LaurieShipley said: I suppose copy and paste is the answer b/c sending out emails is time consuming and I hate it. Again, I appear to be a bitch but I am really not!!!

    Whoa just send them over to us lowly ones who don’t have clients to work with haha. Seriously though, that’s a good problem to have.

    Great problem (Y)

    Pretty much all my work has been because of 1) Word of mouth and 2) trying my luck and emailing them to see if they need anything done.

    Granted i’m very very early on in the whole design learning process....but the word of mouth seems to keep going anyways.

    Linkedin.com, behance.net and carbonmade.com are all nifty folio sites too.

46. 

    justgeoff said 4 months ago

    My work has pretty much all come from word of mouth and just getting stuff up on Emptees. There’s a lot of people who work for companies and whatnot who lurk on Emptees. People are watching.

47. 

    quakerninja said 4 months ago

    Just set up my Linkedin profile
    Man being a freelancer has made me super casual, I can’t believe how stuffy it feels over there. I felt like I had to put a tie on, or at least some pants or something.
    If anyone here wants a recommendation, I’ll draft one up for you, I can, on occasion be eloquent.

48. 

    LaurieShipley said 4 months ago

    justgeoff said: There’s a lot of people who work for companies and whatnot who lurk on Emptees. People are watching.

    I know, that bugs me out!!!! STOP LURKING. Gawd I hate the interwebs.

49. 

    justgeoff said 3 months ago

    LaurieShipley said:

    justgeoff said: There’s a lot of people who work for companies and whatnot who lurk on Emptees. People are watching.

    I know, that bugs me out!!!! STOP LURKING. Gawd I hate the interwebs.

    I only post on this account but I lurk under 5 other screen names.

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