Hughie's and Life Updates

It's been a while since I've posted anything and I felt like since I wasn't doing anything right now that I would do a quick look at what I've been up to. Let's start from the top. I still haven't found a job and I've been stuck at home taking care of "mommy duties" due to family problems. When I say "mommy duties," I mean like waking up early to drop the kids/siblings off at school and going to pick them up when school was over which is all fine and dandy except for the fact that I have 7 hours of nothingness to burn. I found out that I would hate to be a stay-at-home mom.

On to my Hughie's project. While I haven't been able to find an actual job, I've been doing some freelance work for a restaurant/lounge that's opening in Houston sometime this year. The person that approached me is an acquaintance from church who's aunt owns this restaurant. When I first received my creative brief it was labelled as a casual Western themed bar/lounge. My job was to create a logo and to help with marketing. Sooo many logo designs were drafted between November until now and I'm still not sure which logo was chosen...

To see all the logo designs I drafted up, click the link below:
https://plus.google.com/photos/112994609708042405063/albums/5841725880853578785

Marketing is something that I'm not really comfortable with at all. I guess it's time to put my minor to use. Actually, I find that my ATEC class is more useful to me for this project than my marketing classes. Without my ATEC class, I would have never found out about HootSuite. So far HootSuite has been a lifesaver when it comes to digital marketing. What it is is a consolidation of different social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ all in one platform. This site allows me to create a post and post it on several different sites at the same time. It also allows me to schedule posts so that they'll show up at certain times so that my target audience can see them. Anyways, I hope this project provides me some useful experience that might land me an actual job. Freelance work probably can't support me cuz I don't have enough clients looking for me. Blehhh...

Seriously, though. I feel like I'm dying at home and need something to do. I think I would rather go back to my crappy job at Studio Movie Grill if it meant being productive. At least I made money. All I do at home is take naps while waiting til it's time to pick up the kids...

Selling Yourself Short: Placing a Value on Freelance Work

Using crowdSPRING as a guide for freelance design pricing...

So I'm definitely in a pickle right now. Recently, I've managed to pick up a potential client and I'm trying to figure out the pricing for my services (no, not those kinds of services). For me, putting a price on my skills has always been a challenge. Up until this point, I've always sold myself "cheap" designing t-shirts and posters for free. Of course, that's because my projects were almost always for my youth group. I had two clients before that wasn't related to my youth group. One had requested a poster design for a youth rally, and in return for my help I received a $25 Target gift card and a tin of brownies. The other project was a logo design for my cousin's tax and bookkeeping services firm. For that, I earned $50 in cash.

The difference between this new project and my projects before is that this is going to be an established company. What it is is a Western themed bar and grill in Houston. Any logo that I create will ultimately be copyrighted and be associated with the company for(almost)ever. Since the person that asked me to do this job is a religious brother, I'm a bit reluctant to charge too much. My friend says to ignore that fact and treat it as only a business thing, that I shouldn't sell myself short. So what is a good price for a logo?

On top of the logo design, he asked me to help market and advertise the grand opening of the restaurant which is set to open early next year. I mainly consider myself a graphic designer so I feel uncomfortable even trying to set up advertising strategies. But then again, I got a marketing minor for a reason. Ugh. This is going to be wayyy outside of my comfort zone. Time to put my business classes to use.