Human-centred freelancing - Brand Designer Nela Dunato
About this episode…
Human-centred freelancing — Freelance Brand Designer Nela Dunato
Nela is an artist, designer, and writer from Rijeka, Croatia. She likes to have fingers in 'many pies’, but equally has to balance the challenge of having so many hobbies that could also become work.
As a freelancer she specialises as a brand designer, forging a successful career working for 'human-centred brands'. A form of business ownership she knows so well she could write the book on it. In fact, she did.
Nela discusses the great position bilingual freelancers are in. So many go straight for English language websites, but actually, if you have a site in your native tongue too, you can make a far greater impact on Google’s results pages. An SEO-centred brand as well then 🙌
Read the highlights in the next tab.
Negotiate by knowing it’s okay to not win the job
Over time Nela’s learned how to negotiate with potential clients. And the biggest thing is a mindset shift - to have in your head that you don’t have to win this job. Not everything is for you, so be willing to walk away.
“One of the things is to understand that I don't have to win every gig.
Sometimes it's better to lose a gig than to get it on terms that you will regret later - get it at too low a fee or get a client who is kind of very difficult.
So sometimes it's better to just recognize that this is not the job for you and move on to something else.Which is of course hard if you don't have as many inquiries, but over time I learned that really, no, I always regret when I take a job that I have a bad feeling about.
So that's kind of a mindset shift that I don't want to be the cheapest freelancer.“
Real friends pay full price
You may be one of Nela’s friends or family, but that doesn’t mean you’re getting a discount. Certainly don’t be emotionally blackmailed into working for free.
“Basically my motto is 'real friends pay full price'. Because usually creatives are asked by friends, like 'do me a favor because we're friends and support my business'. And I'm like, 'Hey, but why don't you support my business?' It should work both ways.
People are comfortable asking you to support their business, but are they supporting your business? If you're a good friend to someone, you should be willing to pay for their services and be happy to pay for that because you are supporting your friend.”
Raise your prices
Figure out what you need to be charging.
“Most people's financial issues and worries would be solved if they raised their prices.
And my financial issues and worries were solved once I raised my fees to a sustainable level.
Because only you know, what is sustainable for you. And that's something that you need to experience through real world projects. Nobody can tell you in advance.”
Hobbies
Nela has so many hobbies that could make her money that it’s a challenge keeping things separate.
“What is work and what is life when you have a lot of creative hobbies that kind of bleed into each other?
I write, I paint, I draw, I design, I record videos… What is a hobby and what is work when sometimes my hobbies become my work? That's a kind of a challenge - when I'm in this mind where everything creative is both very fulfilling, but can also be a source of income.
For me, the way I find balance is to have like several things: one of them, which is a source of income and one of them, which is just a source of fulfilment and joy. So I can relax through that creative process.”
Bilingual? Capitalise on the SEO of your native language
Nela started with an English language website. Most professional Croatians would understand her site if they were on it. But what about Croatians who didn’t know she existed?
Those people are probably using a search engine in their native language to find a freelancer. How could she reach those people if she was only marketing in English?
So Nela created a second site in Croatian…
“This is really a question of Search Engine Optimization. A lot of my leads for potential clients came from people typing something into Google and they would end up on my website. And I was losing that if I didn't have a website in the Croatian language.
I think this is really important for freelancers who are in non English speaking countries to capitalize on that because the competition on these other languages is a lot smaller.Like getting your page on the first Google result page for something so competitive as 'logo design' or 'brand identity design', that is nearly impossible for most of us with very limited budgets, but for some languages, I'm actually on the first page of Google for the equivalent of 'brand identity design' and for the equivalent of 'brand style guide'.”
If you ask for it, you will probably get it.
“Charge more. Because usually people are willing to pay more than you ask for. And if you ask for it, you will probably get it.”
More from Nela Dunato
Nela’s website
(Don’t forget you can switch between English and Croatian)
Nela on Twitter
Nela’s book - “The Human Centred Brand”
Nela’s blog post - “Ultimate list of 32 freelancing tips”
More from Steve Folland
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and freelance Brand Designer Nela Dunato
Steve Folland:
This week, we're off to Croatia to chat to brand design that Nela Denato.
As ever, let's get started hearing how you got started being freelance.
Nela Dunato:
Yeah, well, I actually started freelancing twice. First in 2005 and then in 2013. So do you want to hear both stories or one of them?
Steve Folland:
I want to know how it went from the 2005 one. What was that back then?
Nela Dunato:
In 2005, I started teaching myself how to use Photoshop and Dreamweaver and CoralDRAW, and other design software when I was still in high school. So that was in the early 2000s where the web was just starting to become a thing on its own. And by the time I was 18, I've already made a couple of websites for myself. Cause I, I kept inventing things to make websites for, just so I had a reason to make them and I made some graphics for my friends, for their non-profits and so on. And when I started studying in university, I immediately became the new webmaster of a student organization that I joined, like the first week of university, I joined this organization and they're like, oh, you can make websites? Great. You're now the new webmaster because the old one is tired of that.
Nela Dunato:
So great about finding some new blood to do free work. So that was an unpaid gig but in that organization was a senior student who had his own site business and he actually offered me to design a website for his business. And that was my first paid gig. And then quickly after I got in contact with some web development agencies that started getting like increased demand for web design and they found me through my website usually and started outsourcing their design work to me. So that's how I started doing that more regularly. And I didn't have any contact with the clients that was purely like through the agency that would just send me a brief and I would do it and send it, send the results and they would get back with the feedback and so on. And that went on for a couple of years.
Nela Dunato:
And I really enjoyed freelancing because I still was like under this illusion that I was going to graduate. So I don't, so I don't want to do any full-time work. But then kind of I realized that this is really what I want to be doing long-term and got my first full-time job. And then after a couple of years in that full-time job - where I learned a lot. So the good thing about this job was that I was for a while, the only designer in the marketing team. And I got learn on the job a lot. So I not only designed websites, which was what I was hired to do, but I got to design brochures and presentations and logos and all sorts of stuff. So that kind of expanded my skillset. And I also, at one point was asked by my boss to rebrand the whole company, which was quite a huge project.
Nela Dunato:
I'll be honest. My boss was a cheapskate and didn't want to pay an oustide agency to do something like that. So it's more frugal to just keep paying me my salary to do that. And I just got a load of books. I read a ton of articles. I examined like hundreds of brand style guides that I was able to find online and just learned through the project. And actually the project was quite successful. The boss was happy. I still think that it holds up even after all these years. But that's when I realized that this is really what I love the most of all that I'm not so keen on making websites, I really do prefer drawing logos and making this whole, like a big vision of what a brand is supposed to look like. And then applying it through all the different media. And then I switched jobs. I worked for another company for a few years. And then in that second job in 2013 - the company was kind of restructuring and I got a heads up that I will be laid off in a couple of months. And then I started looking for freelance projects again. And since then I've started my own business. And I've been doing that for seven years now coming on eight.
Steve Folland:
Yeah. Amazing. So, second time around when you got wind of the fact that you might be losing your job - how long were you freelancing on the side while still working there?
Nela Dunato:
Maybe three or four months, though I did have some sporadic projects before that, because... well there were some financial issues with the company, so, you know, the pay was late and I knew that I needed to have some kind of a fall back. So I was kind of looking for gigs on the side, even before that, but I wasn't looking for it as intensely because it would be really difficult to keep a full-time job and then freelance on the side on top of that.
Steve Folland:
And so how were you finding those freelance jobs at that point?
Nela Dunato:
That point it was mostly through personal connections. In that situation when I was really like, okay, I need to find some gigs now with an air of desperation that I just put on my Facebook, like just a post: Hey, if anyone needs any design work done, I'm available - so get in touch! And I got a couple of projects that way from people just that I knew socially or that were like acquaintances. And then also, for a bit, I did use, E-Lance (now it's called UpWork). That's how I got a couple of gigs. And then I also in that period for the first couple of years got in touch with agencies and did more outsourcing.
Nela Dunato:
So I had a colleague from the job before, he had an agency and he outsourced some design projects and also got in touch with someone who had an agency in the Netherlands. And I did some projects for them. So basically it was a combination of getting inquiries from people that I knew and then getting some projects extra through these other types of connections, mostly, you know, outsourcing and the freelance platforms until my own marketing started working to the point where I no longer had to do that.
Steve Folland:
What would you say that your own marketing was? That started to work?
Nela Dunato:
So actually I have two websites, one in English, one in Croatian, where I post blog articles, and I've actually over the years, created a pretty robust way of displaying my portfolio, my services - it's really pretty detailed. And so that kind of started working after Google started favoring my websites. So I know that there are people that just Google something along the lines of, you know, logo, design, freelancer, or something like that. I don't even know what they type exactly, but I know that it's somehow they come to my website and if they like what they see, if they like how I present my services and myself, and you know, how I write, what I, what I talk about, they get in touch and, you know, if we're a good fit, then we can work together.
Nela Dunato:
So that is one of my biggest sources of clients even now, but probably the biggest source, which has been working for me for many years is just plain networking. But not necessarily in a way that is described nowadays, like meetups or conferences and so on, although that is a part of it, but I just meet people in various social contexts and keep in touch in a friendly way. And usually when they start a business and they want someone to do their logo and branding and website, I'm the first person they think of because we have this kind of loose social connection through social media or through these events that we go to regularly and so on. So there's a mix of all that. And of course, I also get referrals from past clients and from colleagues, and I think referrals are really... they're great, kind of, to put goodwill into the community because I also refer my colleagues for projects that I can't take on, or that are more tailored to someone else's skillset. And so we kind of help each other this way, but by recommending each other to our clients or acquaintances, or colleagues.
Steve Folland:
And when you went freelance that second time, when you realized that it was brand identity and stuff that you wanted to be doing, is that the only stuff that you took on given that you were, you know, putting yourself out there, trying to get work, you needed the work. Did you manage to just do that or did you do anything?
Nela Dunato:
I did a bunch of stuff. So I was a generalist designer because as I mentioned in those jobs that I had, I was kind of forced to do all kinds of design projects. And I kept doing that for a good couple of years. So I think it was only around maybe 2016 that I really decided to focus. And it's not that I focus in that I exclusively do logo design even now, but I kind of restructured my services. So the way that I explain my services to others and that I work and that I enjoy working is that when I start working with a client now, the first project we do is logo design and brand identity design, and, you know, with some brand strategy depending on their needs. So that is the first project I take on. And I will never take on a different kind of project as a first project from a client.
Nela Dunato:
But then when we complete that, we can go either way. So if they need a website, I can create website design and I make WordPress websites. If they need print materials, I have lots of experience in that. So I can do that too. So it's basically kind of a long-term engagement, but without any contracts - it's not something that is set in stone, but basically if they need something else, they can come back to me and I'll gladly do it, but I'm not spreading myself like, oh, you can hire me for this and that. And that, because that used to be a big problem. I was doing one off projects, like someone wants one business card or one PowerPoint presentation, and it's a bunch of these small projects and you have to do many of them to gather a substantial sum of money and just handling that is an organizational project management nightmare.
Nela Dunato:
So that was kind of what pushed me... Like I realized that I was spending a lot of this time that wasn't very productive because I was spread so thin among these smaller projects. And then when I realized, Hey, I can create the system that makes sense for me and my clients, and this is how we're going to do it. So it's like a sequence and I call it the 'branding journey' because I had to make up some clever title for that. So that is how I do it. So I still essentially do the same scope of services, but it's packaged in a way that it makes sense for me and my clients. I mean, the clients that I really want to work with - the ones that appreciate that kind of approach and that way I get to do a logo design on every single project that I take on. But then maybe they want a website, maybe they don't; maybe they need printed materials, maybe they don't; but essentially I get to do the work that is most fun for me, but it's also lucrative in the longterm because I get repeat clients that way. It's kind of built into the system to do these several projects, like within a six month period and then maybe even long-term, if they need a refresh for their website or new brochures or something. So it turned out to be a really good business decision for me.
Steve Folland:
And are most of your clients local, or all over the place?
Nela Dunato:
They're a mix. So it really depends on the year. And I don't know how to explain that, but there were years when I worked more with clients abroad and there were years when most of my clients are local. But it's a mix I would say, basically 50 50, but it really fluctuates.
Steve Folland:
You mentioned that you have an English website, a Croatian website - and I've seen this come up in the Being Freelance community before where people who are based in one country have that native language, but they're very fluent in English as well. And they wonder how they should put themselves across. Is it identical websites? How did you go about figuring out what to do in that respect?
Nela Dunato:
Yeah. They look pretty much identical. So there's a link up at the top where you can switch the language. And when you go from one site to another, it's a pretty seamless transition. I basically reused all my image files and CSS files. I just had to kind of switch the code from one CMS to another. So one website isn't WordPress. But essentially they do look the same and they have followed kind of the same structure. And the only big difference is that I publish a lot more articles in English. And I only translate some of the articles in Croatian, as I have time, because that helps with the SEO, but it would be too time consuming to translate all the articles. And frankly, I didn't find it necessary, but I do occasionally publish something. So the Croatian website doesn't get updated as often. But the Services page is identical. The homepage is also pretty much identical.
Steve Folland:
Ah, cool. So it's not like a plug-in, it's actually two different sites.
Nela Dunato:
It's actually two different sites because I made the English one first. I only made the other one, three or four years later. So I didn't plan for that. I didn't know. So by the time I realized I really do need one in the Croatian language, it was just easier to start from scratch, but I'll re-use some of the assets.
Steve Folland:
How did you know you needed one in Croatian? You've clearly been doing all right!
Nela Dunato:
Yeah, but we can always do better. So this is really a question of Search Engine Optimization because people who know me, they can find their way around my website, which is in English. Like most Croatian professionals understand English enough, so they can navigate a website and find what they need. But I thought that early in my career, a lot of my leads for potential clients came the way that people just... they would type something into Google and they would end up on my website. And I was losing that if I didn't have a website in the Croatian language. And I think this is really important for freelancers who are in non English speaking countries to capitalize on - because the competition on these other languages is a lot smaller. Like getting your page on the first Google result page for something so competitive as 'logo design' or 'brand identity design', that is nearly impossible for most of us with very limited budgets, but for some languages, I'm actually on the first page of Google for the equivalent of 'brand identity design' and for the equivalent of 'brand style guide'.
Nela Dunato:
So that is pretty good. So when someone looks up these terms, they might end up on my website and otherwise they might not even know that I exist because a lot of people, when they don't know what they need, what they're looking for, when they don't know where to find it, they just search for it. And so I think this is a tremendous way to get leads that otherwise you'd miss. And they're motivated, like they're people who are actively looking for this type of work. So to be on the page that they land on, that is really invaluable.
Steve Folland:
Now I noticed that you've written some books as well. One of which is the "Human centered brand". How did that come about? I'm presuming you've figured that that's an important thing to you and your business.
Nela Dunato:
Well, the thing is that around when I was kind of figuring out what my unique perspective on my work is, and that was in about 2015, since I started freelancing, I was taking on a lot of classes and workshops relating to business and marketing. And I was trying to just grasp what is my unique positioning, like what is unique about the work that I do and the unique perspective that I bring so that I can kind of differentiate myself from all the other designers out there who are doing or offering similar services? And one thing that came up for me is this approach to branding that is informed by our own personality and our core values and all these kind of soft things that were not at that time. It wasn't very popular. Like I read lots of books and articles on the topic of branding and it was all very corporate-y.
Nela Dunato:
It was just very aimed out either startups or corporations, you know, people who were really focused on the bottom line and all of that and how to scale it. It's a completely different mindset really from the one that I've had and what my clients were doing, because I was mostly working with service-based businesses. So that was my focus. So service-based businesses and non-profits. They kind of operate in different ways to the corporations and startups. And I was learning a lot by working with my clients. And so I figured out, Hey, this is really something that I can explore in more detail. And I had an image in my mind of how one thing leads to the other. So how core values lead to your unique value proposition and how that leads to how you present yourself and who your clients are and so on.
Nela Dunato:
And so I first wanted to make it into a course, but as I overthink things, I was doing that too. So it was like just sitting on a back burner for, I don't know how many months until I realized, Hey, maybe, you know, if I start with something that I'm comfortable with and I'm comfortable with writing far more than I am with video. And then I said, okay, yeah, I can do this. I can write a book. I mean, why not? I already know what I want to say. I just needed to sit down and write it. And so I think at the beginning of 2017, I started writing this book, but I was doing it very sporadically because I had to juggle work for clients and teaching and writing this book. So it took me a long time. It was only in the spring of 2018 that I had my first draft finished.
Nela Dunato:
And then I took four months off to edit and design and launch the book and then a month off to recover from this because it was very exhausting. But yeah, essentially, I knew that I needed something to explain how I think about branding and something that I can give my clients to help them grasp this. And there simply were no resources that explained this in that way. I just couldn't find anything that I could give my friends and my colleagues and my clients who were small businesses and mostly service-based businesses because I just didn't find any literature that was focusing on that type of business. So I decided to do that.
Steve Folland:
And so has writing that book helped your business?
Nela Dunato:
I think it has. Mostly it put me on the map as a person who is like a thinker, someone who has a modality or a methodology of their own. And I think people are kind of impressed by that, but also I started getting more and more invitations to speak and to teach workshops. And sometimes through these workshops, I meet clients. So it's not like a huge number of clients, but I've had a couple of... I have a workshop and then a couple of months later a client would get in touch and they say, Hey, I would like to work with you because I really like your approach. So it's a bit of an ecosystem of speaking and teaching and writing and designing. And I think that works well for me because I'm the kind of person who enjoys all of that. So, and I like to have my fingers in many pies because it just offers me this excitement and, and the dynamic that I would not have if I'm only working for clients for the whole year, I kind of get itchy and I wanna do something else.
Steve Folland:
Nice. How about 'how' you work? Do you work from home or are you in an office or..?
Nela Dunato:
Yes, I have a little home office. I call it my studio because it doubles as my painting studio and it's all kind of cramped, but I like it. It has good acoustics. So recording video and podcasts is fine. I really enjoy working from home. That's one of my favorite things of being a freelancer is really to be flexible. I don't like this idea of working on the beach. I would never do that because I think the beach is for hanging out and drinking and not for work, but I do love the flexibility of being where I feel comfortable.
Steve Folland:
Yeah. And to be clear, you actually do live not too far from a beach. And so does that help with work-life balance? How do you feel about that side of things?
Nela Dunato:
Well, the thing with work-life balance is it's quite difficult to make a distinction. What is work and what is life when you have a lot of creative hobbies that kind of bleed into each other? So I, as I mentioned, you know, I write, I paint, I draw, I design, I record videos and all of that. You know, what is a hobby and what is work when sometimes my hobbies become my work. And so that's a kind of a challenge - when I'm in this mind where everything creative is kind of both very fulfilling, but can also be a source of income. So that for me is the way I find balance is to have like several things, one of them, which is a source of income and one of them, which is just a source of fulfillment and joy. So I can relax through that creative process.
Nela Dunato:
And then also, I also need to leave some time to just hang out and go to the beach, or go to some social events and so on. So my rule is really that I don't work on the weekends. It's been that way since I started freelancing, because I just think that's healthy to have a bit of a break. I'm very mindful about taking long vacations two times a year, usually usually one in the summer and one in the winter, because I do really need to kind of decompress from even thinking about work, to kind of get that fresh perspective when I get back. But when it comes to day to day, it's a really, it's a blend. You know, I do work for the clients when I have when I have something to do. And then the rest of the time, I'm kind of fitting in writing and working on these side projects and all the other things that I can fit into my day, but also have some kind of balance: I don't work too late into the evening. And of course, having a partner that has a regular job with regular working hours helps because then he kind of pulls me back into the real world. If I'm getting too stuck in my office, he's like, Hey, I haven't seen you all day, come hang out. And then that reminds me, you know, to just go and live a little.
Steve Folland:
How have you found the business side of things, like dealing with finances or contracts - all of that stuff beyond the creativity?
Nela Dunato:
Yeah, well, it was a challenge, of course, as with most creatives, we are kind of a first dumb founded this whole new area that we have to figure out and get skilled at. But I kind of got the hang of it because I invested so much time in learning. I went to workshops for new businesses that were really great - it's kind of like a startup incubator, but it's not called that, where they have free workshops. So they're subsidized basically - they get funding and then they're able to offer free workshops for business owners. And I also later taught some workshops there, but in the beginning I was there every month, I would go to some workshop - aworkshop on finance and a pricing workshop on business models. And so that really helped me understand this and apply it to my own business.
Nela Dunato:
So I'm very, very grateful that I was able to have that for free and at a time when I wasn't really able to afford any special paid classes. But now I've gotten a grasp of most of the things tha I had a challenge with. I'm still kind of challenged by appropriate boundaries. So, you know, when you make a scope and then this scope starts expanding, and then you have to kind of put a foot down and say, Hey, no, we would need to charge this separately and so on. And so it's really difficult to kind of go to your clients and say, no, no, we can't do that. We would need to kind of work out a new proposal and so on. You know, when you want people to like you, then you're always careful when you need to say 'no'.
Nela Dunato:
So that's something that I'm still in the process of learning, but I've gotten better, but when it comes to finances... I think most problems that people have with their finances is that they charge too little, which was definitely true for me. And I probably still charged too little based on my experience and skillset, but I think that most people's financial issues and worries would be solved if they raised their prices and my financial issues and worries were solved once I raised my fees to a sustainable level, because only you know, what is sustainable for you. And that's something that you need to experience through real world projects. Nobody can tell you in advance. And of course it's very individual because each of us works in a different way. Like I work in a very slow and meticulous way. So my projects take a lot of time and I can't do many projects at once.
Nela Dunato:
So I need to manage my cashflow through like 50% upfront, 50% when we were done. And I need to account for all the hours that we've got to work, which is sometimes a challenge if the project is kind of new and I'm not sure how long it will take. So sometimes I undercut myself, but you know, it's a lesson. But yeah, when it comes to kind of paperwork and taxes and so on, I'm actually really good with spreadsheets. I'm not afraid of numbers. So that has been helpful in keeping my finances organized. That was not such a big learning curve for me, but more of the scoping side and just being a good negotiator. That was something that was a big learning curve for me.
Steve Folland:
What do you think has helped you in terms of negotiating?
Nela Dunato:
Well, one of the things is to understand that I don't have to win every gig. So, sometimes it's better to lose a gig than to get it on terms that you will regret later. So get it at too low a fee or get a client who is kind of very difficult. So sometimes it's better to just recognize that this is not the job for you and move on to something else, which is of course hard if you don't have as many inquiries, but over time I learned that really, no, I always regret when I take a job that I have a bad feeling about and I just put it in my head - so that's kind of a mindset shift that I don't want to be the cheapest freelancer. I don't want to be the cheapest designer actually, to me, it's a big compliment when people hire me, even though they have cheaper alternatives that speaks of the quality of my work.
Nela Dunato:
And so I'm not ashamed of how much I charge. And I learned how to be very confident in that, through, many conversations that I've had because, you know, I've had conversations where someone asked me, how much do you charge? And I say ... and they're like, 'what?!' And you have to keep a straight face in that situation and say, 'yeah, and actually people pay me that'. And that is something that you learn through experience. There are some lessons - even if people warn you about it, you just have to learn them through your own experience because otherwise they just don't stick.
Steve Folland:
So true. Now, if you could tell your younger self, one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Nela Dunato:
Well, one thing would be charge more because usually people are willing to pay more than you ask for. And if you ask for it, you will probably get it. And I think that I left so much money on the table by undercharging. And it's just thinking back it's it's quite, yeah, it's quite cringe-worthy to just remember that. Yeah. You could have asked for more honey!
Steve Folland:
Brilliant. Do you know there was something else I've been wanting to ask. As you say, you like to write, there's a really nice blog on your site: 38 freelancing tips? And one of them I remember was about not working for free for friends. What was your experience of being asked to do work by friends?!
Nela Dunato:
Yeah. Basically my kind of motto is 'real friends pay full price'. Because usually creatives are asked by friends, like 'do me a favor because we're friends and support my business'. And I'm like, 'Hey, but why don't you support my business?' Like, it should work both ways. So, you know, people are comfortable asking you to support their business, but are they supporting your business? If you're a good friend to someone, you should be willing to pay for their services and be happy to pay for that because you are supporting your friend. So that's kind of my philosophy on that.
Steve Folland:
Nice. I like that a lot. Nela, thanks so much - it's been great talking to you and all the best being freelance!