Designer & Illustrator Dan Bailey
About this episode…
DESIGNER & ILLUSTRATOR DAN BAILEY
Dan Bailey is a seasoned designer and illustrator, who shares his journey from in-house at McDonald's to embracing freelance life. First for the freedom of creativity, And a second time for the freedom & flexibility to be there for his family,
We hear how Dan learned to value his skills correctly and build meaningful relationships within the industry. He also delves into the significance of balancing direct client work with agency projects, and becoming known for illustration work (that college tutors said he’d never make a living from!)
Adding a unique flair to his personal brand with 'Rubber Penguin,' Dan highlights the importance of standing out and building a character-filled portfolio. While passion projects kept him happy creatively, forging co-mentor relationships with fellow freelancers has finally fixed him up financially too.
Read a full transcript & get Links in the tabs.
More from DAN BAILEY
Dan’s website
Dan on Instagram
Dan on Behance
Dan on Dribble
More from Steve Folland
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and Designer/Illustrator Dan Bailey AKA Rubber Penguin
Steve Folland: We're heading to Essex this time to chat to designer and illustrator, Dan Bailey. Hey, Dan.
Dan Bailey: Hey Steve, thanks for having me.
Steve Folland: As ever, how about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Dan Bailey: So my design journey started way back in the early 2000s. So I was at college studying art design there. And after I finished that, I was lucky enough to secure some work experience within the in house design team at McDonald's. I didn't really have any desire to go to university at that point I had a lot of friends who were, but I was kind of always of the mindset of, you know, I wanted to start work as soon as I could.
Once the work experience started, I was there for three weeks initially and it went well, so it evolved to three months, and then eventually led to me getting a permanent position there. Kind of a lot of people at that time had turned their noses up. The idea of me working there because, you know, in house teams weren't very cool back then and McDonald's in house team especially wasn't very cool back then, but I went there and it proved a great place for me to start my career.
I got involved in some really great projects. I was able to grow and learn, and I didn't have those pressures of working in a big agency that you get. And also I had the opportunity to give back a little. So as I was there for a little bit longer, we got younger members of the team in, so I could then start.mentoring those younger members of the team as I got kind of that experience to do so. Plus they had a fully operational restaurant within the office. Which was very cool. So, but yeah, but the public weren't allowed to use it. So only the office staff could have access to this thing. And it was great because obviously, because it was within the head office, everything was just like the pictures.
So, you know, a Big Mac looks like an actual photo of a Big Mac. And it also kind of helped to open my eyes to the potential freelance quite early on because of the blueprint of the studio, they had quite a heavy reliance on freelancers. There was an option to scale up the team or scale down, depending on what projects are actually in or if they needed a specific skill set.
I was there for about five or six years, and I'm kind of work my way up to run in the studio. But as I was there longer, the budgets had been cut and I found myself kind of doing the same projects over and over again, and I just got restless. So I started thinking about leaving. And I knew, I think my next step, I wanted to be within an agency.
But at that time, because there was that stigma around in house teams, I was having kind of very little success with kind of the jobs I was applying for. But eventually I did get an opportunity with a really small agency with the help of a recruiter. For me, I had a lot of reservations. It didn't feel like the right step for me, but I was talking to giving a chance and I did, but I didn't kind of really settle.
And within a few months I left. And not knowing really what to do. I just panicked and ended up back in McDonald's, which was kind of the first time I learned to never go back to somewhere you've left. But once back there, same frustrations resurfaced and I started job hunting again. I thought I got a lucky break and I managed to get an interview at a really nice London agency based around Shoreditch.
So the day arrived and I snuck out of work with my giant portfolio case like we used to then. You know, like the massive ones. It's not like today, you know, where you can just slip an iPad into your bag and just creep out. So I went for this interview and it was probably this interview that changed the direction of my career forever.
So I met the Creative Director of this Agency and we sat down and before I had a chance to even open my portfolio, he just stopped me and he just like said, I'm not going to offer you a job today. And I was just like, right. And he just ignored the look of shock on my face and what I was saying. And he just carried on saying, he said, if you ever want to work at an agency like this, you need to have worked on way more varied brands.
I just suggest you go and get some experience by going freelance. And then that was it. That was the interview. It just stopped. So, I literally snuck out of work for what was, you know, a three minute interview. So, like, I was livid. I was raging. You know, I snuck out of work with my giant portfolio, only to be told, you know, they weren't interested.
But it had actually turned out they'd offered someone else. kind of earlier, but they'd never obviously told me to not come to the interview.
Steve Folland: What?
Dan Bailey: But despite that frustration, funnily enough, I did actually end up taking his advice. So I went back to work the next day and I quit. For whatever reason, his words resonated with me because I knew there was an opportunity to create a better version of myself and I knew freelance potentially, you know, was the key to that.
To be honest, I don't even know why I hadn't considered freelance before then, because my dad's actually self employed, but I think. I just became fixated on that idea of working for an agency and couldn't look beyond that. But this led to my first step into the freelance world, which I initially thought would be a short spell of probably about six months whilst I looked for this kind of job that I wanted or this place, you know, I could call home.
But those six months turned into six years.
Steve Folland: You, you thought you'd be freelancing for six months,
Dan Bailey: Yep.
Steve Folland: but you ended up freelancing for six years.
Dan Bailey: That's right. Yeah. I literally thought so I went into it with the idea of going in and get the experience like this creative director and. Along the way, I would just find, naturally find, you know, a job or a place that I'd love to work at. The more I started doing it, the more addictive it kind of became, because all of a sudden I was like, well, I've just, you know, worked on this brand.
And then suddenly you go to another place and you've got this brand and you're working with different people. And, you know, you've got the opportunities. If you don't like someone or don't like an agency, you can just walk away, you know, so you, everything, it just felt right. Right.
Steve Folland: What year were we talking about when that started?
Dan Bailey: Oh, so that year was 2007.
Steve Folland: Yeah, so how were you getting those clients in that period?
Dan Bailey: When I started out, I leaned heavily on recruiters. So you had to sign up with recruiters who would have relationships with certain agencies and they'd put you forward for roles. So I was getting a kind of a lot of work for them through that. Nowadays you've got LinkedIn and it's a bit more of a free for all, but I also had quite a few old colleagues who had kind of moved on.
And so I was able to contact them and everyone else I knew to tell them I was freelancing, which really worked out well. So I started getting those kind of clients early on, and then I learned from those early clients that I had to become indispensable and memorable. So as soon as getting into these places, I was trying to build relationships.
So I knew that whoever I was working with in one agency, they could leave that agency one day and go to another agency. So then if I could become memorable within that person, they could hopefully take me with them to the next, you know, to their next gig as such. And as there were so many good freelancers out there, I needed to make sure.
I really stood out. I needed to kind of be remembered and because I'd come from a background of in house working at McDonald's with a very fast paced and that kind of gave me a bit of an advantage to go into a free lunch gig. And then I could kind of turn it around accurately, quickly and also knew that.
I kind of had to go above and beyond what people asked me in these roles so that I could become memorable. So I'd kind of, if someone asked me to do a job, I would do a visual, but then I would take it one step further and then look at adding value or kind of look at a different direction, which maybe they hadn't considered, which maybe they didn't always go with, but it just maybe looked like I cared, so then people would remember.
Rather than this guy who came in just on the bare minimum and left, I was that guy who went in and pushed the boundaries and actually cared about the work, you know, they had. But as well as that, I think the biggest game changer for me was when I started kind of introducing illustration into what I was doing as well.
So as well as The design side of things, I was, I started to branch off into illustration.
Steve Folland: So yes, you mentioned illustration because that's it. I introduced you as a designer and illustrator, but up until this point you were much more of a designer. So, had you been harboring this desire to bring illustration out or did it just happen to be, you know, one day on a project it seemed suitable?
Like what was the,
Dan Bailey: So when I was younger, I used to draw a lot and like kind of most people would say they did. So I used to love the old cartoons, like Looney Tunes, cartoons, Nickelodeon's cartoon networks. And I actually originally. Went to college to do illustration. But when I went there, I was told to just kind of focus my career on design.
I think the tutors didn't really know what to do with me in terms of skills because they were kind of much more from a design background. So as they kind of. were teaching me and they were kind of trying to shift my focus towards design. I kind of then took that on board and I actually stopped drawing for 10 years.
I just completely stopped. So where I'd been really into it, I'd listened to what they said and they, they weren't overly negative, but they kind of insinuated that I had no career or future in illustration. So I kind of took what they were saying and yeah, I put my, illustration thoughts to one side and just concentrate fully on design because at that time I'd liked design but I was way more into illustration and so I had to almost teach myself design not from scratch as such but I felt behind in terms of the other people on my course who were into design because They had much more kind of knowledge around that.
But then coming kind of fast forwarding back to where we are now, or where we were once the growth of stock libraries kind of happened, so the likes of iStock and Shutterstock came about, they were selling a lot of photography and then they started to introduce illustration. And I knew that I almost wanted a bit of a side hustle, something on the side of my business, a bit of passive income that I could maybe leave.
For a bit and how kind of money could start trickling in or something I could pick up through my quiet spells in the agency. So I started doing eye stock, started up those illustrations. So kind of a few cartoon ones, icons, just anything really, characters, animals. And after about a year, I uploaded, I must have kind of had probably about 100 or so illustrations on there.
I was working up to, on a good month, I was getting about 800 a month. from that passive income. So obviously I've done the work to get it to where it was, but it had built up to the point where I was kind of getting, you know, a nice revenue back.
Steve Folland: would you be targeted about it as in like thinking what are the popular things? What shall I you know, like as in creating them for the high searched?
Dan Bailey: Yeah, not, not initially. Initially I started doing a few things and I was kind of almost putting the feelers out and I saw certain things sold. So once I knew something sold well, I could then kind of jump on the back of that and do Illustrations based around that. And then there were certain I suppose obvious illustrations to do, which I did.
And for a while they sold well, but then it was a case of a lot of people would then jump onto that and then that would get pushed down the queue. So I think with this whole stock market thing, it was a case of very much use. You'd have something which was selling well, it'd be unique for a while. And it's like a lot of things today.
It would then everyone would jump on board. Your image will get pushed away and then no longer that was unique. You'd have to go and find the next thing So I was doing that but then over time it just got very saturated And you just had to constantly upload illustrations because so many people were doing it I was just kind of getting knocked down in the searches and it was just too much work to kind of keep on top of that and like nowadays I probably make 50 a year if that.
So I've kind of come from the dizzy heights to drop to that but you know I don't touch it. But you know the the beauty of that was I also was getting commissions, you know, someone would have bought an illustration from that and maybe they'd want a different set, you know, of illustrations based around a style or a character.
So that kind of got me more work through doing that. And then that gave me the confidence to then push my illustration back out there. I started putting on kind of social platforms. On the likes of Instagram and Dribbble, kind of once they started building up and notably kind of as we fast forward on places like Behance, which was actually a kind of quite a game changer for me because I had some work featured on there, which led to some quite a consistent run of commissions, but also some bigger ones for the likes of Nestlé and Hotel Chocolat.
Steve Folland: Wow. And when those commissions started to come in, were you doing that alongside freelancing in agencies or were you just focusing on that?
Dan Bailey: So I was doing that alongside the agencies. So for a long time. I would try to balance them both. So with freelance agency work, you can have patches where like January and February can be quite quiet. So I'd kind of try to, well, you can't really judge when work's coming in, but maybe like I put more time aside for illustration that time of year, but when a random commission would be coming in and I'm at an agency, I'd be working on that.
Kind of evenings, mornings or if I knew about it kind of with enough time, I would block out some time so I could have a week to spend on that. So just kind of depending on how much, you know, warning I had of a job.
Steve Folland: And that must have been a different experience as well, though. In terms of. Business and payments and contracts and things like that as in agencies, you said you were going through recruiters. I don't know how it necessarily works, but basically you're dealing with a big company who deals with lots of people over time, whereas here you're dealing with one on one clients who are after something, right?
Dan Bailey: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of trust and it was kind of a good learning curve in terms of like, instead of, you know, installing contracts into what I did as well. Cause as a, when you first started doing it when I started doing iStock and I started getting commissions, you know, I wouldn't necessarily charge so much because I was kind of quite new to this whole illustration thing.
I didn't feel like an illustrator. It was a bit of something on the side, you know, to help me out. And someone would contact me and I'd be like, Oh, you know, kind of quote them X amount. And the problem sometimes when you go. With these people through kind of these kind of stock sites. They're not necessarily the greatest of clients, but you can get great ones, but some of them weren't.
And if you did ask for something, you'd start with kind of the process, the sketching, and then it just goes to, they disappear. So it was, I kind of, then I learned about kind of installing contracts, bit of payment up front. And then having a bit more of a business mold around that kind of illustration side of things.
Steve Folland: You said you were you did six years from 2007. So that's the 2013. So what happened in 2013?
Dan Bailey: I got myself in a bit of a rut. So, I'd been doing it for quite a while. And I had the issue where I was saying yes to everything. So, like, design wise I was just trying to make everyone happy. So I'd be going in for kind of, you know, cheap rates because at that point I hadn't really been that transparent about that side of the business if anyone yet.
So I didn't really know what others were charging. So I was going in and charging kind of a silly amount for some bookings. And I'd said yes to too many of the wrong jobs. So I was doing a lot of work that I wasn't enjoying. So. I was just kind of almost in a rut. I was getting a little bit burnt out.
So an opportunity arose for me to work for a full time agency that I had been freelancing with in the past. And it was a good title so I was going in as a design lead. And at the time I'd got married recently and I wanted to start a family so it felt like security. So I kind of decided to take that leap and kind of, yeah, join that agency, which was great.
When I first started, the people, the agency were lovely the role felt challenging but at times I still probably wasn't quite pushed creatively like I wanted to be. And that's when I kind of started to introduce passion projects and more private work kind of crept back in. And So I kind of almost work in there and still sneakily freelancing.
But after a while, you know, things at the agency took a bit of a turn. We were getting pushed harder to meet deadlines and good staff, good experienced staff left. So we relied more on the younger, less experienced staff. The hours got longer, work started creeping into the weekends, and office politics kind of started to crop up quite a lot.
But my wife was pregnant at that point as well. And she was due to give birth and when she did, unfortunately there were major complications with my little girl when she was born. She was very sick. At that point, We were told not to expect her to walk, and just to expect kind of years of physio, a lot of hospital appointments, so we muddled through for a bit, but it was clear.
That my girls needed me so I needed to be flexible for them and at that point after About three or four years. I quit and returned to freelance again.
Steve Folland: Well, so rather than you would think, you know, a full time job will give you security and time off and stuff like that. Actually the demands of that role was so much that you needed the flexibility.
Dan Bailey: Yeah, I was struggling to get out for appointments Because my daughter was having kind of like random Appointments she's also there a time when she Had like seizures so we had to you know, I had to be closer or I had to have the opportunity To leave work and not think I've got this pitch I need to sort out or, you know, because at the time the agency were quite inexperienced team around me.
If I left or I had to kind of step away quickly, I felt a bit of a burden on me. To then still, you know, I still had to get certain things done And I've just kind of I was pulled in all directions and yeah freelance Was just the obvious option 2017
Steve Folland: So when you went freelance that time, was it different?
Dan Bailey: it was because I think those Like three or four years away from freelancing. It'd give me a really good opportunity to reset so I could to take a step back, look at what I was doing wrong. I could improve the way it was working for me. And because I always was pushing myself harder. I was doing these crazy hours and I put heavy expectations on myself.
It wasn't even, obviously the agency sometimes put those on me, but I myself would put them on me. But having that family now, it gave me an opportunity to change this as I knew they were just more important. I knew career wise, I didn't want to make the same mistakes that I did before. So I was kind of a lot more intentional.
With the work I was taking and producing. So it wasn't even just a case of, you know before I was doing not random illustrations, but I've nowadays I'm a lot more kind of, I know I'm going to focus with what I want to get work wise. So now I'm a lot more intentional with that side of things and I needed to treat freelance as much more of a business because I think where I originally went out the first time.
As a freelancer with the thought of, I'm only going to be doing this for a few months. It kind of, I never actually took a step back and said to myself, you know, you've been doing this for, you know, four years now, five years now, this is, you know, it's bigger than you just. You know, doing this on the side or doing this until a better thing comes up.
So I learned to step back and look at that and have these discussions regarding money. You know that was a big change for me to actually talk to people about what they were earning, about the way they run their business. Just so I could up my rates because some of the rates I was charging before were ridiculous.
It's embarrassing.
Steve Folland: So where were you having those conversations?
Dan Bailey: With kind of friends actually, it was because of, I've been around on the circuit for quite a while, I'd actually made a lot of freelance friends, but it's funny actually that a lot of my closest friends now and the ones I have these discussions with are the freelancers that I actually hired when I went permanent.
So, you know, I was technically their boss when they'd come in to, to freelance for me, But then we would kind of talk business. And, yeah, so I'd have these conversations with them and then they almost kind of, we became co mentors in a way because, you know, they would G, G me up. So if I was saying, I can't charge this amount, you know, I just, you know, a bit of a stickler for that.
I struggled to know my own value and they were like, no. You have to charge this, you know, that person's charging this or this role deserves, you know, you're doing this much work. You should be charging this. So it was those conversations that really helped to push me in the right direction and my business.
Steve Folland: And the roles you took on in Freelancing Mark 2, were those still going into agencies usually?
Dan Bailey: Yes. So I'd be going into agencies, but I'd be doing different amounts of work. Whereas the first time I'd go into an agency, I'd say yes to anything. I would literally, I'd go in one day, I'd be doing a 400 page kind of typesetting document. I would the next day I'd be doing. A complete kind of store takeover for the Powerpuff Girls and then and I've even done I've done that and I've even done like I've done things as small or ridiculous as like dog poop bin stickers, you know, I've done that.
The extremes would be so vast. And I'd also be doing bookings, which would be a day long, three days long, a week, whereas now I kind of go out and I kind of try to do more like brand identity bits. I try to incorporate my illustration to some of my bookings. I do a lot more advertising, marketing rather than everything.
I kind of just tried to specialize in those areas. It just helps me to get known for that. Whereas before they could have got anyone to have done what I've done. Now I'd like to try and kind of feel like I'm a bit more of a specialist. And I can be kind of be recommended for that.
Steve Folland: And that came about mainly through the sort of work that you were sharing online?
Dan Bailey: Yeah. So the work, so the more work I was sharing online in my portfolio on my website and just through previous bookings. So once you start building up bookings, people can start to see your history and then they can say, right, this guy's. Done work in advertising agencies recently, and then you can kind of push on that.
So over time, cause one of my biggest issues through my own fault was I used to sometimes put work into my portfolio, which wasn't the type of work I wanted to do, but it was, you know, it was a sexy brand. You know, so I was kind of trying to show off the brand, but I was then getting the work I didn't want to do.
So I then started showing, you know, the, these specific projects I wanted to do. And then I was getting more of that work.
Steve Folland: Now I need to ask as well, you have a business name,
Dan Bailey: I know where this is going straight away. As soon as you've done that pause, I know where this is going. Yeah.
Steve Folland: I'm wondering at what point Rubber Penguin came along because I'm assuming, you know, when you were going in via recruiters, you weren't a rubber penguin, but maybe you were. Yeah. When and why did, did that come about?
Dan Bailey: Well, originally, yeah. When I first started freelancing. I was Dan Bailey because I just thought it was very short term. And I used that within the whole agency thing for quite a while and I still do to a point. But I started to introduce Rubber Penguin as a way of adding more character and personality into a personal brand.
Because my name is so common, like in the States there's American footballers, American footballer called Dan Bailey. Over here, there's, you know, in the UK there's so many designers. There's web designers, graphic designers, there's DJs, there's kind of builders, there's everyone. There's so many Dan Bailey's I couldn't really stand out.
And to be honest, initially, before anything, Rubber Penguin was actually, I just got that on Twitter as a way to actually have a bit more of a unique, So I hadn't actually thought about it in using it for my business because I think I was still in that mindset of I was going to join an agency, but in time I kind of I started to then transition.
I saw what I had. I had all the handles to the likes of. Instagram, Twitter bee hunts and got the.com to it as well. And I could see that it was adding more character and people knew me for Rubber Penguin more than obviously Dan Bailey. So they would they would see the icon or whatever, and I would know the name.
So it just, it seemed like a natural thing to do. And initially I would just work kind of my illustration side of the business under that. So all the illustration work would just sit under Rubber Penguin. But as my client work grew kind of beyond agency works, I have quite a bit of direct client work now, just beyond those, I began to realize just how much visibility Rubber Penguin was getting me.
And it just felt like it gave me growth. Be on my work with the agencies because, you know, one day I might not work with agencies anymore. So then it's, this just feels like a natural. Umbrella for everything to see. But funnily enough people sometimes just mistake it for my name. The amount of places I've gone in and people think my name is Robert as in Robert Penguin or Richard Penguin.
I have had so many instances because of the website because for a long time my website was actually I had two websites. So I had Dan Bailey website And I had the Robert Penguin one. But once I made that transition of everything going through Robert Penguin, I started to get on bookings in agencies, started to get called Robert or Richard.
Yeah. Yeah,
Steve Folland: you, it started out because there were too many Dan Bailey's, but it also managed to speak to that character work that you wanted to be doing and became that specialist in.
Dan Bailey: absolutely. Yeah. It, it, and I think it's probably given me a kind of a bigger client base because of that, because people seen it and, and are attracted to it and probably investigate what I do because of it. You know, it's not just Dan Bailey, cause you can, yeah. skim through past someone who's just, you know, Dan Bailey with a picture of myself, whereas this It's just, it's disruptive, you know, it stops people make some wonder who on earth this guy is And why does he think he's a penguin?
and Yeah, and it just gets kind of that client base in and I feel the work I do now especially on the illustration side of it and with my design to a point is I try to make things full of character, that that is my mantra, I want to bring character into the world. So it just all kind of ties in.
Steve Folland: Brilliant. And actually it's a good point. Like so much of the online business world, social media and stuff, it seems to demand our face and speaking to a camera and taking photos of ourselves and all of this kind of thing. That's not really something you go for.
Dan Bailey: Not really, it's, I've never intentionally done it. I think it's just because of the whole penguin thing. It's like, I never really knew how to, Transition over, I know I could go full Frank's eye bottom and get the whole like polystyrene penguin head and I would, you know what it's something for a very long time.
It's crossed my mind. I've joked about it with friends, but Yeah, it's It's something I've not really done yet, it's something I might transition into, but yeah, it's something which is in the back of my mind because I think, I think as I am getting older and as my career is evolving, because these last few years it definitely feels like it's maybe moving away from agency work a little bit, it's something I do need to investigate.
Steve Folland: So 2017, you went back full time freelance. Have you stayed that way?
Dan Bailey: Yes, I am still freelance now, yeah, but I think with, since the pandemic things. For whatever reason have changed in a positive way, but I'm definitely Doing more kind of illustration side, more illustration work, sorry. I think when the pandemic kicked in initially and there was a lockdown, a lot of my work was lost, kind of the design side of things, certainly for the agency, agency side but randomly a lot of illustration stuff just came in out of the blue.
So I don't know if it was people picking up side projects, you know, and I actually managed to carry on and get through those. But then gradually I think design has kind of started to pick up a bit more for me now, and I still do, you know, I still a majority majority of my time is spent designing with agencies, but the illustration side is definitely becoming more of a thing rather than a side hustle, which I, I had it down as for a very long time.
But yeah, it's, it's. It's a positive thing and I'm taking it a lot more seriously. And it's kind of really integrated into the services I offer. Oh,
Steve Folland: Oh man, part of me wants you to go back and teach at the college you were at so that you can tell other people you can, you can be an illustrator.
Dan Bailey: absolutely. Yeah. There's always that little side of it. Yeah. And also I want to speak to that guy, the creative director who I spoke to obviously all those years ago, because he's like, go out, get some experience. And now, you know, I went from working at no agencies to probably I'd say 50 plus agencies I've worked for and probably well over a hundred brands.
Steve Folland: Back with Dan in a moment. Did you know, as well as the community and the podcast and the videos and stuff that I do, there's also a course. I created this in 2021, right at the beginning of the year, and it was the course that I wish I'd had when I started out freelance. Because I, like many others, had to figure it all out myself.
But, Through my own experiences and chatting to over 300 guests at the podcast, I pulled together everything that I think would be useful when you're starting out freelance. So if you know somebody who is at the start of that journey, maybe they're thinking of going freelance, maybe they're in the first year, please do tell them about it.
We talk about being a business, you know, switching into that mindset, looking professional. We chat about finances, being found, being hired, and so on, and so forth. So if you know somebody who is in the first year, please do tell them about it. This is something that I'll be sharing in my next podcast. for listening to my podcast.
Being organized, like delivering on the client expectations and being balanced, making sure you don't burn out, which is something that often crops up. So yes, tell people about it. Beingfreelance. com click on course. It's all very short videos. Most are very short videos, like two to five minutes covering all of these topics.
So you can easily fit it in around whatever else you've got going on. And these days, the course also comes with six months of the community included. So not only are you learning about it, but you're surrounding yourself with people already doing it, which I think is a great way to get started. The course is called How to Get Started Being Freelance.
You can find it at beingfreelance. com. Right now, let's get back to Dan's story. And how about, you know, the reason you went freelance second time around was for your family, for that flexibility. So has that panned out, work life balance wise?
Dan Bailey: Yes I think having a family now has been massive in that, you know, I think, you know, having seen my daughter, she went on to make like an amazing recovery to the point where the person that where she's having a physio with is actually doing a case study on her recovery. So having like a daughter and a family.
Has been huge for me and you know having someone like running upstairs telling me I've got to stop working because we're playing mario kart now, you know That helps There's still times when I have to work early or late or weekends if there is a deadline But now I do have so much more freedom or I've got an incentive to reward myself if I do do that So if I'm working late You know, maybe I can start later the next day or I can take an afternoon off to go to the cinema.
Cause compared to the old days, you know, I used to like pre family, I was up at five. I'd be working, doing illustrations or design, traveling into London, doing a full day. If I wasn't on a pitch, I'd come home and start working as soon as I'd get home and walk through the door and start working again.
So I don't do that anymore. It's still tricky working with agencies because like they still have the pitches now. And I think With kind of the pandemic kind of being moving further away that we expected now to go back into offices now. Whereas for a long period of time we weren't, but we kind of still, like, we're starting to do the whole getting back on site.
But in the past, you know, agencies would always make it cultural thing to stay late. But it has, and it is getting better. But I do actually remember. Going into an agency, once I was working, I got called into a pitch and they had this car brand, and I was called in for a Monday, Tuesday pitch on Wednesday, and we were just sat there for two days waiting to be briefed.
No work, nothing, nothing ever came in. We just sat there and it got to like 6. 30 on the Tuesday, right, pitch next day. So we're like, fine, it's not coming in. No work was given to us. And then just as we were about to leave, all this work just turned up. 6. 30 at night. The pitch was 8. 30 the next morning.
Steve Folland: What?
Dan Bailey: So, and that's just how agency life was.
And it's like this same agency actually I did quite a big stint there and it was on Halloween. I always remember it because it was Halloween and I needed to get back because my daughter would go trick or treating and we'd done a job and we sat there and worked and it finished it and it just, just had to go and get the sign off from the creative director.
And they said you know, you're okay just to wait just until the creative director's seen it, signs it off and I was like, okay, no problem. Not really asking where the creative director was and they were like, oh yeah, okay he's just on a flight. He'll be landing at 1030. Are you right to stay till then to do it?
And I was just like, sorry, no, I just, I went that time, you know, sometimes I can be flexible, but I wasn't going to wait around for like four and a half hours. for someone to land and then potentially get a men's. So, but yeah, but no, overall I'm much better, you know, I'm a new man.
Steve Folland: Has, has the experience of working in an agency and being part of those pitches and stuff helped you when it comes to pitching ideas and negotiating and so on with direct clients?
Dan Bailey: Absolutely. I think the way I can present myself as a person, as a business, that's been vital, you know, I, I can see how. agencies break things down how they present things, how they sell things. And it, it makes me feel like I'm offering like a really premium service because, you know, I've got all these years of agency experience and I feel like I've taken so much away from working in a In great agencies and even in bad agencies, you can take so much away from working in a bad environment and I've just thought I can add that to To me as a business and a service to really Kind of offer, you know a good end product
Steve Folland: Now, Dan, if you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Dan Bailey: many things I'd like to tell myself, but the biggest one for me I think the biggest one which helped me Kind of grow me and my business would to be more transparent and open to the idea of talking about my business And the rates, you know, what charge with other designers I was spending so many years under charging and it took that spontaneous chat with kind of close friends to set me straight And it's and then having that chat also just almost helped Find that co mentor as well, because out of those chats, we just had more chats and then it just helped to build up friendships and this support for each other.
And I think the other thing as well is that it's okay to say no, you know, it's like if for a long time I was doing everything and it got me to the point where I was kind of almost burning myself out and I got in a rut doing the work I didn't want to do. But then by saying no. And being a lot more intentional with the work I was taking on and a lot more intentional with the work I was putting out.
I was kind of then getting the work, which was aiding my career and helping me grow.
Steve Folland: like that mention of the word career as well, because I guess it's, it's less of just getting the work for the sake of a job and money, but
Dan Bailey: Yes,
Steve Folland: taking you in the direction for you want to go career longer term.
Dan Bailey: exactly. Yeah, that's the thing. For a long time, I wasn't actually looking at this as a long term thing. And, you know, it took me until I went freelance in the second time to actually Realize that this is my business, this is my career, and I needed to plan for where I wanted to be and where I wanted to go.
Steve Folland: Dan, it's been so good to talk to you. You got to go and check out Dan's illustrations and and actually for that matter, the way you show your work. Online, like some of it is I guess concepts, things that didn't necessarily end up being used.
Dan Bailey: Yeah.
Steve Folland: Would some of those be from within agencies and like, how do you have to get permit permission and stuff like that?
Dan Bailey: Yeah, sometimes I've, there's a lot of stuff where you get like NDAs, you know, I've got some great work which I just can't share. But concept wise it's a mixture of The agency stuff that I can share because sometimes like work will just go in a completely different direction. So, you know, it's that work will never, you know, interfere or never impact anyone else.
Or otherwise it's just a lot of kind of personal projects or direct client work where I always insist, you know, that I have that freedom to show, to show my work.
Steve Folland: Dan, thank you and all the best being freelance!
Dan Bailey: See you later. Thanks, Steve.