Don't be a graphic designer, it's a saturated market with loads of ---- freelancers that will work for much cheaper prices than you would ever want to.
THIS At least with being a printer (and having your own in house equipment) you have less chance of being dropped for a freelancer
Trust me, if you're good at what you do, you won't have any problems with losing jobs to all the amateur 99designs crowdsourcing fagg*ts. Half of them barely understand real design work, and there's far more to being a graphic designer than doing simple logos and website templates. Also, I know people who run print shops, and it's time-consuming, repetitive, difficult work. Unless you have a passion for it and real world experience, don't even consider dropping tens of thousands of dollars on printing equipment.
I'm making house payments and am working on buying a car purely off of freelance design now. Last month, after I was laid off from AT&T, I brought in roughly 7,000 without really trying.
This really is the wrong forum to be asking on though. Most of the people here are amateur designers, who do GFX work as a hobby. So much of the industry takes experience to understand, and most amateurs don't really realise the huge amount of skills a pr.ofessional brings to the table as opposed to an amateur freelancer. Web design/development is a good option for making money if you don't have formal training, as all you need is decent photoshop knowledge, and the ability to teach yourself coding. Most people on this site wouldn't want to admit they honestly know nothing about graphic design, so I think most advice you'll get on here is pretty bias'. I'd recommend you come take a look at the GoMedia forums, as it's populated mostly by pr.ofessional designers, printers and people working in the industry. You'll get much more informed opinions there, or on a community like Freelance Switch, than on a GFX hobbyist forum. (EDIT: I still don't get why the word "pr.ofessional" is still censored)
Lol, course you do. [/b][/quote] I'm making house payments and am working on buying a car purely off of freelance design now. Last month, after I was laid off from AT&T, I brought in roughly 7,000 without really trying. [/b][/quote] Cool dawg. If you think the majority of freelancers make more than actual salarised designers you're deluded. I prefer working freelance either way. And nL what you on about gamerenders is ---.
Closely related like a Doctor and a Patient, or a Lawyer and a Criminal. Marketing essentially carries out the steps you take prior to hiring a graphic designer. You're wasting talent if you place a graphic designer in charge of marketing the clients products as well as designing the materials, as you're asking them to make calls of Marketability vs Artistic Quality, and when that happens, the sum of each part doesn't make up a whole. Give a Graphic designer reign over your project, they'll give you art. Give a marketing expert reign, they'll give you a product.
