for Designers

So you’re a freelance graphic designer. Or a web developer. Or an illustrator, or photographer, or even an editor (yes, we think editing is design, too). And you’re wondering why on earth you would want to share your clients with a bunch of people who might be your competition.

Good question. Here are the benefits we’ve thought of so far:

Being a member of Design:Intelligent enables you to offer clients more services than you normally would, based on the strengths and skills of all the members in the group.
You can keep your own clients — even if you don’t have time to do a particular project for them — by acting as project manager and spreading the work around to other members.
You can continue to set your own rates.
You can pick up extra work when you need it.
You have the opportunity to learn from and collaborate with the other members of the collective and improve your own skill set.
You can gain exposure to new kinds of clients and new types of projects.
You can benefit from resource-sharing with other members – fonts, software, hardware, perhaps even office space some day.
There is no fee to become a member; instead we will ask you to include a small surcharge on work that is referred to you by D:I.

While we think joining D:I is a great opportunity for all designers, we do need to be choosy about who becomes part of the collective. Our reputations, and maybe our livelihoods, would be at stake if we refer a client to a designer who ignores deadlines or does shoddy work.

Here's what we are looking for in a potential collective member:

A good portfolio.
A set of skills that complements those of the rest of the collective.
A personality that manages to balance being both detail-oriented (Type A) and easygoing (Type B); i.e. someone who finishes work when they say they will AND has the social skills to play well with both clients and collaborators.
While the magic of the Internet allows us to work together from anywhere, we do prefer that you be located close enough to Chicago for the occasional face-to-face meeting.

If you think you would be a good fit with Design:Intelligent, please drop us an email and tell us a little bit about yourself (links to an online portfolio would be great, too). We’ll set up a meeting and see what happens.