As a freelance designer you will have a great deal of freedom to pick and choose your jobs once you have built up your portfolio. There are many areas that you can specialise in including business card design, logo design and even infographic building for websites and newsletters. Feeling more vocally creative? Check out our guide to voice overs and video editing freelance work here.

Design of Business Cards, Flyers and Posters

It’s a competitive but valuable market for a designer with an eye for professional, attractive promotional material. Production and materials can be left in the capable hands of print shops to keep disruption due to normal family life to a minimum.

Logo design

Logo design is a competitive marketplace which may require some promotion of your work to get potential customers’ attention, and may also need investment in technology, software and training.

Designing Infographics

Like logos, these can be a satisfying and lucrative application of existing design flair. The stay-at-home dad who combines this with an economic or statistical mindset may have an advantage here, but assignments with very precise requirements and specifications may be available too.Infographic design relies on your ability to create visually appealing information that is made up of images, graphics and drawings in order to present complex information in an easy to understand way. By being able to build an infographic, you will present information in a pure form that speaks to the audience in an interesting, useful and fun manner.

This job requires a combination of software such as Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. If you are working from home, then you can opt for DIY tools which allow you to design infographics without graphic design training. Some tools have full free versions while others require you to pay for them e.g. Easel.ly, Inforgr.am, Picktochart and Venngage

Freelance creative work is abundant and these days it isn’t all just about the huge brands you have worked on or the extensive experience you have. There is plenty of room for those just starting out in freelance creative work to build their portfolios with freelance sites such as fiverr.com and upwork.com. If you are more into design and want to build up the skills of a freelance designer then take a look at our guide to freelance design work here.

Voice Over Freelance Work

Voice over work is in demand and it is the type of job that fits perfectly with the freelance industry. Not only broadcasters and advertisers, but providers of all kinds of media and training will always have demand for voice overs for scripts and soundtracks. These may be recorded in a tightly prescribed style, or some imagination and flair may be desirable on the voice over artist’s part. Some editing know-how and suitable equipment is a must, however, a quiet, controlled recording environment may not be the natural habitat of a stay at home dad!

There are a few tools you need to be able to set yourself up as a voice over freelancer and that includes a decent internet connection to be able to transfer larger files, a laptop with some high quality DAW software Digital Audio Workstation and a good quality microphone.

Video Editing Freelance Work

Freelance video editing skills can be employed, as with voice overs, by software and training providers in addition to more obvious kinds of film makers. Whether you just have a little commercial experience with the video tools in the Adobe product range, or a deeper expertise within the trade, a lot can be achieved with just a laptop and in working hours to suit.

Running Pay Per Click campaigns is ideal for the analytical and numbers driven person. Learning how to use Google’s AdWords, Analytics and running Facebook, Instagram or Twitter ad campaigns to a strategical standard will put you in very good stead for running campaigns for clients whilst achieving some impressive results. Not analytical enough for this? Try out some voice over work or video editing or even try your hand at logo design or editorial work.

What Do You Need to Run Pay Per Click Campaigns?

All you need is a good understanding of the product, of the target audience and the technical ability. Start with some of the Google Analytics exams and certifications and follow this with the Adwords exams and you will have taken the first step towards this.

Running analytics campaigns allows digital marketing professionals to collect data and analyse how effective their campaigns are. It also gives them an opportunity to measure how effective their marketing strategies are performing. Either running campaigns or reporting on existing campaigns is a valued skill that many digital agencies or small businesses do at times look to outsource.

Applying analytical tracking and affiliate advertising to websites, and optimising their search engine performance, are skills that can be learned online or from books and taught training. It’s a rich area that can be tapped into working from home, offering your services directly or through agencies. Open-source and micro-job sites can offer a lot of work related to analytics – either writing keyword-filled content or verifying it by performing searches and categorisation tasks from the user’s point of view.