How Can Graphic Design Help You Be A Digital Nomad?
Graphic designers can fit their office in a backpack. With a good laptop, a drawing tablet and a stylus, a freelance graphic designer can work anywhere. That is why so many digital nomads are designers.
Digital nomads can work at the beach, next to the pool, high up in the mountains, in historic cities or even sailboats!
What is a digital nomad?
A digital nomad is a professional of any industry who can take their work on the road. As long as they have good wi-fi and a power source, they can get their work done anywhere. There are few different types of digital nomads:
- Entrepreneurs with their own online businesses
- Remote workers hired by a company with flexible hours
- Freelancers of all kinds (including designers)
- Online coaches and therapists
- Language teachers
The basis of a digital nomad is that they move around a lot, even all around the world. Some move fast, only staying days or weeks in each place. Others stay for months, settling down for a bit in each place.
How to get started as a digital nomad designer
Are you considering becoming a digital nomad and taking your design career on the road?
There are a few things you have to get organized first. Most of your work will probably be online so you need a banking system which you can connect to Paypal or Stripe and an ATM card that will work anywhere. You are also going to need a credit card or a verified Paypal account. You need to be able to buy airline tickets and book rooms with that credit card or money wallet. Lately, debit cards with good standing can also be used for the same purpose.
Your Adobe subscription might need renewing while you are travelling and if you haven’t set it up to charge automatically and you’re in a country without Adobe access, you’ll be in a bind. Your website hosting and domain will need renewing, along with other things you need to have working seamlessly all the time.
Depending on where you are from you might need to sort out how you will pay taxes. Some countries control your earnings even while you travel, while in some cases you can fly under the radar. Make sure you have a backup money system! If you use bitcoin, then have that account easy to access as well. You might be surprised how much you can get with bitcoin while on the road.
As for technology, you will need a strong enough laptop depending on what kind of design work you do. You might need your drawing tablet as well. Have external hard drives to free up your computer memory but don’t just rely on those. Get a Dropbox or Google Drive subscription with large capacity and keep your work in the cloud. If you can afford it, put insurance on all your gear. Get a backpack with good protection for your gear but make sure it doesn’t look too flashy as you don’t want it to get too much attention from pickpockets.
How to find design work as a digital nomad
Looking for work while on the road is not too different than looking for work at home. The difference is that you will probably have to work freelance. The first thing you need to have is a website with a portfolio and a services page. You will need to promote yourself on social media, and email marketing.
What most graphic designers do as digital nomads are complement client work with designs they sell on websites like Freepik and Creative Market. It’s important to have more than one source of income as a digital nomad.
Some savvy digital nomads take a bartering approach with hotels. They offer design services in exchange for free nights. Another way to do this is with work away. There are always hotels looking for people to build their websites and marketing packs in exchange for room and board.
Create a profile on Fiverr, Upwork and Freelancer. Make your profile look professional and show previous work and links so that you aren’t stuck doing the low paying work. Always be aware of scammers on these sites because there are plenty.
Staying organized is really important
Probably the main reason you want to be a digital nomad is for the travel aspect of it all. It might be hard to balance work and fun when travelling so much. If you are the kind of traveller that wants to see it all, you need to make a schedule. For example, work in the mornings and fun in the afternoons or vice versa. Or separate one day a week that you don’t work at all.
Sometimes it’s better to stay in one place just a little longer so you can travel around the area and get enough work done to get the next plane ticket. Use project management systems like Trello and Asana, not only for yourself but also for your clients.
Over to you
Are you a Digital Nomad or want to be one? Tell us your thoughts in the comments and help your fellow designers with some hands-on tips. We have lots of digital nomad designers in our ranks, join them by being a Freepik Contributor today.
