A nomadic worker is someone who works while they are away from the office, travelling on business etc, using modern means of communication. In relation to graphic design this style of work is very accessible as a lot of outcomes rely heavily on computer softwares that once finalised can then be sent all around the world.
I started by following some different blogs to help me gain a better understanding of this style of work and way of living to see if it was something that I wanted to persue.
Jake Jorgovan
'How I built a freelance career while travelling the world'
- currently in Barcelona, Spain
- 13 countries in one year
- it is now possible because of the emergence of a new age, tolls like Skype, Dropbox etc. allowing for people to work from anywhere in the world and connect with anyone with an Internet connection
- less time commuting to an office or client meetings
- more time spent on what is important to you
- can travel the world, live in foreign countries and take extended vacations
- freedom to use how you think whirls best
How to work remotely
- need to have the ability to create value without being physically present with your client
- need the ability to find new clients without relying on in person networking
Creating value without being physically present
- direct outreach/cold emailing
- job listing websites such as oDesk + eLance
- staying in touch with friends and past colleagues
- social media
- partnerships with agencies or their creative professionals
- asking for referrals
- online networking in forums and industry groups
- blogging/content marketing
Start somewhere cheap
Mexico? Dropped their living expenses by nearly two-thirds which meant more time could be invested in marketing, learning and building up a business because less sales had to be made.
Starting somewhere cheap will make the transition to a digital-nomad lifestyle much easier.
10 things to consider when becoming a nomadic designer - Monika Kanokova
A recent article on creative boom looks at the different considerations that need to be made when thinking of becoming a nomadic designer.
- You don't need to be rich to travel - money equals convenience but the more flexible you are with your choices the more you will experience.
- Have a safety cushion - you're rich until you have to work again, always keep some savings for emergencies.
- Reduce your fixed costs (even before you go) - give up your apartment, start reducing your possessions, sell things and give things away.
- Organise yourself - register a travel mailbox so that your post can be scanned and sent to you whilst you are away, set up with the best bank for travelling.
- Communicate early - Build up an established client base so that they trust you and do not even care wherein the world you are working, make sure the clients know what time of day you can be reached (time zones!!!!) and always meet all expectations and deliver high quality work so that you don't loose clients.
- Find work while you're on the road - there are lots of online groups that hire nomadic workers, start building your own products to sell as soon as possible or get hired on the freelancer recruiting platforms.
- Seek out a local community - The Nomad list is a community where you can discover chat rooms divided by location, look for co-working spaces and rent out a flex-desk, and also meetup.com is good for meeting people.
- Put yourself on a schedule - Self-motivation is key to success, digital nomads are known for working far more than normal employees especially in the growth phase, choose one physical place (cafe) that you only use to go through your to do list or you may spend too much time behind a screen and not actually exploring.
- Allow for things not to work out a planned - Deadlines should never be within 48 hours of your arrival to one place as wifi, transport etc. may not be instantly accessible or run smoothly.
- Enjoy the present moment - Travelling teaches you to be in the present moment and makes you aware of the little things, so appreciate the ordinary and the mundane and then carry this mentality on even when you are back somewhere that you are fairly familiar with.
Monika Kanokova: Thoughts on freelancing, creative passions and entrepreneurship
Monika is a freelance community strategist and started by studying interior architecture and fashion design. Whilst studying she became interested with how design decisions impact human interactions and developed a hunger for understanding public space design.
Everything she does is based on people and is constantly looking for and what matters to them. Its easy to find people with similar interests online, but you can only create a bond with them in real life which is often lost nowadays.
"The social web has definitely opened up a whole new world of opportunities although I think we're still figuring out its real purpose."
If it's really a communication and education platform where we learn together and get to know people internationally we need to build systems to nurture that activity.
The main struggle with freelancing for Monika has been writing the client proposals as in the real world a client would come to you with a specific problem asking for her to get on board with helping them. Being a freelancer enables you to play and experiment freely without having to get a permission to realise your ideas.
What I would need to find out from the nomadic designers:
- find out whether to build name before or build identity based on the fact that you work and travel
- lonely?
- changing of design style depending on country working in?
- stable amount of work?
- lots of time to actually enjoy travelling or more about the different environments you can work in?
- how long on average in each place?
- work in office area, coffee shops? where's best to focus and optimise productivity
- establishing a work and travelling balance
- which country to start with?
THOUGHTS: BLOGGING
The research into nomadic design has shown that it is the blogging that allows them to develop their creative online presence for people to see. With this in mind it seemed that this may be something of more importance for me to specifically find out about. On a day to day basis I enjoy reading all types of blog posts and they are something that especially inspires me as a creative and generally as a person. I have always wanted to start blogging online in a creative and also general way, but never been sure how to start or whether I had interesting things to say. I did English Literature and Psychology at A Level which I think would feed really nice into the creative but thoughtful blogging. I decided to change direction wit the creative report and now focus on creative blogging and try to contact those whose blogs I already read and feel like could offer me some tips.
To do:
- find bloggers/creatives I would like to contact
- analyse their online presence to generate personalised questions for each of them
- develop my own online presence
- read different blog posts
- plan my blog posts/have creative days out
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