Web
When it comes to the web, there are so many options that it’s difficult to limit yourself. You can waste hours of productivity just screwing around with different browsers and services.
When it comes to browsers, I’ve settled on Safari. It makes it easy to take advantage of everything Apple bakes into the Mac OS and iOS. It’s fast, stable, and does its job well. Whichever browser you choose, stick with it and don’t waste time messing with multiple browsers.
Back in the day, you needed an FTP app to send large files to printers. Today, FTP is still used heavily by web designers (I prefer Panic’s excellent Transmit app). But for print designers, a service such as Dropbox or Copy is a free alternative that offers not only file transfer & sharing, but the ability to sync files for those who have a desktop and a laptop. You can also take advantage of Google Drive or Microsoft One Drive – but I prefer Copy.
You’re likely to want a website to promote your freelance business. If you know HTML, your good-to-go. If not, stick with WordPress. It’s by far the most popular web/blogging platform for good reason. It’s simple to use, and the amount of free templates to base your design on is mind-numbing. It’s important for your site to look good, but don’t put so much focus on the design that your site lacks quality content. After all, that’s what your potential clients are looking for.
Social
There’s certainly no shortage of options when it comes to social media. Leaving aside any personal choices here, if you’re looking to use social media to promote your design business, you’ll be doing yourself a favor by sticking with LinkedIn and Facebook (and possibly Pinterest). While Twitter is awesome for consumption of content, it’s pretty rare to get a call saying “I saw a link you posted and want to hire you.” Likewise, sites like Dribble are great for inspiration, but the only people looking at it are other designers—not the people who are looking to hire you.
No matter what social media you choose to engage in, try to keep set hours of use. If you fall into the habit of checking and responding to your social media accounts every time a notification pops up, you’ll fall into a time suck that’s difficult to get out of.
Go your own way
In the end, graphic design isn’t about creating beautiful art. It’s about communicating a message for your client in a creative and appealing manner. The tools you choose to use to do that can vary. A Mac is not a necessity. Adobe Creative Cloud apps look and work the same on Windows as they do on a Mac. I used a Windows 7 machine for two years at one company I worked for and had no problems at all.
You have to find what works best for you. But if you keep it simple and focused, and take an ‘investment’ instead of a ‘spend’ approach, you’ll be giving yourself the best chance at success—and saving money in the long run.
Boycott Creative Cloud! Adobe’s subscription-only lock-in scam is outrageous! I will stay on my perpetual license CS6 until it no longer functions, then switch to an alternative – probably Affinity Serif or whatever is ready by then. Terms and conditions of subscription are unacceptable. Look into it. In the long term you lose a lot with a subscription-only.
Good luck with that.
I believe I covered the pricing issues early in this article. But what is so horrible about the terms and conditions of Creative Cloud subscriptions, specifically?