//Who it's for
the same problems, in your discipline's shape
Every freelance trade has its own way of losing money: usage rights for illustrators, weather days for photographers, the tenth page template nobody scoped. These pages start there, and only then get to what North does about it.
Brand designers
North for brand identity designers
A logo is never just a logo by week three, three people have opinions about it, and the client wants to put it on things nobody priced. Identity work loses money in those three places, and the fix for all of them is on paper before the work starts.
OpenUI/UX designers
North for UI/UX designers
Product work arrives shaped like a sprint and gets billed shaped like an hour, which is how a two-week engagement becomes a four-month one nobody can end. The remedy is defining the unit of work before the first stand-up.
OpenWeb designers
North for freelance web designers
Page nine arrives in week seven, the copy still has not, and the client would like the site live by the end of the month on hosting nobody has discussed. Websites go wrong on three predictable lines, and each one can be written down before the first mockup.
OpenIllustrators
North for freelance illustrators
The image is the cheap part. Where it is allowed to appear, for how long, and what happens if the piece is killed after sketches is where illustrators are paid or not paid, and most quotes never mention any of it.
OpenPhotographers
North for freelance photographers
A booked day is stock that expires at midnight. Photographers lose money to dates that move, deposits that were never taken, retouching that never ends, and licences that were never written, and all four are decided before the camera comes out.
OpenMotion designers
North for motion designers
A change to a storyboard costs an hour. The same change after animation has started costs a week, and the client cannot tell the difference. Motion work is priced or lost at its gates, and the gates have to be in the agreement.
OpenPackaging designers
North for packaging designers
A range of four products is four jobs, the dieline belongs to the printer, and the barcode is somebody else's problem until it is yours. Packaging is scoped by the SKU or it is scoped wrong.
OpenSocial media designers
North for social media designers
A retainer is the steadiest income in freelance design and the easiest to erode: twelve posts becomes nineteen, feedback arrives one message at a time, and the client cancels on the first of the month with no notice. The month has to be defined before the first one starts.
OpenPitch deck designers
North for pitch deck designers
The meeting is Tuesday, the content is coming, and the founder has opinions about slide nine at eleven at night. Deck work is a trade in compressed time, and compressed time has to be priced as what it is.
OpenDevelopers
North for freelance developers
The repository has no README, the last commit is fourteen months old, and the client would like a fixed price. Development is the trade where an estimate is a bet, and the machinery around the bet is what decides whether it pays.
Open