David Airey is a freelance graphic designer based in Northern Ireland, self-employed since 2005.

He's the author of several best-selling design books including Logo Design Love and Identity Designed - both of which started life as blogs, before turning into books... before turning into a steady stream of client work.

In this episode, David talks with us about:

Persuading his former employer to be his first freelance client
Why his early "business blog" flopped, and how switching to writing about design (not just his own) changed everything
Launching logodesignlove.com in 2008, and getting an out-of-the-blue email about a year later from a US publisher that led to his first book deal
How that one book grew into four published titles, translated into multiple languages
Niching down into logo and identity design after realising it was the part of the job he loved most
The costly early lesson of doing design work before securing payment upfront - and how he gets paid now
Why he's deliberately kept his business to just himself for 21 years
How those same blogs, barely updated these days, still bring in client enquiries years later
What makes a good client relationship, and why he pushes back on purely subjective feedback
Why he doesn't set long-term goals and prefers to stay focused on the present

Find David at:
davidairey.com
logodesignlove.com
and identitydesigned.com

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Being Freelance is hosted and created by freelance podcast editor Steve Folland.