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.