Creative small business resources (being self-employed part 1)

2 years of Kaitlyn Ashlee Art & Design

I have been officially self-employed for 2 years this August! (technically I opened my Etsy shop in 2018 but I only took on a few projects, officially went full-time in August 2019 when we moved to San Diego from NYC). So I thought it would be a good time to share a few practical tips and resources I’ve used in my business. I hope this is useful to you if you’re interested in starting your own side or full-time biz. There are so many different elements of running a business, and especially if you’re doing it alone it can feel overwhelming at times. I am in no way an expert but I wanted to share how I break it down and what tools I think are worth the investment (so far).

I’m going to share more in detail information broken out by each area of business, but I thought I’d start with my top recommended resources (free and paid) below:

my Top 5 recommended tools to invest in for creative business success:

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  1. Adobe Creative Cloud design software

    • I mainly work in Adobe Illustrator but also use InDesign, Photoshop, and Acrobat

    • I love illustrator because it is the most customizable/ comprehensive design tool for graphic design in my opinion - especially for data visualization. I usually avoid projects that don’t allow me to work in this program (for example: PowerPoint is useful for many businesses because it’s editable by anyone, but as a designer it is extremely frustrating to work in). Canva is a great tool for people who aren’t designers or for quickly designing on your phone (I will use it for Instagram stories on occasion).

    • Since I have positioned myself as a data visualization graphic designer (a blog to come on this topic), I feel comfortable now focusing on work that utilizes my design skills in Illustrator for dataviz and infographics (and typically stay away from PowerPoint, google slides, Sketch, Figma, and Tableau projects).

    • InDesign is great for larger reports, layout design, etc. and syncs super well with graphics created in Illustrator (or Photoshop)

    • I’m not as well-versed in Photoshop but I do use it for product mock-ups and photo editing occasionally.

  2. Squarespace for my website  

    • This hosts my portfolio, my product listings (has e-commerce capabilities), my contact info, blog, etc.

    • I have embedded inquiry forms and opportunities to sign up for my email newsletter here as well

    • Squarespace has great templates. I think it looks clean and professional, and it’s easy to use/ edit on the back end. I know there are also templates that you can buy and more customizable opportunities through a web designer but I have just used one of their basic templates.  

    • You can find the pricing info here - I have the business plan, paid yearly + my domain which is $20/ year.

  3. Dubsado for client management, forms, invoicing 

    • Click here to get a discount (use code KAITLYNASHLEE20 to get 20% off your first month or year (a better deal ;))

    • The invoicing feature links with Stripe and PayPal. Their invoices look clean and professional.

    • The forms are embedded beautifully into my Squarespace site

      • There are 13 options for building a form, the responses auto-populate a client/project page as well - so all information about a client is easy to find in their dashboard

      • From the forms, clients select how they found you, which is helpful for analytics, insights

    • You can categorize by stage in your booking process. sub-categories for leads and projects

    • You can also add workflows and automations to make your process run efficiently

    • See my graphic below to get a few sneak peeks into the platform

  4. The A to Z directory 

    • A great directory for printing and production vendors

      • (Where I print my greeting cards, art prints, notepads, business cards, and find envelopes and packaging supplies, etc.)

    • Click here to get a discount (use code: KAITLYNASHLEE20 to get $20 off your first year)

    • The owners of Biz Birthday Bash also have a podcast where they share free information for small business owners

  5. Upwork

    • A freelancing site where I find a good number of graphic design clients

    • There are no fees to set up an account (unless you upgrade), the fees are baked in when you book and bill a client. They take 20% until you make $500 with the client, and 10% after that. They direct deposit every week for amounts over $100.  

    • Companies post project descriptions —> and then you apply via a proposal —> and then they reach out to interview, ask questions, or hire if they are interested —> they hire you via hourly or fixed price —> upwork facilitates the payment —> they give you feedback/ reviews

Other tools that I think are worth the money:

  • Orion and The Noun Project for icon libraries (yearly subscription) 

  • Creative Market for fonts and other resources (pay for what you need)

  • Etsy as a selling platform - (free to have a shop, then they take 5% of sales but other platforms take the credit card fees,  they have ad opportunities as well)

  • Dropbox for business - for file storage, easily editable on your computer 

  • Stickermule for printing stickers (You’ll get a $10 store credit and I’ll get $10 added to your account when you spend $10 or more with my link)

  • Procreate - drawing app for the iPad + iPencil ($9.99 one time purchase)

Free tools for business that I love: (sharing the list here, will go more in depth below. * = free to an extent, or for a version of it)

  • Slack  for communication

  • Asana for organization

  • Calendly for scheduling calls (I use the free version, there are upgrades)

  • Etsy* (free to create the shop, fees for purchases)

  • Dropbox and Google Drive* (free to a certain storage amount) 

  • Instagram for social media

  • Mint for finances

  • Pinterest for sharing products and services

  • Unsplash (an app for stock images)

  • Zoom for video (or audio) meetings, screensharing, etc. (also it links automatically with Calendly for setting up my inquiry calls

  • Rawgraphs - a tool for dataviz

  • Datawrapper - for dataviz

  • Lightroom app for your phone - to edit photos, create presets for yourself- it’s a game-changer for photos for Instagram/ your website

Next week I will go through all of the different areas of a small creative business and make notes where applicable, share resources, insights, and other experiences under these categories:

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  • Administrative work

    • Setting up your business

    • Email & communications

    • File storage

    • Workflows / staying organized

  • Advertising/ finding clients

    • Social media - Instagram/ Facebook

    • Email marketing

    • Etsy

    • Pinterest

    • Upwork

  • Blogging

  • Business goals/vision-casting

  • Creating art & designs

  • Client management

  • Finances

    • Invoicing, payments, expenses

  • Printing & production

  • Product v. service-focused businesses

  • Shipping

  • Website maintenance

  • Reviews

  • Other: community and education

Here are some sneak peeks into 2 of my favorite tools:

Thanks for reading! Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts. Will post the next blog (part 2) next week.

Kaitlyn