Starting Your Career as a Freelance Web Designer

Starred review from August 1, 2011

Tortorella, an award-winning graphic designer with more than 30 years of freelance experience, has done his best to create the essential business manual for the freelance web designer. This is not a book about how to design websites; it is about managing the financial, legal, and business realities of being a freelance web designer. Tortorella effectively explains the "rules" of this career in an accessible and readable format. Part One deals with the fundamentals of being a freelancer, including analyzing one's abilities and talents, formulating a business plan, understanding taxes and insurance, and finding trusted business advisers. In Part Two, Tortorella discusses the necessary proficiencies of the portfolio, proposals, project management, and marketing. Tips designed to inform and protect the novice are noted throughout. VERDICT Highly recommended. Tortorella's contribution is the nuts-and-bolts handbook for success in the field of freelance web design and will find a ready audience with the fledgling right-brain designer or the college student considering web design as a career.--Jane Scott, George Fox Univ. Lib., Newberg, OR

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