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The importance of having a good mindset as a small business

Starting a small business is an exciting transition to make. And for Claire and Beka, starting The Renew Room, there was plenty of motivation to do so. Both in a time of their life with young children, they wanted flexibility and control over their working environment and schedules, as well as the ability to pick up more clients when it suited. We caught up with Beka and Claire recently and they beautifully explained how they combined their skills and experience as a graphic designer and ma...

The graphic designers guide to making your life better with Chat-GPT

We’ve been a little slow out the gate with our first post about Chat-GPT and the AI (artificial intelligence) behind it. Why? We’ve been too busy playing with Chat-GPT and every day we’re finding new applications that blow us away. This article covers all of the ways AI is changing our lives as designers, writers and marketers here at Rocketspark....

1st year of business vs 2nd year of business + getting into a routine as a small business owner

Minja van der Paard from Relatable Design Co doesn’t sugarcoat the first year of being a small business owner. “It was crazy and chaotic, juggling two jobs plus life. I don’t even have kids either! I just had to do things on the go and as I needed to. It was hard.” But things eventually settled down, and now it’s a ride she definitely doesn’t regret, having found her groove in her second year of being in business. We had a chat with Minja, and she shared her story about her...

Should I charge an urgent rate to clients?

An urgent rate is a higher hourly rate for work that requires an urgent turnaround. But why would you need this?Early in your freelancing journey, you might jump at the chance for any billable client work you can get. Before long though, you’ll face the challenge of competing client expectations and finite capacity.If a client has an urgent request, you have a choice: prioritise the urgent request and delay the other work you had scheduled or take on the stress of overworking to appease both c...

Tracking the impact graphic designers can have on their client’s business goals

As someone who has been in the business of design for more than 20 years, Tonia Reid from Greenhouse Creative has certainly seen her fair share of clients. Originally working as a Mac operator and desktop publisher, Tonia then moved into more of the traditional graphic design work such as posters, flyers and advertisements. But it wasn’t until she discovered the world of branding that she knew she had found ‘home’.  “Brand and brand strategy is where my heart is, because I...

Managing mindset and mental health while running your own design business

Going ‘out on your own’ as a graphic designer comes with a myriad of emotions. And while there are plenty of positive ones to experience, the negative ones are likely to come knocking at some point too. Even those who have been running businesses for many years still go through a roller coaster of ups and downs, like Tonia Reid who has been working for herself for more than 20 years. We had a chat with her about all things mental health and she shared some of her thoughts on what she ha...

Minja’s journey - From agency to freelance graphic designer

For Minja van der Paard, going out on her own as a graphic designer hadn’t been part of her plan. Then at the start of 2020, she faced two options for the next stage of her career. “I had this decision to make, but the one to become a small business owner was just screaming at me. So it was like it was meant to be, without me even making it happen.”Now she works from her home in Tauranga, running her own business Relatable Design Co, where she offers a range of graphic design services...

How Natalie White is championing community over competition as a graphic designer

As a freelance graphic designer, it’s hard to not to feel ‘threatened’ by other people doing the same stuff as you. Maybe you see that a gig you had quoted for actually got snapped up by another designer, or that there is someone else niching in the same area as you. Whatever the reason, we tend to naturally see other graphic designers as ‘the competition’, when in fact, there’s actually many wonderful reasons we should see them as a part of our community. And it just so happens...

Stuck when it comes to self promo? Here’s our Marketing 101 for Creatives

We all choose to go out on our own for various reasons. And it’s exciting to be at the helm of your own business, even if you’re ‘just’ a one-person-band!  But one of the hardest parts of working for yourself is having to wear so many ‘hats’ - you’re the decision-maker and the doer, the account manager and the sales rep, the complaints department and the customer rep. And amongst all this, you’re supposed to keep up with all the current marketing trends.   Or do yo...

Upcoming web design trends 2023

We caught up with the product and design team at Rocketspark to see what they think the upcoming website design trends are for this year. We discussed eight upcoming web design trends for you to keep an eye out for heading into the year. ...

Content gathering - going from despair to delight (mostly)

Do you struggle with gathering content from your clients? It can be a huge hindrance for graphic designers who are trying to move forward with a project. Someone who knows this very well is Grant Johnson, co-founder and CEO of Rocketspark. Rocketspark used to manage their own design projects and are very familiar with trying to gather content from clients and having all content and feedback come flying in at once on a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend. Over time, Grant and their little t...

How to prepare for the summer lull

The nature of owning your own design business can be scary when preparing for the summer lull when designers and their clients tend to go on holiday.  In the southern hemisphere there is the double whammy of Christmas and New Year holidays when clients head to the beach and design work coming your way tends to dry up. I reached out to a bunch of switched on designers and design businesses to see what they do to prepare for the quiet times so they can hit the ground running in the following ...

6 easy-to-execute time management tips for creatives

As creatives, things like time management don’t always come naturally. We’d rather be designing a cool new logo for a client, or coming up with a fresh tagline for a new brand.    But, whether you want to hear it or not, time management is actually one of the key foundations which contribute to our overall success as a creative. From meeting deadlines, to assigning the correct amount of time to a project, it’s about productivity and revenue - and ensuring we aren’t overwor...

Become an ace of space

If your background is in print graphic design & branding, you're likely familiar with designing fixed size collateral like business cards, a DLE flyer or a magazine cover. This is a key difference with web design — the width is flexi and the height is scrollable. If you pack content tightly together in the centre of the page like you might on a flyer, leaving lots of space down the sides of the page, this creates a sort of narrow tower of content on the page that feels outdated and doesn�...

Here’s 5 signs it’s time to increase your pricing as a freelancer - and how to do it!

Pricing is a challenging issue for many creatives. From deciding on hourly rates or all-inclusive prices, worrying it’s too high and you’re missing out on clients, or too low and you’re not earning what you should be - there’s plenty to try and figure out!  And perhaps the hardest part is that you are the only one who can make the final call. But don’t worry - we’ve got you sorted with all the inside scoop on pricing (with some tips from the ever brilliant duo of Natalie Coombe ...

Choosing colours for a website

Colour is one of the most significant drivers of first impressions, so it’s important to get it right for your website design. You’re not designing the website for you or your client, you’re designing the website for the Persona you’ve identified earlier with the client. Is your colour palette going to appeal to this persona? How do you want the website to feel? Calm? Luxurious? Exciting? Formal? Fun? This article covers off some key aspects of using colour in web design. ...

Hey designers - here’s how to get started when creating an eCommerce website

Whether you’re a newbie to web design (or looking to upskill) there’s plenty to learn about not only getting the look and feel right - but also creating a rock solid process that will help you get from start to finish without too many road bumps along the way. So we thought we would share some of our own design expertise, as well as the learnings we have seen many of our partners go through on their journey to becoming exceptional eCommerce website designers.  Of course, website design ...

The importance of investing in professional photography for a website

We all know that a ‘picture paints a thousand words’, and this old saying certainly rings true when it comes to photographs on a website. Our brains process visual content at lightning speed, and as we do, we’re making all kinds of decisions about what it is that we see - are we interested in it, does it relate to our lives, do we trust it, do we like it?    But it’s often a difficult part of the website design process as there are many clients who ‘just don’t get’ h...