on the clients we attract...

what kind of clients do you guys/girls try to attract? how does that influence how you present yourself (portfolio, website, etc...) are you successful?

I try to attract any client that will give me money.

Actually I'm not actively seeking clients. I sorta work as a contractor with another web design firm. They do the meetings and customer service, and I just make the sites. It works out nicely because I don't have to deal with clients.

My portfolio is designed the way I like it though. The way I would make a site if I could make a site the way I wanted.

Since owning a web Development firm. I do alot of advertising in local, national, and international mags, papers, and websites.

I do even post cards on boards at local stores i go to freq. I have my name out there in the community and try to do "free" stuff sometime for community events.



My companys portfolio is right to the point and shows case studies, and whom we done work for.



I have had alot of success.

Like Deker said. When they have money, I'll make everything for them.

So far, I've attracted a Network company that deals with webhosting and stuff.

A record label has approached me to design CDs and CD covers

Plus others...

How I present my portfolio?... Make it look personal, what I wanna do and not be really influence by other sites

I'm in progress of creating a new design, after your advise Charm, I thought maybe I should try something different from my usual, since now, my design section has moved to another site.

I'm kinda like deker, I go after the ones that will give me money. Nah, really for about the last 2 months I havn't "went" after anything, I have had 3 domains just fall in my lap....(monthly updates, and redesign after the first of the year.)

As for how I get my name out there, I've said it before... Classified ads. Along with the occasional-- Myself or my wife just going into a prospective customer's place of business and see if we can help them. She does more of that than I do, because , well.... she's more diplomatic and alot easier on the eyes than I happen to be. They are given a business card, on that card is EVERYTHING they need to check "Me" and my work, as well as contact information.

What kinds of stuff do I go after?
Well, to begin with I het every used car dealer in the area.... and I didn't find (1) that didn't "want" or "have" a website. I offer them updates as their stock on the lot changes. Alot of them had a "site" furnished by some HUGE Automart.com or something where knowbody was finding them... just the cars they had on the lot.

From there, with a half dozen or so car dealer websites under my belt, I moved on to other things: dentist offices, doctors offices, chiropractors, novelty shops...etc.

yeah, something like that.

I dont seek clients anymore. I have pretty much given up on the idea that I can make money doing this. I don't feel that I have the skills it takes to do this as a career. Back to PC Support I go. This is now just a hobby.

When I was looking for clients, I looked for people who knew what they wanted and could describe it in detail. Usually, the people I wanted to work with had research teams decide what kind of image the wanted to have and they just needed a designer to get it done. Unfortunatly, I am not a designer. I am too code oriented to understand true design concepts. I know a little about color harmony, typography and navigation design but what I know is dwarfed by what I don't know. So I don't look for people to work for anymore :(

But, if anyone knows someone who wants to give a guy who would love to do this for a living a shot to use what he knows to learn more, lemme know.

While I'm an employee of a company, I'm not the one who goes seeking clients, but of the ones we do get, its mainly been whatever the company can find to stay alive. Small websites, large websites, computer programs or database management (of which I don't exactly have much input on anyway).

As for what my company uses to attract business. Its primarily been the previous work portfolio.

As for myself to attract jobs. This current job is the only one I've had of the sort. I went to about 20 or more interviews, and finally got this job. I had no work experience in this field, but now I'm fairly sure I can seek employment in graphic design much easier. Having an enormous portfoliio like I do now helps out a lot. But I haven't been seeking new employment myself since getting this job.

The company I work for does not actively seek clients for web work. Most of our web work is done for local clients, and we have very little local competition. The people around here just want somebody they can actually sit down and talk to face to face, not on the telephone or through email. We don't have a portfolio at all for our web work either. I do personally, but the company does not. At this current point, I have FAR more work than I can personally handle, and I doubt that I will satisfy all the people seeking sites right now, since I have 1 huge site that I need to finish, and 2 others that I'm also working on at THIS point. I have 4 more that I need to start on as soon as possible, but I do not see this happening, and may lose them if I don't get some help.

these are great answers! i really was curious where everyone was coming from.

as for me...

for the longest time i was happy to do webdesign at work all day and then work on freelance projects nights and weekends. recently i realized that i was really sick of all that! now i spend my time as a painter and illustrator. i still do the webdesign at work, but that's plenty!