A dive into freelance life

— 3 minute read

After a rather lengthy, draining search for a new role, I’ve decided to give freelance design and development a go. I feel like this could be the best way for me to work on things that genuinely make a positive impact on people, while also maintaining work-life balance for my young family.

Making work, work for me permalink

The gang and I at No Divide are going on hiatus and I want to maintain the flexible work day that we had there. We very much made work fit around us, rather than the other way around and I was struggling to get a role in a company that worked like that.

I also want to maintain a sensible pace of work. We put a lot of consideration into what we did there and I’ve struggled to find companies that would be an exact fit on that front. It’s not to say we necessarily did things better, but it’s my preferred way of working, rather than shipping fast and frequently.

After a couple of ideal opportunities got away from me, I decided to go for the next best thing: independence. I actually started my career in the web as a freelancer, back in 2009, so it’ll be interesting to do it again with much more experience and much better contacts. I’ve learnt how not to do things in various agency roles too, so I feel pretty confident that I’ll do it right this time.

The sort of work I’m looking for permalink

I’m really into progressive enhancement, user experience, accessibility and inclusivity. I’m multi-disciplined in that I work as both a designer and a developer. This means I can work from concept, right though to delivery if needed. Any projects that allow me to do that will be warmly received.

These are the sort of projects / contexts that I’d be most useful in:

  • A new startup that needs help making an MVP or prototype
  • Design systems
  • Pattern libraries (design and/or build)
  • User experience research, design and prototypes
  • User interface design
  • HTML and CSS development
  • React, Vue and Node development
  • Accessibility audits and improvements
  • WordPress / Craft CMS / Perch CMS websites (design and/or build)
  • Jekyll / Hugo / Gatsby / Eleventy websites (design and/or build)
  • Development for agencies that need a bit of help to get projects done

Hire me permalink

I’m booking projects for 2019, so I’d love to talk. I prefer to work remotely, but I’m very happy to come to you for meetings and workshops.

Get in touch

Hi 👋, I’m Andy — an educator and web designer

I produce front-end development tutorials over at Front-End Challenges Club and Piccalilli. You can sign up for updates on Piccalilli to stay up to date with its progress.

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