Creative Freedom is (finally) out. A couple of weeks ago in Cambridge, we got a room full of designers, contributors, friends, and the Rocketspark team together to celebrate the launch. After a long stretch of writing, second-guessing, and rewriting, it still feels a bit surreal that people can actually buy a copy.
A bit about why we wrote it
My background before Rocketspark was as a freelance graphic and web designer, so a lot of the stories in this book are ones I lived through. Clients that took forever to pay, projects that blew out past the original quote, the cashflow stress, and the strange feeling of working hard and creating good work but watching the business side trip you up anyway.
Over the years at Rocketspark we've worked with hundreds of designers, and we kept seeing the same patterns. Our partner managers have had designers in tears on the phone, stuck in sticky situations with clients that could have been avoided with the right setup. We've also met designers who'd been freelancing for 15 years with one small gap in their process that was quietly costing them real money. When you're flying solo, you don't always know what you don't know.
We've done hundreds of webinars, blog posts, and courses over the years, but those things are scattered. We wanted one place designers could come back to. A practical field guide, the kind of thing you keep on your desk, so when a tricky client situation comes up you can flip to the section on quoting, or terms, or project management, and find an answer.
Here's me at the launch event talking about the journey to launch Creative Freedom 👇
Why the outdoor adventure metaphor
I spend a lot of time in the bush. It's how I recharge. And I've had days out there that were some of the best of my life, and days where I didn't have the right gear or enough food and got into a bit of trouble. Freelancing is a lot like that. With the right tools and some preparation, it can be an amazing adventure. Without them, it gets cold and lonely fast.
The book leans into that metaphor throughout. Your terms and conditions become the shelter you set up before the weather turns. Pricing and quotes are the fire that keeps the whole thing going. Project management is the map. The metaphor sounds cute, but it's how the work actually feels when you're in it.
The school of hard knocks
A lot of what's in the book came from us getting it wrong first. Grant has a story he tells often. There was a period at Rocketspark where we had a strong pipeline of work but couldn't pay ourselves. We were doing the work, but cash was always behind. We started charging a 25% deposit and eventually changed it to 50%. Serious leads weren’t phased by the concept of paying a deposit. That single change transformed our cashflow.
That's the energy of a lot of the book. Lessons that feel obvious in hindsight but take years to figure out on your own.
Here's Grant talking about his journey 👇
A book shaped by a community
I love that Creative Freedom isn't just our story. It features the stories of designers we've worked with over the years, people like Kylie Darroch, Sara-Jane Austen, Shaun Kirkham, Nat White, Liz Webb, Jessica Morrissey (watch her talk from the launch below), Catherine Watson, Ruth Gilmour, and others. There are funny stories, vulnerable ones, and stories about client situations that didn't end well. All of them are generous in the way they share what they've learned.
I hope there's a real community feel to it. The whole point of the book is to help designers avoid the preventable negative situations that nobody really talks about until they're in the middle of one.
A huge thanks to everyone who contributed their stories, to Tyron Noble for designing the book, to the Rocketspark team, and to Greg Wallace who managed so much of our client work in the years this book draws from. And to my brother Grant, who shaped this just as much as I did, even though the words ended up in my voice.
Grab a copy
If you're a designer running your own business, or thinking about taking the leap, this book was written for you. You can grab a copy at getcreativefreedom.com, and you'll also get access to our resource pack with templates for quoting, terms and conditions, financial forecasting, and project management.
You've got this.
Jeremy
