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Making it in the world of freelance, isn’t as easy as it used to be. While there was a time when being really good at one thing would insure that you always had work, it’s now more important than ever to offer a range of services.
Client’s don’t want to hunt down several different artists to complete the items on their deliverables list. Instead, they want one turn key solution that will handle everything.
As a graphic designer for example, you may find yourself with a client who wants video edited, and motion graphics as well. If you can only offer graphic designer services, you may lose out on the work. However, there is good news. It’s actually quite easy to expand your list of services with the right software, a basic knowledge of how it works, and a bank of templates and creative assets to work from.
Let’s start with the software. As a graphic designer, you are probably already using Adobe’s Creative Cloud services for some of your work. And if you aren’t, you should really look into it. For $49 a month, Adobe gives users access to an entire library of creative tools including After Effects for motion graphics, Premiere Pro for video editing, Audition for audio editing and several other industry standards like Photoshop and Illustrator.
While it does take some time to master applications like After Effects and Premiere Pro, it’s not that hard to get started. And there is an abundance of resources online to help you learn. One example is Lynda.com, the massive online learning portal that has several hundred courses dedicated to Adobe products. It will set you back $25 a month for the standard membership, but it could be a great investment.
Of course there are plenty of free resources online as well. Here are some free YouTube tutorials on How To Learn Adobe After Effects, and How To Learn Adobe Premiere Pro. A few searches will net you tons of content to help get you started moving in the right direction.
Once you have the software and some of the basics of how it works, the final key is a library of creative assets, including templates to work with. A template is basically a pre-created project file with all of the design and animation included that a user can make changes to for custom video creation. Often templates simply need to have images, video, and text replaced before rendering out the final product.
Of course, they are completely customizable, so a more advanced user can change the way items animate, alter colors, and fiddle with all sorts of settings as they see fit. They can even use a template as a basis for learning a technique that they want to use for another project.
One marketplace for creative assets and templates worth checking out is Motion Array. The library at Motion Array houses nearly 14,000 files which include After Effects templates, Premiere Pro templates, stock motion graphics, music, and video.
Motion Array sets itself apart from other marketplaces with a simple license and an unique pricing structure. First off, instead of a pay per download fee that can lead to $40 or $50 costs for one template, Motion Array is built around a monthly subscription system that starts at $19 a month for 4 downloads. That’s under $5 per asset. The Pro plan gives you 20 downloads a month for $49, making each asset as low as $2.45.
Motion Array also has one simple license for every item downloaded on it’s platform. It basically works like this. Download an asset and it’s yours. Use it for anything, personal to commercial, from wedding videos to major network commercials.
Here are a few of the types of items that can be downloaded from Motion Array.
Once you have the right software, some basic understanding of how to use it, and a collection of high quality templates and assets, you’ll be able to handle way more tasks for your clients. You can go from graphic designer to animator and editor in a flash.
