Professional Design Practice :: Lesson 1 :: Self-Promotion & Winning Work

Originally published 2014. Updated March 2026.

This is the first in a series of Professional Practice lessons covering the business side of graphic design. Also in the series: Freelance Fee Structures & How to Quote, Project Planning, Dealing with Clients, Invoicing Clients, The Presentation, and Graphic Design Contracts.

Self-Promotion & Winning Work

Competition for design work has never been fiercer. Standing out means more than good work — it means making an impression on the people you meet, building a reputation through integrity, and being the name that comes to mind when someone needs a designer. Your work opens the door. Your conduct keeps it open.

Great Expectations

Many of us grow up hearing the phrase “from little acorns, large oak trees grow”. Worth remembering when starting out in graphic design. After years reading about star designers and browsing the portfolios of favourite studios, it is easy to become stuffed to the gills on great work. The rude awakening comes when, on graduating, you find that Nike are not banging at your door to insist on giving you their next international campaign, or that Pentagram have not created a position especially for you.

Starting out rarely involves clients of that calibre. More realistically, your first break might come through a small charity, a local business, or an acquaintance in need of an identity. These are the kinds of “little acorns” which, though not as glamorous as Nike and its ilk, offer young designers an opportunity to cut their teeth, do strong work, and begin to cultivate a reputation.

In “It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be”, Paul Arden writes: “Whatever is on your desk right now, that’s the one. Make it the best you possibly can.” He is right. By conducting yourself with integrity and doing your best on each job, you make moves toward building a good professional reputation.

The “dream clients” will already have access to award-winning, highly reputable design studios. The evidence is there in the quality of their campaigns. Far better to look in the less exposed corners of the business world and seek out those who could really do with your help.

Adrian Shaughnessy in “How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul” puts it well: “There is more personal satisfaction in taking a client with no apparent potential and producing effective and resonant work for them than there is in working for so-called ‘cool brands’.”

With realistic expectations and a personal business ethic in place, you can deploy the techniques explored below to help make things happen.

Word of Mouth

It occasionally frustrates me how many potential clients are going about their work unaware of just how much good graphic design could enhance the value of their business. These potential clients are everywhere. One of our jobs is to tap into this rich seam and pull some aboard, just as the brown bear scoops salmon from the fast-flowing stream in the wilds of Canada.

There are various methods of finding clients at our disposal. To maximise our chances of building a solid client base, we need to exploit each of them.

One of the surest ways of making contacts and finding work remains plain old-fashioned word of mouth. Make sure family members and friends all know what you do and have some idea of what the profession entails. They will be in a position to mention your name — and perhaps pass on a well-designed business card of yours — should they hear of anything going. Between you and everybody you know, you probably know more people who commission design than you think.

The same rule applies to clients. If you have an existing client, ask them to keep an ear to the ground for you and recommend you to their associates. By working every contact you can think of, things can develop in an exponential manner.

Your Online Presence

Every designer needs an online presence. At the bare minimum, a well-designed single page acts as a point of contact where potential clients can find your work, your services, and a way to reach you.

Beyond your own site, maintain profiles on the platforms where your target clients look for designers. Behance, Dribbble, and LinkedIn are the main ones, though your own portfolio website remains the anchor. If you write a blog or share work on social media, link everything back to your main site. The more relentlessly you connect your online presence into a cohesive whole, the easier you are to find.

Social media can be a useful tool for making contacts. LinkedIn, Instagram, and even Threads have replaced the role that earlier platforms used to play for designers. By sharing your work, following interesting practitioners, and leaving links to useful resources, you can gain a valuable network of contacts — some of whom may reach out when they need creative services. Once you get going, posting the same update across platforms takes seconds, and it pays to disseminate your information as widely as possible.

Link each account, blog, and website back to the others. The more integrated your online presence, the better your chances of building a substantial pool of contacts.

Self-Promotional Material

Back in the real, tangible world of print and paper, you will also need to engage in the production of printed promotional literature. Be prepared to work hard to make whatever you produce visually arresting and distinctive. The world is awash with printed, moribund detritus and amongst all this you will want to get noticed.

You might start with a postcard, displaying an image of a favourite piece of work on one side and your contact details on the reverse. The more ambitious-minded might want to experiment with an intricately folding piece displaying a choice selection of work. This adds a tactile element for the end user to experience.

Your promotional piece should be used to leave behind at interviews and meetings, and to send out to people. Direct mail should be considered. Just as I am advising you to do here, I myself recently designed and had printed a 16pp A3 poster, which folds down to postcard size. One side contained a selection of imagery from my portfolio with explanatory text, and the reverse some typography and contact details. I sent this piece out, combined with a handwritten letter on my own letterhead, to existing and prospective clients and studios whose businesses I admired.

In two months I was invited to several portfolio reviews with design studios — advice and criticism given at these are invaluable — and pulled a new client on board. My database of contacts received a considerable boost through the endeavour.

I learned that details with this sort of thing matter. Have a well-designed, cohesive suite of stationery for writing to people. Find out your contact’s name and record it accurately to avoid the dreaded “Dear Sir/Madam”. Another tip from Adrian Shaughnessy: “when you write a letter, especially a letter promoting you or your company, always write the address on the envelope by hand. It is so rare to get a letter with a handwritten address that most people instinctively open these first.”

In 2026, the same principle applies to emails and digital outreach. A thoughtful, personalised message stands out against the noise of templated correspondence. Whether print or digital, the effort shows.

The Self-Initiated Brief

“Self-initiated projects are often necessary for the individual’s psychic health, and the urge to experiment and explore is perfectly reasonable.” So says Adrian Shaughnessy, who then makes clear that we should be under no illusion — self-initiated projects rarely impress in the same way that a real commercial project will.

He has a valid point, although there are no hard and fast rules. I have met people in studios who have politely leafed through my commercial work and only displayed real interest when coming across my letterpress work, which is largely self-initiated. One past client even took me on for a summer on the strength of a student sketchbook.

Though rare, if good enough and visible online, your work may be spotted by the editor of a design journal and images requested for inclusion. This happens for personal projects just as easily as commercial ones. My own feeling is that self-initiated projects allow the designer to give full rein to their creative impulses, letting any potential client see who the person they may commission really is.

Summary

By pouring sweat, blood, and tears over the various means and methods described above, you will be laying the sound foundations of a healthy freelance life. Maintain realistic goals. Be aware of the zeitgeist, of all that goes on around you. Try to act with originality and precision when working on self-promotional and self-initiated work, and your online presence. Treat self-promotion as an ongoing process rather than a sequence of one-offs.

By maintaining a critical, striving attitude to your own work and acting with integrity and professionalism in your dealings with people, you will soon be on the front foot and cracking open the champagne.

Top Tips

• Start with realistic expectations — your first clients will not be Nike, and that is fine
• Do your best work on every job, no matter how small the client
• Tell everyone you know what you do — word of mouth remains the most reliable source of work
• Build a cohesive online presence across your own site, Behance, LinkedIn, and social media
• Invest in well-designed printed promotional material — something tangible that people remember
• Personalise your outreach — handwritten addresses, real names, thoughtful messages
• Pursue self-initiated projects to show who you are as a designer
• Treat self-promotion as an ongoing practice, not a one-off effort

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Ready to build the design skills that make self-promotion worth doing? Explore the Certificate IV in Graphic Design at The Graphic Design School — self-paced study with the support of real industry tutors.

Next in the series: Freelance Fee Structures & How to Quote