Live and learn. We all made a lot of these mistakes when we were younger.

“I price what I’m worth and I’m worth a lot” – That is a great attitude. If you’re confident in your prices, you’ll be confident with your work, which always leads to a more respectful relationship with a client. If you know that you’re worth it, your clients will too.

Best of luck!

It’s hard when you’re starting out. If contests are the only work you can do to learn, then by all means do them. I think when we start out we all hit up craigslist or friends or other bad places to find work.

What’s important is that you recognize the destructive aspects of spec work sites (or craigslist, etc.), and start finding quality work outside of that. If you want to make living as a designer, and not get burned out from stress… definitely avoid these places. The work itself doesn’t kill you, it’s the stress that comes with it, haha.

For those of you looking for GOOD clients, try hitting up local businesses, get your business cards out there. Go to parties, networking events, meet people. Eventually somebody cool will want to work with you, and that might even lead to referrals for more work. Cool people lead to cool work, which means you’ll get paid AND have fun.

Much success to everyone. Me thinks you should turn this into a poster and offer for sale.