Reach Out, Follow Up - Designer Émilie Chen

Émilie Chen will tell you the formula for a freelance career isn't complicated. Reach out to people. Follow up. That's it. It's how a chance contact sheet turned into work with Penguin Books, Faber & Faber and Somerset House. It's how a stalled museum dream is still, quietly, alive years later. And it's how eight women meeting in a theatre lobby grew into a community that gave her the confidence to ask for help in the first place. She talks generosity, persistence, and what happens when you actually knock on the door.

Steve Folland21 June 2026Comment

Adrian Ashton - Freelancing As An Unpaid Carer

Adrian has been freelancing for 21 years. For the last seven, he's also been an unpaid carer - for not one, not two, but three immediate family members. He opens up about how that changed everything: his business model, his marketing, his ambitions, even how he thinks about constraints. And why he's been fighting to make sure freelance carers stop being invisible.

Steve Folland14 June 2026Comment

Ocean Writer Melissa Hobson

“I just want to write about fish”. That’s what Melissa Hobson told her mastermind group a few years ago; she was tired of freelancing in PR & Comms. She wanted to follow her passion into marine science.

So she went for it. Diving head first into her niche. Coming up for air now to tell us how she managed to get the likes of National Geographic and BBC Wildlife as clients - how she became ‘The Ocean Writer’.

Steve Folland7 June 2026Comment

Designer & Illustrator Doaly

All good super-heroes have an origin story. This interview tells the series of events that unfurled when an in-house UX designer was bitten by the creative bug. Scratching the illustration itch took him into the world of freelancing for the likes of Marvel & DC.

Steve Folland31 May 2026Comment

Business Name vs Your Own Name: Which is Better for Freelancers?

It's one of the most common questions in freelancing: should you trade under a business name or your own personal name? Steve Folland digs into 11 years of the Being Freelance archive to find out.

Steve Folland24 May 2026Comment

Illustrator Jessica Hartshorn

Jessica spent 16 years working in museums and galleries. But the whole time, she was quietly craving something else: to make art herself. So she set up a secret Instagram account, and started painting again. Seven years later, she's a successful freelance illustrator whose niche in museums and galleries has made her the go-to person in a world she already knew inside out.

Steve Folland10 May 2026Comment