Freelance designers choosing client project management tools

Matthias "Matti" Keller

Matthias Keller grew up in a small town outside Kassel, the son of a technical drafter and a primary-school librarian. He was the quiet child who redrew football-club badges in the margins of his exercise books and spent Saturday afternoons taking apart old radios without quite knowing how to put them back together. At the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach, he studied communication design and became interested in the space between a beautiful idea and a system that ordinary people can actually use. His diploma project examined the visual language of municipal notices, an early sign of his lasting interest in public-facing design. After graduating, Matthias worked for several Frankfurt and Berlin studios, learning identity design, information architecture, print production, and the less glamorous discipline of documenting decisions. He went freelance at 28 after a small agency closed unexpectedly. The first years were financially uneven and professionally improvisational, but he gradually developed a practice through referrals from architects, arts organizations, publishers, and founders of mission-driven companies. He now works from a compact home studio in Neukölln, using Figma, Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Notion, Harvest, and a structured cloud archive. His files are meticulously named; his desktop is not. His income usually falls between €55,000 and €70,000 before tax, depending on project timing. He pays himself a regular monthly amount, maintains separate tax and business accounts, and keeps an emergency reserve large enough to reduce panic during quiet periods. Money gives him options, not status. He still repairs a good bicycle rather than replacing it and buys furniture slowly. He recently declined a prestigious but chaotic project after realizing its schedule would consume the school holidays and undermine two existing commitments. He felt both relieved and mildly guilty. Matthias is proud of his work but uncomfortable with self-promotion. He would rather show a clear case study than describe himself as visionary. His central professional challenge is protecting concentration while remaining responsive enough to sustain trust. He has become more willing to explain constraints early, charge for additional rounds, and leave space between projects. At 42, he is less interested in appearing busy than in building a durable life: dependable work, time with Anika and Leni, good food, occasional music, and enough attention left over to notice how a city is changing.

Eleanor Vance

Eleanor Vance's journey into brand design began not just with a passion for aesthetics, but with a deep-seated desire to help businesses communicate their stories effectively. After graduating from Central Saint Martins with a BA in Graphic Design, she spent a formative few years at a boutique agency in Shoreditch, honing her skills in visual identity and digital design. The agency environment taught her the rigours of client service and project management, but she found herself increasingly drawn to the autonomy and direct impact offered by freelance work. For the past decade, she has built a reputation as a reliable and insightful brand designer, specialising in working with companies that prioritize ethical practices and sustainability. Her London flat, a testament to her organised and creative nature, serves as both her sanctuary and her studio. Eleanor is deeply conscious of her time and finances, viewing them as resources to be managed wisely to support her professional goals and personal well-being. She actively invests in her professional development, attending industry webinars and subscribing to leading design publications to stay abreast of emerging trends and technologies. While she enjoys the freedom of freelancing, she is acutely aware of the need for robust planning, meticulously managing her workload and finances to ensure stability and prevent burnout. Her approach to work is characterised by a blend of meticulous attention to detail and a forward-thinking mindset, always aiming to deliver solutions that are not only visually compelling but also strategically sound and enduring.

Evan Morales

Evan Morales grew up in a bilingual household in north San Antonio, the son of a municipal electrician and a medical billing coordinator. He was a quiet kid around adults but endlessly talkative with friends, spending high school afternoons modifying game interfaces, making music-festival posters, and teaching himself basic HTML from scattered online tutorials. He enrolled at a community college after graduation but left during his second year when tuition, commuting, and an uninspiring retail job began to feel like a poor trade. He never described leaving as dropping out; he says he changed direction before he had accumulated more debt. At 22, Evan moved to Austin with a friend and took contract work updating menus and event pages for local businesses. A restaurant owner noticed his design instincts and referred him to two more clients. That small network became the foundation of his freelance career. He has since learned through online courses, critique groups, documentation, and painful trial and error. His skills are strongest in layout, visual hierarchy, responsive design, and translating vague ideas into something clients can see. He is less confident with sales tax, legal language, accessibility audits, and the slow administrative work that follows a finished design. Evan's current setup is practical rather than polished: a secondhand standing desk, a calibrated monitor he saved for over several months, a battered laptop for travel, and a whiteboard covered with client names, hiking plans, and half-finished personal ideas. He keeps project files organized enough to find things but not enough to impress an accountant. Recently, he declined a full-time agency position after making it to the final interview. The salary would have been more predictable, but the role required a long commute and sounded heavily focused on production revisions. He still wonders whether independence is a principle or simply a habit. Time matters to Evan almost as much as money. He will accept a lean month if it buys him an afternoon outside, but irregular income makes him cautious about rent, taxes, and helping family. Status does not interest him unless it represents useful work or genuine skill. He wants to become dependable without becoming rigid, and successful without turning every friendship into networking. His central tension is that he understands the systems needed for a sustainable career, yet resists them whenever they make creative work feel like an office job.