In his 2012 Commencement Address to the University of Arts in Philadelphia, British author Neil Gaiman famously said that “a freelance life, a life in the arts, is sometimes like putting messages in bottles, on a desert island, and hoping that someone will find one of your bottles and open it and read it, and put something in a bottle that will wash its way back to you: appreciation, or a commission, or money, or love. And you have to accept that you may put out a hundred things for every bottle that winds up coming back.”

Let’s say that you’ve started a small graphic design studio with your collage room mates and you have landed a few small projects with a couple of big companies. This is just the beginning of the road for you, you still have a lot to learn, to practice and you still have a long way to go before building your connections, growing your portfolio and becoming known.