[Freelance Graphic Designer Essentials] Check Out the Best Touchscreen Laptops for Competitive Illustration

Now with the pandemic on the loose, the demand for graphic designers has gone down and the new graphic designers that charge less have increased. This means that the newbies are charging less and the whole industry is getting even more competitive.

In order to stay at the top of your game, you'll have to strategically plan out the type of work and promotions that you do. In order to be effective, you can't just rely on pure talent alone. There are three things that you need to work on in order to stay relevant and competitive in the freelance field.

Here are the three things to watch out for:

Skill

The very basic necessity is for you to be skilled enough in your craft. This means taking up bigger projects with more stressful demands in order to expand your horizons. In order to improve your skill, you'll have to experiment and broaden your horizons.

Try things out of your comfort zone and improve on them. Let's say you aren't too good at making caricature illustrations, you'll have to find a client who you can work for so you can improve your craft when it comes to this specific type of illustration.

Reputation

Since you are a freelancer, guarding your reputation is very important. If the client is not satisfied with your work no matter what, you will have to respectfully pass the work to someone else without trying to leach off of that client. It happens, sometimes things just don't work out. But that's okay, as long as you have a good reputation.

Another thing you can do to improve your reputation is to take on projects you know would look good on your portfolio despite hurting your rate. It's okay to go below your rate every once in a while as long as you are in agreement with your client about not divulging the discount.

Payment

Finally, this is where you look for gigs that you know pay well despite not challenging you professionally. Although it is nice to take on risk every once in a while, it is still very necessary to keep yourself safe by doing projects that offer security.

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Here are three of the best touchscreen laptops to keep you competitive:

2020 HP 15 15.6" HD Touchscreen Premium Laptop - 10th Gen Intel Core i5-1035G1, 16GB DDR4, 512GB SSD, USB Type-C, HDMI, Windows 10 - Silver W

Of course, HP would be your first bet. At $700, you'll be able to have a functional touchscreen laptop wherever you go, and even in your work station, the addition of a laptop really increases your opportunities.

CHUWI UBook 11.6'' Touchscreen 2-in-1 Windows 10 Tablet PC, Intel N4100 Quad Core Processor, 1080P Display, 8GB RAM/256GB SSD with Type-c, USB 3.0 (Keyboard and Pen not Included)

This is actually a pretty decent laptop for quick sketches and easy makeups. Plus, it's very portable so you can bring it with you when you show your client your work.

Acer Aspire 5 Slim Laptop, 15.6 inches Full HD IPS Display, AMD Ryzen 3 3200U, Vega 3 Graphics, 4GB DDR4, 128GB SSD, Backlit Keyboard, Windows 10 in S Mode, A515-43-R19L,Silver

This laptop is the only AMD laptop in the bunch but don't let this scare you. AMD is actually pretty good if you are just after the specs and are not an Intel loyalist.

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