I started my design agency with a laptop, a list of contacts in the hospitality industry, and an unhealthy willingness to work stupid hours. Thirteen years later I sold it at £2.2M annual revenue. Every single thing I learned along the way is in these eight steps.

Starting a graphic design business is not just about being good at design. It is about understanding how to build something that delivers value to clients while making you money. Not a side hustle or a freelance gig. A proper business that brings sustainable revenue to you and your family.

Step 1: Find Your First Clients

Most people start by trying to name their studio and craft the perfect brand or website. Here is the truth: without clients, you do not have a business. You have a hobby.

Think about it for a second. What is more valuable: a perfectly crafted logo for your studio, or your first paying client?

Start with client acquisition. Once you have people willing to pay for your services, you will have momentum and some money to build everything else. Reach out to your network. Speak to friends and family. Make sure they know you are open for business.

Use your first client as a case study. Showcase your work proudly on LinkedIn and every social channel you have. The second client will quickly follow.

When I started, I focused exclusively on hospitality because I had contacts there and the hotel and restaurant scene was booming in Belfast. That focus allowed me to build credibility fast. I was not competing with every other generalist designer. I was the guy who understood restaurants and hotels.

Pick one niche where you have contacts or knowledge. You can always expand later. But starting narrow gives you a foothold.

Where to Find Your First 10 Clients

If you are starting from zero, here are the most effective channels:

Step 2: Set Your Pricing Structure

Here is a question every graphic designer needs to answer: are you charging what you are worth, or what you think the market will pay? There is a huge difference.

You have several options:

If I were starting from scratch today, I would begin with hourly pricing. It gives you room to adjust, it is straightforward, and it helps you understand your workflow. But this should only be used at the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey.

The Pricing Journey

I sold my first logo for £150. Three hours at £50 an hour. Easy. Job done. Before I exited the business, our branding packages were often sold in the £15-20k range.

That journey from £150 to £20k did not happen overnight. It happened because I stopped selling time and started selling commercial outcomes.

As your experience and expertise grow, shift towards value-based pricing that reflects the commercial impact of your work. Our brand work helped one client grow from £50m to £60m one year after rebranding. While our delivery was just a small element of the entire business change, we made the brand work as hard as every other business function. That is the value you are creating.

The gold medal position is a foundation of monthly retained clients covering all your costs and more. That provides stability and a platform from which to grow your agency.

What to Charge in 2026 (UK)

These are realistic starting ranges for a graphic design business in the UK:

If you are winning more than 70% of your proposals, your prices are too low. With every major project we won, we would increase the quote of the next comparable project by £500 or £1,000. We kept doing this until people said no. Not an ounce of scientific methodology went into this, but it worked.

Step 3: Name Your Business

You are probably wondering why we have not named the business until this stage. At the beginning of your design studio journey, this matters far less than you think.

Whether you use your own name or create a brand name, what matters is that it is easy to spell, easy to remember, available as a domain, and something you will not hate in six months.

The real question is not “what is the perfect name?” It is “what name will let me start serving clients today?”

I named my agency Kaizen, Japanese for continuous improvement. We focused on small incremental changes for the better and worked daily to keep our team’s knowledge at the highest level. The name encoded our operating philosophy. But honestly, the name matters less than you think in the first year. The work matters.

I am a huge believer in building a brand. But there is no need to jump into a creative process right this second, only to change it in a month. Some of my creative agency clients hand their brand to another designer instead of mulling it over for weeks on end. Objectivity is key when the time is right to build your brand.

Step 4: Create a Portfolio Site

As designers, we can be our own worst enemies here. How many hours have you spent tweaking your own website while paying customers wait?

My rule for business development and marketing: paying work always comes first.

Do you need a website? Yes. Does it need to be a perfectly curated portfolio? Absolutely not. Here is exactly what you need right now:

That is it. Build what I call a minimum viable portfolio. Something that showcases your capabilities without becoming a never-ending, never-finishing project.

Portfolio Tips That Actually Work

Show the problem, not just the solution. For each case study, explain what the client needed, what you delivered, and what happened next. “Designed a logo” is forgettable. “Rebranded a restaurant group, resulting in a 30% increase in covers within three months” is a story that sells.

Include process shots. Clients want to see how you work, not just the final output. Show sketches, iterations, and reasoning. This builds trust before the first conversation.

Update regularly. Your website should be updated at least quarterly. Taking off my designer hat and putting on my SEO hat: you need to showcase fresh work, demonstrate experience in the markets you are targeting, and give Google new content so it can rank you.

Step 5: Make a Business Plan

Your business plan does not need to be a 50-page document that sits in a drawer and goes out of date the minute it is written. Instead, answer these key questions:

This is not about writing the perfect plan, because there is no such thing. It is about having clarity on where you are going and how you are going to get there.

The Revenue Calculation

Do this maths now. If your average project is £2,000 and you want to earn £60,000 in your first year, you need 30 projects. That is roughly 2.5 projects per month. Can you win 2.5 new clients per month? If not, either your average project value needs to go up or your acquisition strategy needs to improve.

This simple calculation keeps you grounded. Too many designers have vague goals (“I want to earn good money”) rather than specific targets that drive specific actions.

Your business plan should be referenced, refined, and updated regularly. Every six months to a year. Because as soon as you write it, things change.

Step 6: Deliver High-Quality Work On Time

The secret to building a sustainable and profitable design studio is not about being the best designer. It is about being the most reliable one.

When you consistently deliver quality work on schedule, you become invaluable to your clients. Would you rather be known as the creative genius who is always late, or the solid designer who always delivers? I know which one builds a better business.

Customer service is the key to driving growth:

These are not just good habits for you as a studio owner. As you grow and start to hire staff, they should be part of the systems and processes that every team member understands and follows. The best agencies, the most profitable agencies, do the basics incredibly well, most of the time.

Managing Client Expectations

Set expectations at the start of every project. How many revision rounds are included? What is the timeline? What do you need from them and by when?

This prevents scope creep, which is the silent killer of design business profitability. I discovered one client was getting about £3,000 of free work annually, just from scope creep that had built up over months. Free work? Not on my watch. Track every request. If it is outside the agreed scope, quote it separately.

Step 7: Manage Your Money Properly

There are two things I coach creative business owners on time and time again. The first is asking for the sale, which is very important and very hard for a designer who has never been a salesperson. The second is setting up systems to get paid. A sale is not a sale until the money is in your bank.

Here is what you need to do:

You are a designer, a great designer. But you are also a business owner. Treat your invoicing with the same attention you give your designs.

Cash flow problems kill more businesses than lack of talent. If you want to learn more about managing cash flow in a creative business, read my article on getting paid and the agency cash flow guide.

Step 8: Build Your Referral Network

Your best future clients will come from your current clients. But most designers never actively ask for referrals. They just hope they will happen.

If you do not ask, you do not get.

I can trace four of my biggest clients ever back to one single client who was more than happy to refer our business. That did not happen by chance. You have to take action:

The phrase I use, and still use today: “If you are happy with my service, please tell somebody else.”

That line has generated millions of pounds over the years.

Building Strategic Partnerships

Beyond client referrals, build relationships with complementary service providers. If you are a design studio, partner with a web development agency. If you do branding, partner with a PR firm. Build the ecosystem so leads flow in both directions.

At Kaizen, we used strategic partnerships alongside direct outreach, SEO, and content marketing. Eventually we added billboards, radio ads, and paid digital campaigns. But that came much later. Start with referrals and one partnership. The rest builds over time.

The Key Takeaway

Building a successful graphic design business is not just about being great at design. It is about being good at business. Focus on these eight steps and execute them well. That will put you ahead of 99% of designers trying to build their own business.

Design skills get you started. Business skills get you paid.

Already Running a Design Agency?

If you are past the startup phase and running an established design business, the next question becomes: what is it actually worth?

Take the free Agency Valuation to benchmark your agency’s value, identify gaps, and understand what would make it sellable. It takes 3 minutes.

If you want to scale beyond where you are now, read the 3-phase scaling framework for creative agencies. Or explore coaching for designers to bridge the gap between creative skill and business growth.