Maria Emilia Palet - Industrial Designer

1. Maria Emilia Palet – Industrial Designer

2. Maria Emilia Palet – Industrial Designer • Our freelancer of the week has the job a lot of people dream about when growing up. Maria Emilia Palet is a designer. She has worked with manufacturers of children's furniture, lighting systems, outdoor clothing and many more. She really enjoys her work with companies whose values and products she can believe in. Read more about the fascinating Maria Emilia Palet who among other things speaks four different languages…

3. Maria Emilia Palet • 1) First off, can you tell us a bit about yourself? • I'm a self-employed industrial designer who grew up in Argentina and am currently living in Europe. For the last decade, I have worked with small manufacturing companies from various sectors including metalworking, lighting devices, baby furniture, and others helping them to add value to their products. I am a decidedly experienced non-specialized designer who has a technical & creative background. What I enjoy most about working as a freelancer is having the chance to offer solutions to businesses whose values and products I believe in.

4. Maria Emilia Palet • 2) If you would search for your profile on Google, which are the three keywords you would type in the search bar? • Added-value, Cost-effective-solutions, Long-term-professional-relationships

5. Maria Emilia Palet • 3) What was your inspiration and when did you actually decide to become a freelancer? • When I was a student at college, while working on my thesis project I met a freelance designer who inspired me. I love variety and was quite fascinated by the idea of working on different projects simultaneously. Taking responsibility for my projects, and the decisions they entailed, was very attractive to me. • Shortly before I graduated I was invited to partner with an experienced designer which gave me professional experience and an opportunity to learn how to run and manage a business during the whole process, from the schedule and quotation to the follow-up production and project launch. I have been a full-time industrial freelance designer ever since and am eager to learn and grow from each experience.

6. Maria Emilia Palet • 4) What kind of services have your clients asked you to provide? • Product development: I provide professional design services to companies who develop, manufacture and distribute mass consumer products such as lighting devices, toys or bathroom accessories. Sometimes we develop single products and some other times we work on complete lines such as a cot, chiffonier, changing table, dresser, drawer and toy chest for a baby’s room. I work together with my clients to create the Brief including the requirements that allow me to tailor the project to their particular needs. For example, I take their target market, costs, suppliers, etc. into account. • Redesign. I update and make improvements to my clients’ existing products for example in user/production/assembly aspects.

7. Maria Emilia Palet • 4) What kind of services have your clients asked you to provide? (cont‘d) • Idea into product. I can develop ideas provided by clients and create products suitable for manufacturing and marketing. • Concepts. I provide design concepts for specifics markets. • Benchmarking. I analyse my clients’ products and compare them to competitors and current market demands. Results of the analysis help to evaluate potential start-points for new developments and provide a fresh and objective perspective. • Manuals. I create illustrated User Manuals. An example includes creating instructions on how to assemble baby cots.

8. Maria Emilia Palet • 5) Do you use other freelancers or companies to provide skills that you don’t possess? • I collaborate with a network of trusted contributors from different disciplines such as photography, graphic design, web design and illustration among others, depending on each project’s requirements. Collaborating with fellow experts helps to create a flexible structure and avoids fixed costs while providing a professional service for my clients. I can count on professionals I have worked with before. When I need to find other freelancers I ask for referrals. I also received spontaneous candidatures via email that I take into consideration too. I choose freelancers based on the quality of their portfolio as well as their professionalism and attitudes toward work.

9. Maria Emilia Palet • 6) Now tell us, how do you find new clients that are interested in your services? • Most of my projects came from direct referrals from clients and colleagues. I also prospect clients via cold emails, cold (paper) mails, cold calls and online networks among others. I find attending trade fairs to be among my favourite strategies as they provide not only work opportunities but especially the chance to talk in person with potential clients and find out more about their needs and challenges.

10. Maria Emilia Palet • 7) What about freelancermap.com? Can you tell us a little bit about your experience with our IT-network? • I have no experience with IT-network as of today. I subscribe to the freelancermap newsletter and I find the information very useful. I think the Freelance Insiders Section is a great thing. We all know that networking is important, not only for work opportunities but to gain new perspectives about how others work, what their challenges are and how they conquer them which is why I appreciate having the opportunity to share my experience and the chance to read about others.

11. Maria Emilia Palet • 8) How do you set yourself apart from your competitors? What makes you special? • Because of low structural costs I work with a limited number of clients, which allows me to devote quality time and attention to each client’s project. I also strive to achieve simple and intelligent solutions that reduce costs and increase profit margins while creating a product that captures the user’s attention. Being multilingual provides a great advantage especially in Europe where there are so many different languages. I speak four languages and this provides me the opportunity to obtain information directly from foreign bibliography sources and also to communicate directly with international suppliers or prospective experts. • Lastly, having an international background and extensive experience in different sectors allows me to offer a fresh perspective in finding solutions to my clients’ challenges. In the words of a German prospect: “Variety is good!”

12. Maria Emilia Palet • 9) What are the top three books, blogs or magazines you read to stay up to date in the IT-market? • TED talks are an infinite source of inspiration, providing information about the latest news, what people are doing, what solutions they’ve found, and what they have learned. I also read weekly newsletters such as the freelancermap newsletter and “99U” by Behance which are two of my favourite publications.

13. Maria Emilia Palet • 10) Freestyle! Is there anything you would like to tell our readers? • I would like to share a quote I read recently that appeared in a book: “In today’s fast-changing world, it’s not so much what you know anymore that counts, because often what you know is old. It is how fast you learn. That skill is priceless.” I pride myself on being a fast learner!

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