Maria Emilia Palet - Industrial Designer

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• Maria Emilia Palet
• Industrial Designer

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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 babys 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.

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Maria Emilia Palet

• 4) What kind of services have your clients asked
  you to provide? (contd)
• 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.

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Maria Emilia Palet

• 5) Do you use other freelancers or companies to
  provide skills that you dont 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
  projects 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.

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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.

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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.

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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
  clients project. I also strive to achieve simple
  and intelligent solutions that reduce costs and
  increase profit margins while creating a product
  that captures the users 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!

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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 theyve 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.

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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 todays
  fast-changing world, its 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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