Being a freelancer requires, partly, a mind-reading skill.  Depending on the type of client, they’ll usually have designs in their heads and it’s your job to extract this visualisation and get it down into a workable design.  It also requires translation skills, yes, I’m talking about those phrases that always tend to crop up when you get a new client,  some feedback or as part of the brief.  These are some of the phrases that I’ve found to be the most popular:

1. “Make it pop”
2. “Make it look like mint.com”
3. “I need a million dollar site”
4. “Make it bluer/greener/redder/“
5. “I need this done yesterday”
6. “If I bring you [X] amount of work what discount can you offer?”
7. “I’ll send it round the office and see what the others think”
8. “That’s a little out of my [$50] budget”
9. “I’ve got it! Add a key-line through the middle!”
10. “I love it! Can you change this and this and this and this and this….”
11. “Can you make the logo bigger?”
12. “Do I have to pay the whole bill at once?”

I’m sure there are more, be great to hear any others that I’ve missed!!