Helping a young Graphic Designer in PA, USA
I met Stephanie's dad at Autreat, and since she hasn't been into the internet ASD community- she'd rather spend her time on her art- He started to ask around about resources to help her get on her feet.
Her art is AMAZING, and she has a BFA in Graphic Design from PA College of Art and Design, but it's the networking in order to get jobs that seems to be the problem. I guess she's running into issues finding clients because she doesn't know how to network, and (as a woman on spectrum) her social impairments make offline job finding really difficult
Here's her site: http://www.sjhamilton.com/
Do you have any suggestions for her? Any other Graphic Designers have any advice? Anyone have a gig they can refer her?
Savannah Nicole Logsdon-Breakstone Director of Advocacy 
I have been working pretty hard at building up a "professional network" for the past few years. It has been hard because I have trouble talking to people and being in groups, but luckily I am better at talking when it is about my work.
I would suggest looking for online or local meetup groups for graphic designers. Often local groups will use meetup.com or something similar for organizing meetings. I have been doing this for web development groups and have made quite a few contacts, some of which send me work from time to time. The local meetups are a great place to hand out business cards!
The groups seem to attract people with the same interest, but at different skill levels. Once people know that you are good at what you do, they may hire you. The people who are not as experienced hire people to do what they can not yet do themselves, and some of the experienced people have too much work and refer their excess jobs to you.
If she does graphic design for the web, it may be good to network with web developers too. It is common to have a graphic designer design a website and then hire a developer to build it. I like to work with graphic designers. Maybe networking with publishers would have the same effect for print designers.
If there are creative writers here, I'd be interested in hearing about what sort of opportunities you've been pursuing.
I had a long and pretty successful career, probably because I am a workaholic and competitive. First college and grad school, which I loved, copywriting, events planning, management, public speaking, teaching ... I can put on a good show of it. But it has been several years since I've done any of that, and I'm determined not to allow that life to swallow me whole again, as it did not make me happy!
In the end I got sick and so I began working freelance and here and there, fitting work around parenthood. That worked better for me, because I am miserable when I can't be near my kids.
Now I want to market my fiction. I used to participate in extension courses at UCLA and got to know a lot of people that way. We'd meet regularly (lots of Aspies!) and hash out our novels and screenplays together. But I'm not close to major writing programs where I am now. So I need to catch up with the modern world and do something different!
Self-publishing might be the way to go. I have some experience with web design, and learning to serialize fiction on a blog might be a hoot! Workshopping is a passion of mine, and I would ideally want to do this on a forum with other fiction writers, where we could give one another feedback, even get feedback from "fans."
Please let me know if anyone has experience with this. I'd be very interested in comparing notes.
Savannah I work in Web Development & Web Design, I have my own site / business & yes networking can be so hard... I freelance too.
If she would like, I could put a link to her site on my site to help refer her clients (It has been very slow these past few months) http://getterdonegurus.com
The other place I work at as a freelancer is odesk.com she may want to check that place out they also have forums sorta like the ones here I recommend reading them as some people who hire you tend to try & skimp on paying. The odesk place has many types of freelance jobs from graphic design to programming writing video & audio talent you name it :-)
Networking is really rough, especially now. It's a terrible time to be freelancing in anything creative. I've gotten some work via Craigslist that required minimal networking -- she might be able to go that route, particularly since she has a professional portfolio she can refer people to. I've also had some success working for barter with small businesses, to build contacts and get referrals for bigger projects. It may also help to present oneself as a generalist, if applicable. I've gotten a couple of gigs for small businesses by being able to do the writing and editing in addition to the art, so they had to hire one less person to do the work, which saved them time and money
For building contacts, though, nothing beats volunteering, in my experience. Charity organizers are fantastic at promoting people who've helped them out, and are often more understanding of difficulties with social interaction than other people might be. Presenting to them can also be a good way to get practice at networking and selling one's work.
And in the meantime, there are numerous places on the internet where artists can sell their work (Etsy, Zazzle, Cafepress, Deviantart, etc.), and places like Threadless where one can submit designs for promotion and cash prizes. It might seem like starting small, but some people make a fair amount of money that way.
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"Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere."
--J.R.R. Tolkien