These days, more and more people are choosing to work independently as freelancers. One of the largest online freelancing sites, Upwork, believes that the percentage of people who freelance voluntarily, as opposed to having to, has risen from 53% in 2014 to 61% in 2018, and that this trend will continue, especially in fields like technology, marketing, and design.
The compensation of graphic artists working for themselves can fluctuate a lot. You may find work frequently and readily during some months, while in other months you may struggle to book any work at all. This is why passive income is so attractive to a young, aspiring graphic designer.
There’s a lot of competition in the graphic design profession, so you’ll need to get resourceful if you want to make a living doing what you love while still doing something that pays the bills. Here is a list of options to consider if you’re a freelance graphic designer looking to supplement your income.
Read on to find out more options for freelance graphic designer :
1. Get paid to create tutorials
Selling a service you provide for free is a great way to generate passive income. It’s likely that your work as a graphic designer or illustrator entails producing new designs and images on a daily basis. Why not additionally profit from the means by which those items are produced rather than just the end products?
While working on a project, it’s simple enough to film or take screenshots for a future tutorial, which you can then make into a video or article and sell. If your designs are already impressive, many people will ask for instructions on how to duplicate them. They will consider you a leader or teacher and be willing to compensate you for your expertise. This is a great approach to getting passive money with little effort.
Offer how-to guides for your best pieces or techniques. The products can be sold on your website, through Patreon, or another subscription service to ensure their exclusivity or both. You can make money with affiliate marketing by writing articles about them, or you can make money with YouTube videos or tutorials.
2. Make your own and market them
Making money off of the sale of design templates is a guaranteed bet. It is possible to create and sell social media templates or ideas for popular trending templates across a number of channels. Social media managers, content producers, and influencers regularly download and purchase templates. Well-designed, one-of-a-kind social media templates can sell to anyone, from fellow designers who lack the time to make their own to the typical user of these platforms.
You can passively reduce your burden by selling the same social network page templates you use for your own profiles, or you can build one or two simple templates and sell them across several platforms.
3. Benefit from dropshipping to market your designs
There’s a good chance that, as a graphic designer, you’ve dabbled with designing things for fun, making things for friends and family, and generally expanding your skill set through random creative endeavors. You may easily upload those designs to an eCommerce or dropshipping website so that people can buy those designs on real products instead of just seeing them once or discarding them.
You shouldn’t waste the time and effort you put into these creations by keeping them confined to your Instagram feed. They are a source of profit for you. You can upload them to drop-shipping platforms like Red-Bubble or your own eCommerce store.
You may use them to have simple drawings or designs printed on things like t-shirts, cushion covers, cards, stickers, notebooks, wall hangings, wall clocks, and tote bags.
4. Get your work licensed
Your audience will grow and you’ll make more money with no additional effort when you license your work to be used on popular name-brand products. Licensing is the means to get your ideas on t-shirts in Target or on bespoke dishes and bowls in Walmart’s homeware section.
Licensing is a lot like building a productive creative partnership in that it enables you to collaborate with companies that share your values and aesthetic.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a rookie or a famous designer to get the benefits of this. When they get your work licensed, the corporation will market and sell your products under their name.
Make sure you don’t sign away exclusive usage of your designs and artwork before licensing it.
5. Promoting wordpress-based design layouts for sale
WordPress is one of the most popular website builders because it powers over 172 million websites. Small businesses and do-it-yourselfers who want a professional-looking website but don’t want to shell out thousands of dollars for a designer will appreciate its accessibility and ease of use.
Given this, it’s safe to say that WordPress themes are currently selling like hotcakes. Even though web designers have years of experience and training, many people would rather save the $1,000+ (or buy a template for $5-$300) and do it themselves.
6. Your website as an affiliate marketing platform
This one requires some upfront effort, but with time and dedication, it can turn into a significant source of passive money. By incorporating affiliate marketing or advertising on your website, you can earn money from visitors who simply view your content without making a purchase.
You’ll need regular readers and plenty of visitors before this can be profitable. This is the source of the first active investment. Active marketing is replaced with passive marketing once an audience and reach have been established.
Either adding advertisements that generate revenue from page visits or using affiliate connections to products within your website is a terrific way to bring in some extra cash without putting in a lot of effort.
7. Profiting from your own font designs
Creating and selling your own fonts can be a very profitable side hustle. The labor you put into developing your own fonts or scripts will pay off in the long run because of how widely used they will be.
Selling fonts and scripts is a good way to make some extra cash, and they may be used for a wide variety of projects. They can be used for a wide variety of events and applications, including weddings, conferences, restaurants, web pages, infographics, brochures, apps, and posters.
You will, however, require an internet shop in order to peddle your typefaces. The prolific typeface and script designer Anthony James uses Sellfy. A fantastic e-commerce platform, Sellfy lets you set up your shop and start selling digital downloads to clients with minimal effort.
If you’re a designer, you may open up a shop on Etsy to peddle your own typefaces, scripts, and icons. When creating a digital good, your options are as endless as your creativity allows.
Put your graphic designs to good use
In this digital age, finding work as a graphic designer or artist might be challenging. If you ever find yourself without the drive to make new art, don’t fret; there are plenty of ways to monetize your existing body of work.
Any one of these strategies for earning passive money can keep the money coming in without requiring you to put in any additional time or effort. Setting up a source of passive money is a one-time effort that pays dividends for years to come.
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