Many freelancers are searching for new ways to bring in more income. While some of the most talked about gigs usually include freelance writing and online virtual assistants, graphic design is also a great way to make money online. There are many opportunities available for freelance graphic designers willing to offer their services.
Creating digital and print media for clients is a very beneficial way to make both money and a name for yourself. Print specifics such as t-shirt designs, logos and flyers are very trendy and sought after by individuals and companies alike. Digital media resources can also be composed to enrich social media content in the form of graphics or post. When attempting to find freelance opportunities in graphic design, it is important to use the correct platforms online to help assist and maximize your profits.
Sell Your Designs on Different Platforms
Many graphic design platforms online are designed to connect the designer to the client. By uploading your designs to sites such as Shutterstock, Etsy or Envato Marketplace, you are putting them on display for the entire community to see.
The selling process is simple, upload your designs and then wait for someone to buy them. Your uploaded resources (designs) are then downloaded by a customer after they click the buy now button. While the original tasks of uploading your design is quite easy, the difficulty comes when you’re attempting to get your designs approved by the platform staff. Shutterstock is much more lenient when it comes to design requirements such as size, dpi and file type, however; Envato Marketplace is the exact opposite. The Envato Marketplace is not recommended for beginners or those that fear rejection. When I first attempted to get started with the Envato Marketplace, I was very surprised about the amount of rejections I received for my designs, which I thought were perfect. The Envato Marketplace caters to trendy designs, trends which often change every week. Although designs are hard to get approved on Envato, the effort proves to be worth it when you make your first sale. As with most online seller platforms, the payments get sent to your PayPal account or other specified banking account. Etsy has a similar platform to that of Evanto Marketplace, but there isn’t an approval process, this makes Etsy extremely easy to learn and very beneficial for beginners. While Etsy usually specializes in handmade goods, an unlimited amount of graphics are also available for download. If you create design elements such as vectors or illustrations on Photoshop or Illustrator, it’s easy to upload the folder to the Etsy server for downloads. Not only can you set the price, you can also select the correct file format for your downloads such as png, jpg or PSD.
People Love T-shirt Designs and More
Not only do you have the option of designing graphics for t-shirts, you can also sell merchandise with your designs on them. One of the main platforms I use for this option is Amazon Merch. Amazon Merch makes it easy to attach your designs to a range of items. While items such as hoodies, cups and hats are also available, I found t-shirts do the best for creating a fast profit. I use Adobe Illustrator when creating designs for Amazon Merch because it enables me to isolate layers within the layer palette. Amazon Merch provides a design template to follow before uploading your designs to the site. This is s a good option for designers which excel at typography. I’ve noticed a significant shift from graphic to typography-based shirts, people love words. If you have a popular design or phrase, the merchandise will start to sell immediately. It’s wise to price shirts higher than the default set price of $16.99, Amazon charges a base price between $14-16 for each item. The payment you receive will be the remainder of what is left after Amazon subtracts the base price for each item. For example, if you sell a $20 shirt, you would receive $3-4 dollars after base fees get subtracted. Although $3-4 per shirt doesn’t seem like much, it’s important to look at the overall bigger picture of future profits. Amazon will take care of the order by making the shirt, shipping and handling customer service. I like that I never had to worry about supplies such as a t-shirt press, heat transfers and shipping, Amazon handled everything for me. Amazon Merch also falls into the class of passive income, your t-shirts can sell many units each month and you’ll receive a check. While I’ve used other platforms such as RedBubble, Cafepress and Spreadshirt to sell t-shirts, none could compete with the exposure of the huge Amazon marketplace.
Use Social Media to Sell Graphics to Businesses
Let’s be real, businesses crowd social media platforms in hopes of finding someone to help them expand their business. One skill that business owners often search for is graphic design. Many businesses and individuals alike need print materials such as flyers, business cards and even logos. As a graphic designer, I find many freelance opportunities on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. I find it helpful to use hashtags when searching for companies in need of graphic design services. Hashtags such as #graphicdesigner or #graphicdesignerwanted have proved to work best for narrowing down companies and individuals to approach through messaging. I would recommend filtering through the results to find the “paid” posts. Once you’ve found the company you want to work for, message them and introduce yourself. Save time by creating a template that you can copy and paste into messaging boxes for different businesses, it will increase your productivity. I used to use Adobe software to create social media graphics, however, I’ve recently switched to Canva. Canva is a free online software that’s extremely versatile to use, it has hundreds of social media templates. The templates can be customized with expressive fonts and pictures. It can even be shared directly to social media pages from the Canva platform.
Create Coloring Books and Picture Books for KDP
You don’t have to be a great writer to compose a book, you can be a great graphic designer. If you’re great at drawing or composing pictures in Photoshop or Illustrator, you can create your own books to sell on KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). The KDP platform allows me to make a passive income each month due to my book sales. The required number of pages for Kindle books is 28 or more, the pages don’t have to be double-sided if you’re creating a coloring book. This technically means that you need at least 14 coloring pages to create a coloring book, sounds easy right? It’s worth noting that coloring books usually aren’t allowed to be available on the Kindle Ebook platform because they aren’t “read only.” Kindle Direct Publishing works like Amazon Merch as there is also a base price that you must set the price higher than. In my experience, it’s wise to price your book at least $5 higher than the base price. While you may get less money for each book, you will sell more units, which in the long run means more money.
All the above are some of the best ways I’ve found to make $50 or more an hour as a freelance graphic designer. The creative opportunities that digital and print media bring are endless . The adaptive online platforms enable graphic designers to not only express their work, but also get paid doing it.