5 Ways To Make Money As a Graphic Designer

Do you have natural talent as a graphic designer but do not want to work as an employee in an agency? Be aware that there are other possibilities to monetize your skills.

Indeed, depending on where you want to be able to work but also the weekly time you want to devote to your activity, there are plenty of opportunities to make a living from your talent. Here are 5 Ways To Make Money As a Graphic.

Set up as a freelancer

If you love working on projects for clients but hate the constraints of being an employee, becoming a freelancer is probably the best way to monetize your skills.

You must be ready to have more responsibilities because, in freelance, you will have to look for clients, manage the various contracts and even take care of the accounting. This is also the main drawback of freelance status, in addition to the uncertainty of income, the latter being linked to your activity.

For the rest, being a freelance graphic designer will only have advantages since if you have projects to submit with deadlines, you are free to organize your schedule as you see fit as long as you respect the deadline set with the client. 

You also have more control over the projects than as an agency employee since you are the only “master on board”. What’s more, the projects can be much more varied, which is sometimes very pleasant and avoids a routine that, when it sets in, can prove to be demotivating.

Start a blog dedicated to graphics

To monetize your talents as a graphic designer, it is also possible to start a blog. Where such a project becomes interesting is that you can carry it out alongside a freelance graphic designer activity and that you can use it to promote your services.

By starting a blog dedicated to graphics, certainly, you will not make money for the first few months. However, since you are an expert and are likely capable of delivering original and unreleased content, you could quickly generate traffic.

However, with work and patience, this traffic will only increase. If at the same time, you push the promotion of your blog via social networks, you can undoubtedly hope to make money, at least in the medium term.

Create website themes

Because many project leaders in the web world do not necessarily have a development or graphic design skills, they opt for sites based on a theme and a CMS.

Also, as a graphic designer, why not monetize your talents by creating these themes? Indeed, take the time to design beautiful templates that seem to adapt to given sectors of activity and then offer them for sale.

The hardest part will be to exist in this very competitive market but if you manage to give visibility to your creations, the paid downloads of your themes will certainly be able to do better than make ends meet.

Sell graphics

If you have real graphic design skills, another way to monetize your talents is to simply sell your designs.

Yes, it is quite possible to create PSD files that will then be used by other players in the world of the web, advertising, communication, etc.

You will need to find a place to sell your creations: it’s up to you whether you prefer to create your online store or sell through specialized platforms like Etsy or Creative Market.

Develop a course

Many people search the web for video lessons every day to do simple things with software like Photoshop or Illustrator. Also, why not design a course like “How to create a logo with Photoshop?” », A topic that interests the greatest number, to begin with?

Offer it on your site but also on platforms dedicated to online courses such as Udemy. No doubt it can help you generate sales and even if you manage to gain notoriety as a trainer because of the quality of your courses, save a lot of money in the long run.

A graphic designer who does not want to work as an employee in a design agency has many possibilities to monetize his skills. He can indeed set up on his own by adopting the status of freelance and developing his clientele.

But he can also start a blog, contribute to design blogs, design website themes, create graphics files, or even conduct online courses to train the graphic designers of tomorrow.