10 Ways to Help Designers Make Money

Any designer, especially those who work freelance online feel the urge to open new revenue streams so they may be able to earn more. There are different options available to increase the amount of money you’re earning while working online as a designer. Today we’ll be discussing in brief 10 such ways in which freelance designers can earn more money. Have a look and do give us your feedback on how these suggestions helped you:

Develop Software

Designers are software programmers or coders, however this doesn’t mean you can’t get involved in software development area which is booming right now. Being a designer means you’re an innovator, you can come up with an idea of software and hire your programmer buddy to do the code job for you and earn revenues along with him.

Currently the following three software markets are selling like hot cakes so make sure you dwell into them:

1. iPhone/Android/Windows Mobile and other mobile platform app development: This is the new arena of software apps. People are heavily interested in mobile apps these days so any shot you make in this specific area of software development means a constant source of income. Some resources which you can look into for a more detailed view are:

2. Traditional desktop software applications: Nothing beats the PC desktop application markets after all desktop computers are continued to be used at a rising rate in the world. All the heavy graphics designing, motion graphics, web graphics work is still carried on PCs so if you come up with a nice software tool for other designers, it is sure to earn you stable revenues in the long run.

3. Facebook/Twitter and other social network platform app development: Another interested area, especially for web designers since social networks are the buzz of the web these days with almost everyone who has ever used internet is not a user of one or more social networks. Some resources about Facebook/Twitter app development are as follows:

Software development can be a tricky gamble since it’s not every designer’s native area of expertise. However, with thorough market analysis, requirement analysis and your own inclination or comfort level about a certain platform, it is a safe bet that anything you do will earn you more than you already are.

Create an Event

Another way designers can make money is by organizing an event. The point here is that there have been so many technology, entertainment etc conferences lately. But, events related to designing arena are really difficult to find. You can easily organize an event and make money after deducting all the costs. For instance, if you decide to organize an event, the main costs would be to rent the venue, marketing costs, staff costs etc. But they are those types of costs which can be reduced easily.

These days, you can easily manage all these costs and logistics using different software. You can easily manage the event before even paying anyone or releasing any press release using different event management software which will give you rough idea about the costs you have bear in order to organize the event and how much profit you will make if you sell the tickets at a certain price.

Some Event Management Software include:

Making Money by Writing

If you are a designer and a good writer, you can make money using your writing skills. One way you can make money is by writing an ebook in which you share with people the expertise about designing or any tips which you think might help other users, and then sell the ebook. One good thing about ebooks are that they are cheap and easy to distribute. For example, if you take a look at some popular bloggers like Problogger, John Chow etc, they have written ebooks in which they tell people about the secret behind their success.

Another way you can make money is freelancing. It’s a great way for designer to make money by writing for people. Many websites in the blogosphere are looking for talented and motivated designers to write for them and are willing to pay high for well written articles.

Make Money Blogging

Blogging is another way which can help designers make money easily. If you decide to take blogging, you might have to work harder than most of the options. You have to post creative and unique content which can attract visitors and later you can monetize you blog using multiple design related ad-networks. They include BuySellAds, Google Adsense, Carbon, Fusion Ads, InfluAds, The Deck.

Another way you can make money is by selling premium content. For example, you have a blog and there is a section which contains content that users will not find on any other designing website. You can set up a membership fee for that content but make sure that the content is that good and attract other people to subscribe.

Sell Stocks

If you think you can sell, you can make money selling stocks. These stocks include WordPress themes, Vector images, icons, Photoshop Brushes and much more. If you take a look at some sites on the internet, they sell premium themes, brushes etc and make huge sum of money. Some sites selling premium WordPress themes include Elegant Themes, Themeforest, WP Theme Market etc.

Some stock icons, vector arts, Photoshop brushes include GraphicRiver, MediaLoot, iStockPhoto etc.

Sell Fonts

If you love typography, you can create premium fonts and sell them. There are companies on the internet which release fonts commercially. But one thing you should keep in mind is that your font has to be good and different. Otherwise, if its similar to any other font which is also available for free on some other website, it will be a waste of time and effort.

Some Font Creation Resources include MyFonts, FontLab, LinoType.

Make Money By Becoming A Reseller

Reselling is basically when you purchase goods or services with the intention of reselling them rather than consuming or using them. One such way is to partner with a company and resell their product. Reseller Hosting can be taken as the best example in this case. There are many websites which provide reselling services and allow designers to set their own price. This means that the company charged you $10 for something but you can sell it to some other client for $20 dollar. If you can sell the product, you can make good amount of money.

Some reseller hosting companies include Rackspace, Site5, Green Geeks, Host Gator.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. However, you’ve got to have large-scale audience otherwise you wont be able to make good amount of money.

Some Affiliate programs include Amazon, Template Monster, Rockable Press etc.

Consultancy

Consultancy is another way to help designers make money. For example, if you are expert in a certain field, you can charge people for consultancy and make some decent amount of money. But finding clients can be a difficult job if you don’t have good network/channels. You can make your network using different websites, blogs, social networks etc to advertise about your expertise in a specific field and consultancy option.

Make Money by Teaching

Last but not the least, you can make money by teaching people what you know about a specific topic or field. You can teach people how to design using different methods. You can make different tutorials and teach online or you can start teaching at a university or college near you. Talk to them about your skills and how much it will help students if they learn designing.

There are few websites online which pay you for quality tutorials like Tuts+, Design Instruct and Tutorial9.


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16 Comments

  1. Ifham khan says:

    The best way to make money is providing service online

  2. Brett Schaf says:

    Thank you so much for this great information please anybody tell me how to intigrate my adsense account with youtube ?

  3. wow….
    Thanks for sharing this information.

  4. Curz says:

    Most affiliate marketers who are having success these days are publishing Cost Per Action, or CPA offers. This is because marketers don’t need to close high ticket sales in order to get commission for a conversion. It’s really the future of internet marketing!

  5. Its a big helpful tips to me..thank you

  6. WOW, a lot of options. But I wonder too many fingers in the pie.
    I’m all for developing software, because that’s what I do best. I agree, and believe that Mobile phone development is where all the buzz is now days.

    Blogging and writing articles will help, if they are monetised correctly. Teaching and consultancy is probable your best bet, but you have to have a reputation and be a credible knowledgeable person on the subject matter

  7. neo says:

    awesome article helping me a lot

  8. burman says:

    Its a good article giving me some useful tips

  9. Great post! I think writing articles and teaching others how to do something is the best.

  10. Sachin says:

    thanks couple of them are really new to me….thanks for introducing them

  11. DPS says:

    Amazing, maybe build apps is not difficult.