Graphic design is filled with so many money-making opportunities. Here are actionable ways on how to make money as a graphic designer. With these tips, you can make up to $100 – $1000 daily with your graphic design skills online using any of these tips mentioned below.
How to make money as a graphic designer easily
Fiverr
Fiverr is a massive marketplace for freelancers and graphic designers seeking how to earn money with graphic design. With Fiverr, you can earn a living as a graphic designer by offering graphic design services like logo design, web development, design consulting, infographics design, etc.
Graphic designers on Fiverr earn as much as $100 – $1000 from their monthly. Remember the rate at which you earn may be different due to how much of a skilled designer you are and Fiverr indicates the level of credibility using star rating. The higher the star rating, the better chance for you to be hired.
Here are profitable money-making tips on how to make money on Fiverr as a graphic designer:
- Craft Unique Logo: Create distinctive logos that capture the essence of a brand, leaving a memorable mark in customers’ minds. This uniqueness will set you apart on Fiverr.
- Design Business Cards: Offer visually appealing business card designs that resonate with clients’ identities, ensuring they leave a lasting impression in face-to-face interactions.
- Enhance Social Media Visuals: Elevate the visual identity of clients’ social media profiles by providing customized graphics, and optimizing their online presence.
- Create Promotional Materials: Craft captivating flyers, posters, and brochures for various events and marketing campaigns, helping clients effectively reach their target audience.
- Beautify eBook and Print Covers: Give eBooks and print books a visually striking cover, making them more appealing to readers and potential buyers.
- Visualize Complex Data: Simplify intricate information through engaging infographics, making it easier for clients to convey their messages effectively.
- Design Merchandise: Produce unique designs for merchandise like apparel, mugs, and phone cases, enabling clients to monetize their brand’s identity.
- Elevate Website Appeal: Enhance the aesthetics of websites by creating visually pleasing banners, headers, icons, and other graphics.
- Professional Presentations: Assist clients in delivering compelling presentations by crafting visually attractive PowerPoint or Keynote slides.
- Eye-catching Packaging: Help products stand out on shelves with alluring packaging designs that draw customers’ attention.
- Illustrative Artistry: Utilize artistic skills to create bespoke illustrations for a diverse range of applications.
- Photo Refinement: Enhance the quality of images through precise editing and retouching, ensuring they meet clients’ standards.
- Craft 3D Models: Produce intricate 3D models and renderings for an array of applications, from prototypes to visual content.
- Comprehensive Branding: Develop complete branding packages encompassing logos, business cards, and letterheads to establish a cohesive brand identity.
- Social Media Graphics Management: Offer holistic social media graphics solutions, including posts and advertisements, as part of broader social media management services.
- YouTube Visual Upgrades: Elevate the visual appeal of YouTube channels by designing banners, thumbnails, and end screens, creating a polished online presence.
- Resonate with Resumes: Help job seekers stand out in their applications by designing visually appealing and effective resumes.
- Podcast Visuals: Craft podcast cover art and promotional materials, enhancing the professionalism and appeal of podcast content.
- Custom Emoji and Stickers: Create personalized emojis and stickers for messaging apps and social media platforms, adding a fun and unique touch to conversations.
- Seamless User Interfaces: Develop user-friendly mobile app and website interfaces with a focus on usability and aesthetics, ensuring a satisfying user experience.
Make Swag
Another way graphic designers can make money with graphic design is to swag up their design game by creating fashion-oriented designs. We know how cool it looks when we have that Givenchy rottweiler shirt on or artwork or meme printed on a shirt right?
You can print cool surreal images, lettering, or even patterns on shirts and put them up for sale in any of the online marketplaces.
Trust me, this is a very lucrative source of income for any designer who is finding an extra side hustle attached to his or her graphic design career.
Become a design consultant
Becoming a graphic design consultant is one of the few ways to make money as a graphic designer that people dont usually talking about. As a graphic design consultant, you can work in a variety of industries such as architectural companies, graphic design firms, or retail stores. Your primary duties would be communicating with companies, organizations, government agencies, schools, and other clients and doing the necessary graphic design work.
A graphic design consultant carries out the responsibility of making sure the client’s design needs are executed effectively such as picking the right color palette and delivering ideas and concepts through brochures, signage, promotional displays, websites, illustrations, 3-D displays, packaging, and materials for exhibition purposes.
Sell on Marketplaces
Creative marketplace has always been the most common means on how to make money as a graphic designer online. You can sell valuable graphic design resources like design templates, mockups, logos, design illustrations, 3D elements, and fonts.
There are creative sites like 99designs, Behance, graphicriver where you can sell your design resources. These sites charge zero fees for registration from any designer seeking how to make money online as a graphic designer.
Creating physical products
Creating physical or real-life graphic design products could help earn you extra money alongside your main design hustle. Regardless of the graphic design niche you find yourself in, you can generate physical products like ebooks, clipart, stickers, posters, graphic t-shirts etc.
There are lovers of stickers who would want to purchase your sticker and use them to beautify various surfaces in their home or gadgets or maybe buy your books from Amazon book store to help hone their build up their design knowledge.
Sell on Upwork & Fiverr
Basically, Upwork is a freelancing marketplace where a variety of services can be bought. This platform offers you the benefit of various ways to make money as a graphic designer by allowing you to exhibit your creative work on their platform the kind of graphic design job that you offer.
Similar to Upwork, on Fiverr you can be a seller or buyer of services such as logo design, 3D resource, web design & development, UI/UX design, etc. You can receive payment after a successful job delivery. Trust me, this is how most graphic designers make money online seamlessly from the comfort of your home.
Release online courses
Do you know that Your years of graphic design knowledge can be transformed into a money-making opportunity? addressing the question of how to make money as a graphic designer leads us to the creation of crash courses or advanced courses for self-taught designers or aspiring design students who can’t afford college fees and are willing to learn graphic design from the comfort of their homes.
This online can come in eBooks, live Zoom classes, or even pre-recorded video file.
These online courses can range from $50-$100 monthly or a one-time purchase of the course material can be made which allows you to make use of it anytime.
If you need to register for an Online graphic design course, registration can be made on Udemy or Coursera.
YouTube
YouTube is another goldmine which anyone can easily earn money from. With over 2.70 billion active users as of 2023, YouTube stands as an online platform where you can make money as a graphic designer as long you have interesting and educational content such as basic and advanced tutorials, graphic design news and updates, and even YouTube short reels.
Even though it has so many users vying for subscribers you can set up a channel where you begin to showcase unique content. Because having outstanding content is the only way you can stand out from the competition on YouTube.
Create and Sell Template
Another way on how how to make money as a graphic designer is by creating and selling graphic design templates. These pre-made templates will help speed up the workflow of designers who have little time to meet up with client work. These templates can be brochures, mock-ups, logo designs, business cards, flyers, etc.
These templates can be sold on sites like Envato and Creativemarket.
Share Knowledge Through Workshops or Webinars
Graphic designers can expand their income streams by sharing their knowledge through workshops or webinars. Offering educational sessions on design principles, software tools, or industry trends allows designers to monetize their expertise while helping others improve their skills.
By marketing these workshops online and leveraging platforms like Zoom or YouTube, designers can reach a wide audience interested and willing to pay to enhance their design abilities.
Sell Stickers
Stickers are cool decorative ornaments that we can stick on most surfaces, on our car, laptops, and doors. These stickers could sometimes be stickers of our favorites or our favorite football club. If you are a great illustrator, you can make money as a graphic designer by selling stickers.
You can sell your your stickers on sites like Envato and Creativemarket can help reach your customers.
Design Fonts for Creative Market or Etsy
Fonts are essential elements in graphic design. They play a pivotal role when it comes to poster design, brochure design, fliers, web development, and logo design. Every font has its own meaning and purpose in a particular design project. For this reason, graphic designers are always seeking to get the best fonts to match their projects.
With this opportunity, you can begin creating fonts and uploading them to the font marketplace for designers to purchase. That way you can earn money. A custom premium font can cost from $10-$50
Make Pre-Made Logo Packages
If you are a logo designer and you looking for a passive means on how to make money as a graphic designer, premade logo design is also an opportunity. Logo designers are using this to make up to $100-$500 weekly.
Brands and companies who do not have time or maybe the finance to hire a professional logo designer who will charge $500-$1000 to create a logo for them.
But when they can buy logo design packages for just a few bucks, the customer can have the main file and customize the logo to their preference.
You can earn with this opportunity and even make it your full-time hustle. If you have a blog or a portfolio, you can upload them there for clients to see
Sell Customized Branding Packages
Graphic designers who are looking for how to earn money with graphic design can boost their income by offering customized branding packages. These packages encompass logo design, color schemes, typography, and marketing materials like business cards and letterheads.
By providing clients with a one-stop solution for their branding needs, designers simplify the process and ensure a cohesive brand identity.
To succeed in this avenue of how to make money with graphic design, showcasing a strong portfolio, highlighting the value of a robust brand, and networking with local businesses are key strategies.
Establishing a reputation for delivering high-quality branding services can position graphic designers as experts in the field, attracting a consistent flow of clients and revenue.
This approach allows designers to leverage their creative skills effectively while addressing the practical question of how to make money with graphic design.
Create and Sell Printables
Graphic designers can design a wide range of printables, such as wall art, posters, planners, calendars, greeting cards, and more. These digital products can be sold on online marketplaces, e-commerce platforms, or through a personal website or blog.
What makes this approach appealing is the potential for passive income, as designers can continue to earn money from their designs long after the initial creation.
Work With Clients As A Freelancer
Known as one of the most common ways you can make money as a graphic designer, freelancing allows you to work freely without the supervision of any superior or design director. You earn directly to your pocket by working with clients who will pay according to the payment pattern agreed upon.
It could be hourly or payment after work completion. Whichever way you can easily make money as a freelance graphic when you have unique design skills.
Having a stellar portfolio is also important because it validates your competence in graphic design and exhibiting old works and personal projects is how clients will be attracted to hire you for jobs.
Design Social Media Graphics and Highlight Covers
Graphic designers can increase their earnings by designing social media graphics and highlight covers. These visual elements play a crucial role in maintaining a consistent and appealing online presence for businesses, influencers, and brands.
By offering tailored designs that align with their clients’ branding and messaging, graphic designers can establish a reliable income source in the competitive world of digital marketing.
To excel in this niche and address the question of how to make money with graphic design, designers should stay updated with the latest social media trends and platform-specific design requirements.
Create and Sell AI-Generated Graphic Elements
AI-generated design elements are taking the internet by storm. Since the introduction of artificial intelligence into the design industry, we’ve witnessed a great number of designers make use of Ai as an assistant to speed up the workflow by using ai generated elements.
Graphic designers can make money with graphic design by creating AI-generated elements such as color palettes, AI logo, icons, 3D elements and so many more.
Create AI-generated Art for Print-on-Demand
Graphic designers can harness the power of Artificial intelligence in graphic design to generate unique and captivating artworks that cater to various tastes and styles. These AI-generated designs can then be made available for sale on print-on-demand websites. Customers can choose to have these designs printed on various products like t-shirts, posters, mugs, and more.
By tapping into the print-on-demand market with AI-generated art, designers can reach a global audience without the hassle of managing inventory or fulfillment. Effective marketing through social media, niche-specific online communities, and partnerships with print-on-demand platforms can help drive sales.
As a result, graphic designers can create a passive income stream, all while exploring innovative ways to leverage AI technology in their work and addressing the question of how to make money with graphic design.
Sell AI Art Generation As a Service
If you’re wondering how to make money as a graphic designer, offering AI Art Generation as a Service could be a lucrative avenue to explore. This innovative service allows you to tap into the growing demand for unique and personalized artwork created with the assistance of artificial intelligence algorithms.
By providing a platform where individuals and businesses can access these AI-powered tools to generate art, you can cater to various artistic preferences and styles, all while capitalizing on the question of how to make money as a graphic designer.
This versatile offering can seamlessly integrate into a range of applications, from digital marketing campaigns to interior design projects, ultimately helping you monetize your graphic design skills in a creative and profitable way.
Create and Sell NFT Collection
Non-fungible token (NFT) is a hot cake in the blockchain realm. An NFT art can be sold for thousands or millions of dollars. If you are a great designer and you know you can create interesting artwork, you can easily earn money in this field by creating NFT.
It could be as simple as the rainbow cat NFT which was sold for millions of dollars. However, NFTs aren’t just digital files. Nft could be physical items like real-life portraits of DaVinci, sound, celebrity signature on an item like a sports jersey, etc
Create content about AI Art
Designers can write blog articles or create videos that explore topics like the history of AI art, the technology behind it, and its impact on the art world. They can also provide tutorials on how to use AI art generation tools, offer tips for incorporating AI-generated art into traditional designs, or showcase their own AI-generated artworks.
By sharing their knowledge and expertise in AI art, graphic designers can position themselves as authorities in this emerging field. This can lead to opportunities for speaking engagements, collaborations with AI art platforms, or even the creation of online courses or workshops.
Ultimately, creating content about AI art not only helps designers monetize their skills but also contributes to the broader conversation about the intersection of technology and creativity.