10 Ways to Make Extra Money as a Designer

How to turn passion into a paycheck for the average designer.

Whether you’re laid off, unemployed, furloughed, or want to make some extra money on the side as a designer — this article will give you ten ways to start making money from your design chops today.

There is no magic to making money as a designer, but I’ve had personal experience or seen all of the following methods be fruitful for anyone who gives it their best effort and is patient for results.

As a college dropout, I needed to hustle to make a living. I’ve tried dozens of ways to make money online — everything from getting rich quick schemes to building businesses from scratch. I ultimately found success through developing my design skills and using them to create content, build products, and sell services.

In this post, I’ll review methods to earn money with design skills and share my personal experience with a few of these techniques.

1. Fiverr

Fiverr is a marketplace for sellers to offer skills and services for a fixed price.

The beauty of Fiverr is that you can sell anything on there. No matter what it is, you’re sure to find someone selling it on Fiverr — Dancing in a hot dog outfit, flirting with your husband, minimalist logo design, and everything in between.

I got my first big break on Fiverr as an 18-year-old wannabee designer that resulted in unimaginable monetary success. At the peak, I was making $1,000+ every week on Fiverr.

I built my Fiverr empire step by step by offering simple design skills for less than $15. I offered services like icon design, custom geofilters for Snapchat, logo mockups, photo editing, illustration, and more.

Simple design tasks like superimposing a customer’s logo on a t-shirt in Photoshop, for example, took less than 20 minutes to complete making it possible to earn $30–50 per hour.

As I built up my repertoire of design skills, I offered them to potential buyers on Fiverr. Fiverr fueled…