SpyreStudios

Web Design and Development Magazine

  • Design
  • Showcase
  • Inspirational
  • Tutorials
  • CSS
  • Resources
  • Tools
  • UX
  • More
    • Mobile
    • Usability
    • HTML5
    • Business
    • Freebies
    • Giveaway
    • About SpyreStudios
    • Advertise On SpyreStudios
    • Get In Touch With Us

10 Passive Income Ideas for Graphic Designers

July 26, 2018 by Spyre Studios

Passive Income Ideas

Graphic design can be a rewarding career for talented creatives who know how to market themselves – and rather lucrative for designers who create passive income streams. Getting paid while you sleep might seem too good to be true, but many designers have leveraged their skills to do just that.

Passive income isn’t easy income, however, and it takes real commitment to not only design salable products, but also market them so you can enjoy the fruits of your labor. To that end, here are ten passive income ideas you can consider for your design business.

1. Sell design templates

Designers and DIY marketers are always on the lookout for graphic design templates, especially templates that are editable in Photoshop and Illustrator. Bestsellers include flyer and poster templates, brochure templates, and website templates.

“If you’re skilled with Photoshop, Illustrator, Sketch, or other graphic design software – even PowerPoint – you can easily sell your own templates,” says Adam McIntyre, a freelance designer who sells flyer and brochure templates via BrandPacks.com while he travels Europe in his campervan. “Thanks to online marketplaces like Graphic River and Creative Market, and the evolution of free-to-use software like EasyDigitalDownloads, generating passive income as a designer is easier than ever before.”

Like Adam, you can sell templates on your own website; or, you can sell your designs via online template marketplaces. Options include:

  • Creative Market
  • Graphic River
  • Design Cuts
  • Template Cloud

2. Sell fonts

Do you have a knack for typography? If so, you can create your own fonts and sell them to other designers. Follow font-making tutorials and brush up on font design tips (or take a font design course), then design your own fonts with software like:

  • FontForge
  • FontLab
  • FontCreator
  • Glyphs

Once you’ve designed your fonts, you can sell them on your own website, distribute them through a font foundry like FontSpring or Linotype, or sell on font marketplaces such as:

  • MyFonts
  • FontShop
  • Hype For Type

3. Sell shirts and other print on demand (POD) products

Passive Income Ideas

You can create designs for shirts, hats, bags, posters and prints, coffee mugs, and other products, then sell them via print on demand websites. Options include:

  • Zazzle
  • Café Press
  • RedBubble
  • Printful
  • TeeSpring
  • Threadless
  • DeviantArt
  • Design By Humans
  • Spreadshop
  • TeeFury
  • Society6

If you want to sell print on demand products via your own website, but you don’t want to deal with printing and order fulfillment, you can even set up a Shopify store and connect it to an add-on like Printful’s Shopify app.

4. Sell stock photos

If you moonlight as a photographer, or simply snap your own photos for your designs, you can repurpose them into revenue by selling them on stock photo sites. Options include:

  • Deposit Photos
  • Stocksy
  • 123RF
  • Shutterstock
  • Dreamstime
  • CanStockPhoto
  • Getty Images/iStock
  • Adobe Stock

5. Sell WordPress themes

If you have development skills, you can design and develop WordPress themes to sell. Or, partner with a developer and split the profits. Check out online WordPress theme design tutorials to understand best practices, then sell your WordPress themes on sites like:

  • Theme Forest
  • MOJO Themes
  • Creative Market
  • Template Monster
  • Ink Themes
  • ThemeSnap

Consider specializing in theme niches; for example, you might sell WooCommerce themes or themes for BuddyPress.

6. Sell Adobe add-ons

You can create and sell add-ons for Adobe’s uber popular software. Photoshop brushes and actions, Lightroom presets, After Effects plugins, Premier LUT’s, text styles, layer styles, patterns, and other add-ons make it easy for other designers to quickly and easily implement creative styles into their designs. That means you can profit from a healthy market for Adobe add-ons.

“Selling Adobe add-ons can be low-hanging fruit for many creative professionals, as they often have their own collection of actions and presets. Why leave ’em hidden on your hard drive? Uploading these assets to sites like FilterGrade enables designers and photographers to generate additional passive revenue streams with very little effort,” says FilterGrade’s Mike Moloney. “Many of our partners have managed to double their income in just a matter of weeks, and some are even able to quit freelancing altogether.”

Sell your Adobe add-ons via:

  • FilterGrade
  • Creative Market
  • Graphic River

passive income ideas for designers

7. Sell design tutorials and courses

Help other designers enhance their skills by creating and selling your own design tutorials. Design tutorials are among the easiest digital products to create: you’re already doing design work, after all, so you can simply fire up your favorite screencast software and narrate your process.

You can create your own design tutorial website, or sell via online course marketplaces like:

  • Udemy
  • Lynda
  • Teachable

In addition to design tutorials, you can sell entire courses about the business of design, how to get clients, and other valuable information you can share.

8. Create marketable content

You can sell design tutorials and courses directly; or, you can create content that attracts advertising and helps you earn revenue via affiliate links. Ideas include creating your own design blog and publishing tutorials on YouTube.

Earning passive income via ads and affiliates is a long game, and it’s not easy – you need to craft killer content, develop ad partnerships, and develop a strong marketing strategy – but if you can pull it off, the rewards can be tremendous. Learn more about how to create content that engages your audience (and attracts advertisers).

9. Sell mockup kits

Mockup kits are gaining popularity among designers who want quick and easy ways to create scenes for product displays, brand identity displays, and more. You can create niche-themed mockup kits and sell them to other designers. Ideas include Italian restaurant mockup kits, pizzeria mockup kits, mobile app mockups, brand identity package mockups, business card display mockups, shirt mockups, and product setting mockups – there really is no limit in this field.

Create mockups in your favorite graphic editor or use a tool like Mockup Editor to get started. You can sell mockups Creative Market and other marketplaces.

10. Sell books

Do you have an interesting take on the world of graphic design? Helpful advice to share with fellow freelancers? A step-by-step process for starting and growing a design business or agency? Or, have you crafted unique artwork that deserves its own publication? If so, you can self-publish your own book and sell it via sites and services like:

  • CreateSpace
  • Book Baby
  • Lulu

Creating passive income streams takes commitment, hard work, and ongoing marketing; but, if you’re dedicated and willing to put in the time and effort, you can leverage your design experience to generate reliable and recurring revenue!

This post was written by Brian Morris. He serves in various capacities as a freelance writer, content developer and public relations specialist for growing small businesses. He can be found on LinkedIn.

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: business tips, graphic design, income

Recent Posts

  • 31 Fresh Design Elements for Spring and Easter
  • 10 Templates for Music Concert Flyers
  • How to Build a Web Scraper Using Node.js
  • Best PHP Books, Courses and Tutorials in 2022
  • How to Get Your First Web Design Client

Archives

  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008

Categories

  • Accessibility
  • Android
  • Apps
  • Art
  • Article
  • Blogging
  • Books
  • Bootstrap
  • Business
  • CSS
  • Design
  • Development
  • Ecommerce
  • Fireworks
  • Flash
  • Freebies
  • Freelance
  • General
  • Giveaway
  • Graphic Design
  • HTML5
  • Icons
  • Illustrator
  • InDesign
  • Infographics
  • Inspirational
  • Interview
  • Jobs
  • jQuery
  • Learning
  • Logos
  • Matrix
  • Minimalism
  • Mobile
  • Motion Graphics
  • Music
  • News
  • Photoshop
  • PHP
  • Promoted
  • Rails
  • Resources
  • Showcase
  • Tools
  • Tutorial
  • Twitter
  • Typography
  • Uncategorized
  • Usability
  • UX
  • Wallpapers
  • Wireframing
  • WordPress
  • Work

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

SpyreStudios © 2022