Everybody dreams about getting rich doing what they like. Most designers choose their career without bothering about money, but simply because they love what they do. However, in real life we need money to pay bills, to feed the family, etc. And then you find yourself working on the project that you thought you would never do. And you are working on it only for money putting away your creative dreams.
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via Aleksi Tapura
Most designers are ensured their profession is the road to wealth. But is it real or worthwhile going down this road? How exactly designers would earn loads of money? Let's imagine a designer making enough money for very comfortable living and see what lies behind this.
Create a runaway hit
The majority of well-known designers have taken down the same road toward their wealthy and prestigious kingdoms: they slowly grind and sharpened their skills, then they came out with a result. They created something so special, so unique and perfect that it gathered the highest feedback scores from the entire design community. Massimo Vignelli with his famous New York City subway maps and Jonathan Ive with his recogniseable designs for Apple are the good examples.
When you become famous and admired for a special project, you make the first step on the road to your moneymaking kingdom. Henceforth you should share and implement your best ideas. Be sure, they will be all noticed.
Scale your design firm
When we talk about some well-known product we usually think of the team that is behind it. And designer is just part of the team. If you have the entrepreneur mindset, you want to play the more solid role and want to make much more money, think of your own firm.
Scaling your services is a must. As an option you can find a mate to cooperate with. Your partner can be a designer to share the main work, or he can be a business person to manage clerking, clients and any other activities so you could focus on design.
Moreover, you can hire several employees for managing and performing the day to day activities and create your own brand. But is it more about entrepreneurship than design? Yes. Is this path full of challenges, risks and uncertainty? Yes. But now you are the boss and you outline the borders of your kingdom, you decide the size of the royal treasury.
Becoming a founder at a startup
If all these 'businessman activities' are not for you, you can take a look on the other moneymaking road that becomes more and more popular nowadays - startups. The mechanism is simple: sign up, do your best to create the image of the company and wait till its market value rises up to millions of dollars.
Sounds easy, but what lies beneath? You will need a lot of luck and analytics performed to choose the right company. Concentrate to see the stop signals, caution signs and to hear the alerts. It can be any aspect, any activity of the company. But firstly, understand what the company actually does. Do they sell any product or provide any useful service or they do nothing but talking big in press and spending the sponsor's money?
You should be very careful at evaluating the startup. Otherwise you can waste months or even years of your life going down the road that leads to nowhere. Will you get rich in such case? I doubt.
Create and license your work
There is another remunerative designer's way - licensing your designs. The algorithm is as follows: contact the company that makes products, offer the rights to reproduce your designs on their product in exchange for a royalty. That's it! You are now free to work on your creative ideas while the bank checks are rolling in. There is no need to pay partners, agents and worry about the product distribution. Your money is already in your pocket.
This way would be perfect if it had no difficulties. The most challenging thing is to find the company that is profitable enough and ready to give you a fair royalty. In addition, your designs should match the company products and services.
But everything goes smoother once you have built a brand and have a solid online presence. Enrich your portfolio with the best projects, attract attention, communicate with your followers, share your opinion and view through blogs and social media, communicate with your followers so that more and more people know your work and want your work!
Based on hongkiat.com
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