5 Tips to Grow your Income as a Graphic Designer!

 

Hey what’s up guys, it’s Fisayo here and in this video, I’ll be discussing my journey
briefly on how I made almost 15 thousand dollars in 6 months as a graphic design freelancer
before I fully started on YouTube, my thoughts and recommendations and things that you should
look out for when getting started.
This video will have a ton of value and I really hope someone gets something from this
Either you’re just starting out as a graphic designer or you’re already even experienced
and would like to pick up a thing or two from this video.
You’re all welcome.

Before we move on, gently tap that like button for me so that more people would benefit from
this video, you never know this could be helping someone as YouTube would recommend it more
when you just tap that like button, without further ado, let’s get to the video.

So quick introduction for those who are new to the channel, my name is Fisayo Fosudo.
I’m Nigerian and I studied Economics as an Undergraduate in the University of Lagos.
I loved Economics even before entering the university, I also loved art, and I loved
finance and technology so this channel is sort of a testament to all my passions emerging
onto one single space.

I started out learning graphic design in my second year of University.
I would randomly walk round the school and pick flyers and posters and just draw or recreate
them in any way I could.

I had sort of pictorial mind and I loved and appreciated things that were well designed
but I just couldn’t re-interpret it to the best of my abilities.
And that brings be to one major point in this video.
The first point.
Learning!

Learning
One thing you should know is that as a beginner, you can never really know exactly how to do
something unless you learn how to do it or practice it.
To put it in sweeter words, your interpretation of your creativity is limited by your skill.

You have wild imaginations and in your head there are so many amazing ideas but you just
don’t know exactly how to put it on paper or in photoshop.
So now for you to express this creativity, you have to learn that skill and practice
it and become more and more competent…by doing it… really everyday . An an important
note, no one was born a designer or with that ability, you can in fact learn it.

Now if you haven’t you can maybe get a pen and write some things down, one way I started
and this isn’t a hard and fast rule.
I started watching tutorials on websites like Lynda.com, now called Linkedin learning, Udemy,
Skillshare and YouTube, yes, tons of free and valuable information like this video as
well are on YouTube.

The first tutorial I’ll recommend for any graphic designer is Ina Saltz’s Tutorial
on Typography.
I think this is the 3rd time I’m mentioning it on the channel and that’s because it’s
that good.

Apart from the fact that she’s a professor of Typography, and she has put more that 35
years in, This course was super helpful for me especially because the area of graphic
design I specialized in was more information based than art-based.

Web Design that is.
So I had to present written information a lot, I designed websites, magazines, flyers,
posters and a lot of useful projects that had a lot of typography which, let’s face
it, many graphic design projects that would be used to sell products would require typography,
essentially putting words on art or typing something that sells so this is the most crucial
thing I think every designer should know.

I’ve even seen very artsy designers that can draw and create image concepts well but
don’t know how to present or order text on a page and that’s just wrong, I’ve
seen many many high profile designs with wrong use of typography and, trust me the rules
are there to be broken but there are really terrible typographic designs.

This tutorial and her other tutorials in her series would sincerely help boost your creativity
Highly recommended and I’ll leave links in the description below.

There are other tutorials I watched as well, Foundations of Color, Composition, Contrast
and Scale, all in different categories on Lynda.com or Linkedin Learning and these are
the things I studied during my journey.
Of course, not everyone can pay N6,800 or $14 for a 1-month subscription, a platform
which has worked for me without fail is YouTube.
You see, there are 2 major things you’ll almost always do when you’re on your design

journey, I believe not every designer can claim to know everything so one thing you
will and should be doing is heading on to Google and searching for solutions, like How
to create noisy drop shadows and special effects like that and one thing to note is that Google
is the biggest search engine, YouTube is the second biggest search engine and YouTube is
owned by Google.

Some of the results you find on Google will lead to video tutorials and creators on this
website can teach you for free.
The second thing to note, and this is very important as well is that you…

hit that like button if you’re finding this video useful.
Alright just kidding.
Another thing to note though is that, you should have fun with the process and try to
drop any assumptions you have before learning and see how you can absorb as much as you
can.

At this stage in my design career, I hadn’t made so much when I was learning but I really
genuinely loved what I was getting at and so far I had zero dollars to show for it.
Getting Work Started
Now, to the next phase, working for people.
As a graphic designer when you’re first starting out, if you’re not directly emoployed
you definitely need to do some work for as many people as you can to grow your income
or work on as many projects as you can and because design is very subjective, you have
to live with the fact that well you might not be good enough but that’s okay.

If you can and I think you should, when you’re starting out, you’ll want to make a bunch
of free designs or lower paid projects you can learn from but you have to make sure it’s
meeting the needs of the patronizing party aka the client.
Don’t take any feedback personal, you have to accept that you’re just starting out.

At this phase for me, I was an intern in my 2nd year in university as an undergrad.
I did my internships in 2 companies and I really didn’t get paid a ton of money but
I learned a lot.

I also did designs for my university department during events and presentations, most times
for free and I did for some of my friends who wanted to organize events, conferences,

parties and the likes, those were also paid.
In all that processes, I listened clearly to what was being said and required, deciphered
the brief and got to work.

Always understand the brief and ask as Many questions as possible.
It now got to time for me to freelance and this is where things started to change for
me.

I was able to start working for around 500 where I was making a book design for like
250 to 400, sometimes even 500 dollars.
I did that consistently on sites like Fiverr, Upwork, 99Designs, Crowdspring and I even
got to one of the highest levels a designer could get.

Within this time, something I figured out was that the tools you use now are very important.
I already touched on the fact that learning was super crucial but now, I needed to have
the right tools, this meant a fast computer, a fast mouse with multiple buttons, for some
people, a stylus and a wide enough screen.

This would help you become more efficient and make you a more reliable designer.
Being a reliable designer meant I responded to the clients I was designing for almost
immediately, regardless of the time, it meant I didn’t copy any other person’s design
work and even when you’re taking inspiration, you’re crafting something truly unique and
done by you.

Don’t copy as that would get you in trouble faster than you think.
Understanding Clients
Speaking of reliability, which is a major way your income can and will grow, make sure
you understand the clients and what the clients want.
Make sure that when you give your designs, you thoroughly explain the designs, explain
why you added a button, why something was special about your design what you did right
and what you did different.

I found that this made the changes to my work much less, it made the client trust my judgement
more and it overall made my work flow smoother.
Understanding your clients involve studying their brand wholly, understanding the assets,

the colors of the brand and the meaning of the brand.
Make sure you know what they want to achieve with a certain design or project and see how
this design you’re tasked to create is going to solve a problem for them.

Research is very key at this point and the last thing you want is to be the designer
that delivers something other than what they want.
You won’t get far if you rush the process so take your time to understand every single
aspect before putting the mouse on the pad or grabbing your stylus.

Now, with regards to the money making tips at this phase, try to ask your clients if
there’s any other thing you can create to help.
I know this might sound cliche but for real, JUST ASK… if you’re tasked with designing
a web page for instance, you can ask him if he wants a mobile version designed as well.

If he asks for an app design, you can ask if he has his developers and you can partner
with maybe a friend of yours who can develop and you can share a commission.
Asking for more work and also asking that the client recommends you can really help
you get far.

I know because recommendations have helped me get from $500 a month to 1,000 dollars
a month to making that much per every single project and it just mattered how many projects
I wanted to work on and for how long.
I even was able to retain some clients all over the world for quite a while and I did
a bunch of designs for them.

It was at this point we were able to get to almost $15,000 in 6 months, the early funding
I got to start this channel mostly came from my graphic design work and it has really helped
me create so much value relatively in a short while.
Understand Money
One thing any designer should note and can help them grow their income is also to understand
how to be wise about money.

I had an enlightenment last year and it changed my view of money and was part of the reasons
why I started the finance Friday series on the channel apart from tech videos.

Which by the way we have a bunch of review videos coming, I have giveaway winners to
announce on the channel and some interesting projects line up for you guys.

Two of the questions people have asked me is how much to charge or how do you charge
and what platforms did I use.

With regards to how much you should charge as a freelancer, you can start small but always
give value and then on the next project you can test a higher amount, then a higher amount,
then a higher amount.

Add more services you’re delivering and charge for it.
This is exactly what I did.
I started with 5,000 Naira per design here in Nigeria, went up to 500 dollars per design
online, tested $1,000, tested $2,000, 2500 you get the idea, With regards to the platforms,

most freelancing platforms charge a percentage of how much you charge your client, that’s
how they make money.
They give you exposure to clients and you then get paid.