• Focus your time on "Guarenteed" labeled contests as the contest holders here are usually more serious, and aren't likely to scam you with a refund. Doing this has boosted my winning chances by over 70% and I did not have to deal with a "locked contest" that is due for a refund in the next few weeks. 

• Before entering a 99Designs contest pay attention to how active the contest holder is at giving feedback. Little to no feedback = stay far away from this soon to be locked contest. A nonresponsive contest holder is one of the worst. When I enter a contest I always make sure that a contest holder is at least 70% responsive. 

• Always, always, always stay away from copyrighted images. If you have to use images in your designs please make sure that you use stock images, and properly label them. Imagine that you created a design, worked very hard on it, and the contest holder loves it. Now imagine having your design being reported, and taken down right when the contest holder lets you know that they chose your design for their contest. Now the contest holder is irritated, chooses another designer, and you ultimately lose just because you used a copyrighted image (using copyrighted images can also get you sued as well as the contest holder so please keep that in mind). 

• Make sure you sell your ideas to the contest holder when submitting a design. A crucial mistake that most designers at 99Designs make when submitting a design is leaving the comment area blank. Never do that. Communicate your ideas clearly, and efficiently so that they can understand the thought behind the process. When I broke down why I did certain things to the contest holder they asked questions, and gave compliments which ended up to winning the contest. 

• Don't stick to one area of design. If you like designing logos that's fine but do not limit yourself to just logos. There are so many categories to choose from at 99Designs that many designers do not pay attention to. When you limit your potential you also limit the amount of money you can earn at 99Designs. 

• Report other designs that violate the rules. So you're in a contest where the contest holder has to pretty much choose between you and another designer's design. You notice that they used a copyrighted image from deviant art (not the deviant art stock section, but the general ones that clearly state it is not a stock image), and they did not even link to it in their design (they are concealing the crime). It also happens that the image they are using is the main subject the contest holder likes. What should you do? Report it. An easy win. 

If you have an eye for design, and have killer skills in photoshop, indesign, or illustrator and are also looking for some legitimate ways to make some extra money designing what you love to do online keep reading.


I recommend the list below if you're intermediate to advanced in designing. Most sites featured on this list are teen and college student friendly!

Fiverr: Everyone Welcomed!

From intermediate to advanced fiverr has thousands of graphic designers earning extra income through its market place. Some earning as much as $100,000 as top rated sellers.

With fiverr you will not have to market yourself much as a designer. All you need is a good gig description, and stunning samples 2-3 of your original work (these will make the most impact on your first sale). I would reccomend designing social media banners (for facebook, twitter, google+, etc) or 3d mock ups as those usually get a lot of sales in the Graphic design section.

Fiverr doesn't limit you to just $5. You could charge more with extras such as providing licensed images, source files, etc...

Fiverr is also a great way to build a portfolio if you don't have any. It helped me build up my graphic design portfolio, and my sales usually start at $55 and went as high as $750 per order. It is extremely rare for me to see $5 orders on my dashboard (maybe once every blue moon?). I personally have made thousands of dollars through fiverr.

To be honest at first I had no idea what I was doing. I was a great designer and took design classes, but I never had any experience working with an actual client. Fiverr helped me gain that experience while I was in high school, and is currently paying for my college tuition and books (through trial and error I learned to perfect my business sales).

I definitely recommend to high school visual art students starting out and college students needing a portfolio! You can see my full review and fiverr payment proof here.

Portfoliobox:

I sold some of my graphic design pieces using a website called portfoliobox!

Portfoliobox showcases portfolios in visually pleasing ways which is why I used it to begin with!


With portfolio box I had 3 pages. One page featured my portfolio while the other showed the pre-made designs I had for sale along with the prices (my fixed price was $75--keep in mind these designs were pre-made not custom). My third page was a "contact me" section where customers could contact me through a business email exclusively for design purposes. With Portfolio box I pretty much had to promote myself 100%. As a designer I was on my own with marketing myself here, but what made it easier was my design blog which I used to market myself  (no not this blog darling).

The payment system is through PayPal so to get paid you will need a paypal account.

See portfolio box in action below:





Portfoliobox offers two plans -- a free version and a pro plan for $6.90 (cheaper than Netflix bro!)

The free version limits the amounts of products/designs you can sell. You can only sell up to 10 designs at a time, are limited to 50 portfolio images, and can only have up to 10 pages. You also cannot link your personal domain name (www. yournamehere .com) with the free plan. Instead you get a free domain name under www. yournamehere.portfoliobox  .io

The pro plan allows you to have up to 1,000 images, web hosting, unlimited products/design sales, unlimited pages, unlimited blog posts, parallax pages, flickr pages, Instagram pages, and beyond! The pro plan is basically for pro designers, photographers, artists and the like.

You do not necessarily have to use portfolio box. You can use platforms like blogspot (completely free) and wordpress (kind of free) or an e-commerce platform like Shopify (absolutelty not free). I just find portfolio box very easy to use as it has all my stuff in one for free!

When using portfolio box to let others find you, and to rank in google's search engine I'd recommend using Google webmaster tools.

Graphic River: Eh?

Being part of the Envato Market Place, Graphic River allows you to sell your pre-made design at a set price. You can sell your website template designs, your vectors, presentation templates, illustration, product mocknups, and so much more. The endless design possibilities are abundant at Graphic River.

If you are more into website designs, and creating website templates I would recommend using themeforest (still under Envato Market Place) as you will earn a whole lot more from website designing!

Udemy: Teach a design course

Udemy has over 6 million users in its database, and does promote your design teaching course through coupon codes, and its affiliate programs.

So what are the rules? Here we go:

Your videos must be 30 minutes in length
It must include audio, and everything must be clear (no static, high winds, etc)
Your videos must be in HD at a minimum of 720p
Your file size must be no greater than 1 GB

If you are camera shy don't worry you do not have to show your face. You can simply screencast and record a voice over to narrate your videos. Showing your face, and talking though increases the chance of your buyers trusting you.


See an example of a Udemy video intro below!

What you'll need:

A nice and simple video editor - I use Sony vegas and final cut pro, but I would reccomended using imovie or windows movie maker for simple free editing.

A screen recorder - I use Camtasia studios and would very much recommend it (though it is pretty pricey), but if you are looking for the best free screen caster I'd recommend screen to video by Koyotesoft.com

An eye catching "pull all the clients in" teaser video. This is the intro into your course, and is basically your best marketing tool. You will need to create a short video that explains what your design course is all about. I recommend letting your personality show through (don't be scared to be funny, bubbly, etc...this is the introduction into you---make an impact) as marketing yourself well will convert into higher sales.

Starting a design course is completely free, and Udemy recommends pricing it at around $29, but  some people do so well that they offer some of their courses at $200 per student. Once a student purchases your course they have access to it forever! (So set the right price).

What about the money?

You get to keep 100% of revenues...unless Udemy markets your courses that is. In that case they get to keep a whopping 50% per sale!. You get half and they keep half. So if you sold your entire course for $100, you'll get $50 bucks to take home.

If you do not like that idea, and want to take the route of marketing your how to videos alone why not start a youtube channel? Now if you go down this road you are completely on your own (marketing, payment system, and how you'll get money--ads or sponsors? Maybe market your own products for sales?), but you will be in control of your earnings and if you're really good (or really lucky) you can make a good amount of income on a monthly basis.

Myfonts: Selling Your fonts

If you choose to design typography for Myfonts you have to absolutely know what you are doing. This is for advanced designers who pretty much specialize in creating their own original fonts. If you know nothing of typography, font libraries, serif, san serif, script, and retail fonts please do not try looking for an easy buck on Myfonts as it will be extremely difficult for you. You will absolutely earn nothing if you go in blindly.

You cannot excel at something you do not know or have no experience in creating.

On the other hand you can learn, and take free typography courses. Practice makes perfect! When you have immersed yourself in the world of typography and are practically an expert on font creation take it a step further and create licenses for your fonts. Design them efficiently, and sell your font licenses based on levels such as trademark licenses, commercial licenses, editorial licenses, and so on.

My fonts has some pretty strict rules which you can see here (yes, they are that serious baby!)

They also have guides with several steps to make it easier for you available here (oh, there is a silver a linning!)

As for the money they do take a pretty good chunk of cash from you sales so please be prepared to share some cash with them as they are marketing you!

Creative Market:

If you would still like to sell your originally designed fonts, but not so much your soul with really strict rules try Creative Market. You need an invitation to get in, but it will be worth it! Creative Market takes 30% from each of your sales so you will end up with a 70% profit. Though on the bright side you will never have to go through a review process or quality check so you can just sell every one of your designs instantly and without worry. How so? Your invitation acceptance is your quality check!

Upon invite you will have to provide a link to your online portfolio which showcases your best of the best works (this is your main quality check), and explain why you'd like to open a shop at creative market.

With Creative Market designers also have the benefit of being non-exclusive so you can sell all the designs you offer at Creative Market elsewhere (yes, the supreme bonus of guilt free cheating--with design that is!). You also have the freedom to sell your designs at whatever price you would like.

Creative Market is home to over 1 million users so you can get a decent amount of exposure from Creative Market marketing you in two ways. You either get featured or are included in their bundle sale! Sound easy? It's not.

You have to be a trendsetter. The best selling designs at creative market are fonts (yes, Myfonts was a set up to get you here). You can sell other designs such as logos, 3d, photography, templates, etc but that will not make you much as Creative Market will not give you awesome exposure for this--your voice will get lost in the depth of high quality design madness (you will not survive--there is always someone better than you...but that's okay, I'm here to save you).

So how do you get noticed? Keep up with the trending design madness! The hottest best selling stuff are the pretty decorative hand drawn font designs. This will help you get bundled, and featured towards your first couple hundred sales.

Another way you can earn well in Creative Market is by selling photoshop actions and marketing it through youtube or vimeo  (show how it's used in a video--seeing is believing). Okay, so maybe you are not about font design or photoshop actions. Maybe you're more into designing logos? Vintage and retro logos are also doing very well on Creative Market and are part of the "best selling design craze" so I'd say "go for it!"

To promote yourself even more I would reccomend building a brand for yourself via social media (google+, facebook, twitter, tumblr). You can promote each design you create, and tag them appropriately to increase your exposure.



This list will keep being updated throughout our making money online journey. Make sure to subscribe and not miss a beat!