Outlaw Design Blog

Unless you’re design rockstar, the freelance lifestyle tends to be feast or famine. One minute your taking your girl to steak houses and clubs, the next your stuck at home with takeout and a movie rental. That’s just the way it goes. So how can one make money when things get slow? The key word here is passive income.

There are a billion of those crappy e-book, get rich quick, sales pages out there offering to help us do just that. But as anyone can see, many are bogus. Until recently there wasn’t a reputable list of passive income money makers. Freelance Switch has a sister site that has create a nice passive income list.

This list will include many of the same resources as well as some additional ones geared toward designers and photographers. Many of these services also offer affliate programs to help you earn even more income. Some of these links are my personal affiliate, if so I will mark them as affiliate links. Please help support the site by using my affiliate links.

Be sure to check the website by Freelance Switch about making passive income.

For Designers:

CafePress.com – You obviously have some design skill, put it to use. Find a niche and start creating some shirts and jackets. I use this site and make about $75 - $100 a month in the slow months and double during the holidays.

RedBubble – Buys shirt design, photography, and art. This one is gear more toward artsy style t-shirts. I haven’t made any money with this site yet, but I don’t network on it much.

Smashing Magazine – Im sure you know about this website, but did you ever think about writing some content for them? Can be a great way to earn some money and help build up your reputation.

Associated Content – Mainly a website for freelance writers, this site can still be helpful for web and graphic designers. They pay for articles on just about anything. Initial payment is between $3 and $20. You also get performance incentives for traffic to your content. When I used this site full time I was making $30 - $50 a day.

Vector Stock – Buys vector artwork. Low payout when starting with them, 35% - 30% based on rights. The more popular your images become and the more
downloads you get, the more payout increases. The highest amount to be made is $0.45 per download.

Zazzle.com – Another t-shirt site. Doesn’t pay as well as CafePress and doesn’t get as much traffic. I wouldn’t recommend.

For Photographers/Videographers

iStock Photo (aff) – Buys video, photo, and vector art. They have very high standards. Im a professional photographer and got rejected 3 times. Seems like a good place to make money once you have enough content or some quality work. Vector art does really well here. I can say much for the video as I don’t do it.

Dreamstime – These guys seem to have one of the highest payouts for photographers and pay extra for exclusive content. You can earn up to $30 for print usage of one of your photos.

Shutter Stock (aff) – Buys photos and vectors. Easy to get into, but doesn’t pay as much as others. I use this site and make about $15 - $30 a month.

Revostock – Buys video footage, backgrounds, transitions, sound effects, and music. Prices paid very on a number of factors. Here are some examples; HD 1080 $35.00, Music Tracks $10.00. As always, exclusive content gets more money.

Deviant Art - An awesome online community. They have a store to sell online prints. The great thing about the store is it’s a print on demand service. Meaning once you upload your designs, you don’t have to worry about anything. You can set your own price based off of the cost of printing from Deviant Art.

For Web Designers

Flash Den (aff) – As the name suggests, they buy flash. They also buy audio and fonts. The basic pay here is 25% of any product. Exclusive authors can earn up to %05 of every sale.

BlueHost – If you aren’t making money off hosting services yet you are doing something wrong. Being a web designer is the perfect opportunity for passive income. Bluehost pays $65 per referral.