From Hobby to Career: Leveraging Adobe Illustrator for Increased Earnings

Ensuring some extra cash on the side can be a game-changer. That extra income can open lots of doors for you and allow you to accomplish various goals you’ve always wanted to achieve. 

Whether you’re struggling to pay your utility bills or trying to save for a long overdue trip, you can do so much by leveraging your Adobe Illustrator skills. 

Since we live in an internet-driven world, the web is swarming with money-earning opportunities. You can go into a career with online business endeavors as it doesn’t require much experience or knowledge. 

If you’re familiar with Adobe Illustrator, you can use it to earn money online. With that in mind, here are several ways to make money with Adobe Illustrator.

Sell icons

Custom-made icons are in high demand across online marketplaces such as Flaticon and Iconfinder. You can fetch a nice price for your work. However, you need to consider quality and quantity before taking this approach. Icon marketplaces are saturated with competition. 

The best way to attract customers to your work is to create top-quality icons across multiple categories. For example, most people use icons for web applications and mobile devices. 

Since icons help users convey actions and ideas, they are critical to many user interface solutions. Each buyer has unique preferences and a particular design style. 

Tapping into their interests allows you to create products that match their needs. Selling hundreds of custom-made icons will be easier if you provide consistency across several design styles. 

Tap into stock art marketplaces

Stock art marketplaces such as Graphicriver, Canva, and Creativemarket are perfect income-earning platforms for designers looking to sell graphic assets. These platforms cater to different demographics. 

Designers use them to promote their materials and help users complete design-based projects. Although working on a deadline might be a downside, especially during heavy workloads, tapping into stock art marketplaces can be extremely profitable for Adobe Illustrator-experienced users. Create vector assets and design materials to help others complete projects faster and earn top dollar for your effort. 

These materials can fetch you the best price:

• Premade logo designs;
• Templates for multipurpose banners for social media platforms, apps, and websites;
• Greeting card borders, background patterns, and floral designs;
• Clip art for mobile apps, online presentations, print, and web.

These are all good ways to start making some money quickly.

Create diverse content for multiple social media channels

Social media sites are filled with countless designers and digital artists, offering many lucrative opportunities to content creators. However, there are still ways to stand out on platforms like YouTube. 

Since YouTube has more than two billion active users monthly, you can harness its power to earn a high income by creating relevant and attention-grabbing content. Here’s an excellent idea for conquering your YT competition. 

Work on establishing yourself on YouTube as a niche content creator, making unique pieces that target specific demographics. More importantly, invest time and effort in providing content solutions that offer real-life value, and your followers will love you for it. 

Naturally, you’ll feel that love each time you have a look at your bank account.

Become an online teacher

Online courses are incredibly popular these days. The expansion of the internet gave people worldwide global access to online teaching. Since there’s a whole online teaching industry, you can improve your money making skills by becoming an online teacher and providing unique clientele with market-disturbing services. 

As an online instructor, you can teach people around the world and create online courses that you can sell to your target audience. In addition, you can sell your online teaching services and products on e-learning platforms like Skillshare and Udemy.

Conclusion

As you can see, knowing your way around Adobe Illustrator and the internet can help you discover multiple ways to earn extra income. 

Leverage your knowledge across social media groups, online forums, design platforms, blogs, and online design communities to connect with same-minded individuals. These connections will help you learn how to turn your Adobe Illustrator skills into profit.