5 Ways to Earn Money in Surface Pattern Design
Whether you’re new here or you’ve been here for a while and need a little refresher, I’ve got you covered in this blog where I give you an overview of the five different ways that you can make money as a Surface Pattern Designer.
If you want to dive deeper into any particular category, pop over to my YouTube Channel where you'll find separate videos on each one. Let’s get started with this recap.
There are five major categories and I've organized them into these categories to give you a roadmap for how to think about the different opportunities in Surface Design and the different ways for you to get your artwork out into the world.
Here are the five categories:
#1 – Licensing
Licensing is a very popular choice for artists to get their artwork out into the world. Essentially, the way licensing works is that you create a bunch of designs and determine the industry those designs are going to look and sell the best in. Then you start to contact companies to become licensed.
One of the reasons that licensing is so popular is because you can take your designs and license them across multiple industries, and in multiple countries, and get paid a licensing fee from a variety of companies at the same time.
Just to make sure I'm explaining what that means, I'm going to use an example. In general, licensed designers get paid between 3% - 8% of either retail or wholesale sales. When you take a series of designs, you might decide to find a company that does kitchenware and you become licensed by that company with a contract that says they can only sell those designs on kitchenware items.
If you think those same designs might look beautiful on area rugs, you can then reach out to a company that sells area rugs to get licensed for the same designs and allow them to only use them for sale on area rugs.
Also, you can make sure your contract says that those companies I just described can only sell in the United States for example, but then you can take your designs and find a houseware company in Europe that can pay you a licensing fee to sell the same designs there.
One of the key things is to make sure you have a lawyer who can help ensure that your contract is set up properly so that you get this beautiful snowball effect where you're selling the same designs across multiple industries in multiple territories. This creates an incredible opportunity for you to earn money, and that's why licensing is so appealing.
The only caveat to be aware of regarding licensing is it takes a little while to get up and running, but it's well worth the effort.
#2 – Direct Selling
Direct selling means that you purchase inventory of products with your designs on them that you think will be very popular, and then you sell those directly to the public through your website, at craft fairs, local art shows, and potentially in local retail stores.
This is a great way for you to have direct contact with consumers, so you can ask them what they like and what they want you to create next, and you can engage with them directly, which is why it's called “direct selling”.
One of the advantages of direct selling is not only gathering that feedback, but also getting to curate the purchase experience for your customers in creative, yet simple ways, by using packaging items like bags, boxes, tissue paper, stickers, ribbons, you name it, that have your logo or designs on them.
For example, you could put your product in a beautiful box that has your logo on it, or in a bag with gorgeous tissue paper that has your own design on it.
As a result, when customers walk around the art fair, or they leave the retail store with your products in them, you have some free advertising because your beautiful logo is visible, and your designed tissue paper is spilling out the side of the bag.
#3 – Indirect Selling
Also known as passive income, indirect selling involves uploading your designs to third-party providers which are generally described as print-on-demand companies. These have become a huge industry as they allow you to open a shop on their websites.
For example, if you were to go to society6.com, a very popular one, you would see designers and creatives who are selling all kinds of products on the platform. The way it works is you create your own free shop, upload your designs, then pick the products you think your designs are going to look beautiful on, and publish them.
When someone purchases one of your products, a company, like Society6 for example, will handle customer service, take care of of shipping & handling, and print in super small quantities, which is amazing! It's just an incredible industry.
You still have to do a lot of work on your end as you have to upload new designs fairly frequently so that your shop is fresh. It's also very important for you to market your shop by telling your friends, family, and online creative community, and ensuring that people know where to find you at these third-party providers.
You earn a commission on every sale and that's why it's passive. You're not handling any part of the purchasing process. When people find something that they like and they purchase it, you then get a commission off of that sale.
#4 – Workshops & Digital Courses
Online workshops, in-person workshops, and digital courses, offer an array of possibilities for creative entrepreneurs.
For someone who used to do in-person workshops, if you were to record a video series of you doing the exact same thing you would do in an in-person workshop, then offer the videos as a workshop on your website that anyone can purchase, you could charge money for it and someone anywhere in the world can take advantage of what it is that you're teaching.
This allows you to have a reach that’s well beyond your local geographic area, and to have a much bigger impact in terms of teaching what it is you love to teach.
Whether you use a digital course format or workshop format, this is an incredible opportunity that you can approach in different ways, and I think people overlook it a lot, so I want to make sure that you think about it.
#5 - Memberships
Memberships are becoming more and more popular because they’re a way for you to create your own creative community that you provide with services in exchange for a monthly or otherwise periodic fee.
You could be teaching or simply providing a community, but one amazing example is subscription boxes which have become very, very, very popular because they are a great way for you to put your designs in a box and then people can subscribe to get that box on a monthly basis.
Another opportunity you can use subscription boxes for is special occasions. For instance, you could provide Mothers’ Day boxes and then have your mom, or someone else's mom, get a package in the mail that has all of your beautiful products curated inside it for that special occasion!
There are many holidays during the year where an occasion box would work brilliantly, so I encourage you to look into this category as well.
Pop over to my YouTube channel to watch the video version of this blog. Click HERE and please subscribe while you’re over there.
xo,
Anne
P.S. Have you signed up for my free mini-course, From Doodles to Dollars®? This is the last time I’m offering it in 2021. Click HERE to sign up.
To prepare for Doodles, grab a free 7-day trial to Adobe Illustrator. You’ll get both the desktop and the iPad version. Win-win, right?
Have fun and I’ll see you next week.
Remember,
It’s Never Too Late to Create®
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MEET ANNE
Hi…I’m Anne!
My creative inspiration comes from a lifetime of observation. I grew up in Paris on the Place St. Sulpice and walked to school through the Luxembourg gardens. And that was only the beginning… Learn more by watching the video on my About page.
