Outlaw Design Blog

Many designers tend to have a famine or feast lifestyle. That’s just one of the major drawbacks to the freelancing life. But, it doesn’t have to be. I have never really had a significant famine period in my career and I have my passive income streams to thank for that. I have a wide variety of passive income streams; from Wordpress Themes to selling stock files on GraphicRiver, among many others. These passive income streams have helped me stay afloat when design business got slow. Here are some of the best articles I have written on the subject of passive income.

1. How To Resell Hosting: A Guide For Web Designers

As a web designer, you are probably always looking for ways to increase your bottom line and make a little extra money. One incredibly easy way to do this is by reselling web hosting plans to existing customers - as well as new ones. Most likely, the customers that you currently develop websites for go on to hire another agency to host those sites - why shouldn’t you be able to do that for them?

2. How to Make Money Selling Wallpapers

Last weeks post about adding Powerpoint presentations to your arsenal really got me thinking about untapped niches for graphic designers. While I was deep in meditation on the subject online, I came across this post by Smashing Magazine. The post is nothing more than some free icon and wallpapers, but one of the showcased wallpaper designers really caught my attention.

3. 10 Ways to Get More Design Work

I think we as designers have all experienced the famine or feast attribute that comes with the job. While the ups and downs of freelance designing are unavoidable, there are a number of things you can do to decrease the low times. One of the best ways is to use your low times to improve yourself and your business.

4. Making Money When Things Get Slow

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.

5. How to Make Money By Giving Things Away

I recently watched a From the Couch video where the guys talk about how nice the design and blog community is. They don’t necessarily say that giving things away for free is a bad idea, they just question the practice a bit. This got me thinking about; when and how can you make giving things away for free profitable? When done right, giving away things like themes, icons, textures, etc can really do a lot to get your name out in to the public.

6. 6. 10 Tips for Handling Slow Business Periods

Certain times of the year are always slow, it’s just the way things go. Add an economic crisis to the mix and things can get extra slow. Lucky for us as designers and creatives, we have the ability to target a much more globally audience, which means we don’t have to suffer quite as bad as some. While this downtime might seem like the perfect time to beat the next level of Halo or Guitar Hero, I suggest you use your time a little more wisely. Many freelancers use this time to work on building up their passive income streams. If this sounds good to you, be sure to check out my article on Making Money When Things Get Slow.

7. How to Make Money Selling Website Templates

If you are a website designer, you probably realize the importance of keeping yourself busy – not only with work from brand new customers, but from your existing ones as well. And unfortunately, this is where many website designers fail and ultimately, the reason why their business is never able to reach its maximum potential. Selling website templates, however, is a great way to make ends meet as a website designer, as well as an easy way to keep your customers satisfied every single time; and it doesn’t even take as much effort as you might think.

8. Discussion: How Are You Making Money These Days?

With all this talk about the economy these days and hearing about how companies are tightening up their budgets, I’m curious to see how this is effect the freelance business owners. Friends and family are constantly asking me if the recent events in the economy have had any effect on my businesses. Honestly, it hasn’t. If anything it has only gotten better. Maybe it is a coincidence, but as the economy has got worse, I have seen some of my highest paying clients in my career.

9. My Experience with Passive Income

In this weeks edition of “Ask Danny Outlaw” I answer a question about passive income. Passive income is and can be a great way to earn some extra income with very little effort. Designers and developers have all sorts options out there when it comes to ways to make passive income. From reselling hosting to creating premium Wordpress themes, there i almost no limit. In this video I talk about my thoughts and experiences with passive income.

Photo purchased from Shutterstock