Today, the internet presents a lot of ways to make money, and one of such ways is through illustrations. Although you need to acquire the skill necessary to excel in this field, all the efforts you put in is worth it at the end.

Learning the skills required to be an illustrator might not come easy because of the overwhelming resources available on the internet. We have made the efforts for you with this guide.

This article will provide you with the needed information to earn money with illustrations.

• Can You Really Make Money From Illustrations
• What is the Job of an Illustrator?
• What Are the Types of illustrator?
• What Are the Responsibilities of an illustrator?
• What Qualifications do you Need to be an Illustrator?
• What Tool do You Need as an Illustrator?
• How can I Make Money with Adobe Illustrator?
• Can you Earn Money by Drawing?
• What is a Spot Illustration?
• How Much Does it Cost to Create a Logo?
• How do I start an illustration?

Can You Really Make Money From Illustrations

The sure answer to this question is Yes, and here are some figures to prove it.

In May 2017, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that illustrators and other fine artists made a median wage of $49,520 a year; one half of illustrators made less than that, and one half earned more than that.

Read Also: How to Earn a Living Online as a Digital Designer

Salaries varied, from less than $21,590 for the lower 10 percent of fine artists to wages over $102,540 for the upper 10 percent. Those working for book publishers averaged $65,620, whereas independent artists averaged a bit less at $57,110.

What about the prospect of earning with Illustrations in the future?

For the decade spanning 2016 to 2026, the BLS expects an average of 7 percent job growth for illustrators and other fine artists, leading to 1,900 fine artist jobs over those 10 years.

Growth in the fine arts field overall depends on how the economy is doing and whether people have the additional money to purchase art. You can expect better opportunities if you illustrate for digital publications, since there is a decline in the production of traditional print books.

Illustrators will face competition for jobs, so it is important to focus on showing your creativity and artistic talent to those looking for book illustrators.

What is the Job of an Illustrator?

An illustrator specializes in creating still drawings and images to communicate a story, message or idea, which are then used in advertisements, books, magazines, packaging, greeting cards and newspapers.

Other jobs might include creating commercial briefs to inform, persuade or entertain a client’s intended audience, adjusting the mood and style of images accordingly.

You’ll typically specialise in a particular design medium, such as drawing, photography or digital illustration.

What Are the Types of illustrator?

A larger percentage of illustrators work freelance, which means they are mostly self-employed. An illustrator might focus on the following areas:

• advertising – advertising posters, storyboards, press
• publishing– books
• corporate work – brochures, catalogues
• editorial – magazines, newspapers and comics
• fashion – forecasting
• merchandising – greetings cards, calendars, t-shirts, ceramics, etc
• multimedia – TV, film, computer games, websites, apps, animation.

Other areas include scientific, technical and medical illustration. In these fields, illustrations showing new products, processes or techniques are created for text and reference books.

What Are the Responsibilities of an illustrator?

With all the information provided above, you already have an idea of what is required of you as an illustrator. To provide you with a clearer picture, below are the things expected of you as an illustrator.

Work activities typically involve:

• liaising with clients, editors and authors in order to understand and interpret their business needs
• gaining knowledge of appropriate styles
• negotiating pricing and deadlines
• analysing a brief’s specification and the text to be illustrated, as well as researching sources
• thinking imaginatively and creatively to produce new ideas
• creating images and designs by using the traditional hand skills of drawing and painting, alongside other techniques, to meet design briefs
• using computer-aided design (CAD) packages to scan images and change size, colours and other elements
• providing roughs for approval
• redefining a brief through further consultation with the client to include new ideas or text as appropriate
• running the business, when working freelance
• speculatively approaching potential commissioners to seek new sources of work
• working within a set timescale, often to tight deadlines
• creating original pieces for self-promotion
• researching appropriate galleries to find suitable venues to exhibit work.

What Qualifications do you Need to be an Illustrator?

When it comes to qualification, one of the things that first comes to mind is a university degree. Well, the good news is that you do not need a degree as an illustrator. However, that is not to say that you cannot decided to get a degree for yourself.

Even without a degree, you can still be successful if you have an artistic flair, creativity, a strong portfolio, and employers like your work.

Below are the relevant degree subjects:

• illustration
• fine art
• graphic design

To do a degree, you will usually need five GCSEs (A-C), including maths and English, plus three A levels. Entry requirements may also include a foundation course in art and design or you could even be accepted on the strength of your portfolio. You should check with universities for exact entry requirements as other qualifications may also be accepted. 

As a freelance illustrator you will need to think of creative ways of getting your work noticed. You’ll also need to start building up a portfolio of your work to show prospective clients or for entry onto courses.

Building a website or starting a blog where you can showcase your work is one way to get noticed. Social media, such as Twitter, is also a great way of connecting with the public and future customers. Many illustrators also produce promotional material, such as postcards, graphic novels or comics, to send out to customers and contacts in the industry.

You could market your work by contacting relevant companies directly. You can find advice about getting started as a freelance illustrator, how to prepare a portfolio, lists of publishers, and other useful information in The Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook.

The Association of Illustrators (AOI) website lists agents, publishers, advertising agencies and other specialist organisations, such as children’s book publishers. As an AOI member you can promote your work by listing your contact details and displaying samples of work on the AOI website.

If you work as a freelance illustrator you may decide to sell your work through an artists’ agent, who may be able to put you in touch with more buyers. An agent will take a percentage of your sales as commission. The Society of Artists Agents website has details of agents as well as examples of artists’ work.

What Tool do You Need as an Illustrator?

On your way to being either an employed or freelance illustrator, there are some tool you need to master if you are to succeed in the industry. Some of these tools will now be outlined.

1. Ira Design 

Ira Design is a free and open-source illustration tool developed by Creative Tim that help designers to build their own amazing illustrations using awesome gradients and hand-drawn sketch components.

Features list:

• 5 gradient colors that can be mixed
• Ready to use characters, objects, backgrounds
• Retina ready
• Responsive layout

Ira Design comes with a great variety of ready-to-use examples made with gradients. You can use the samples as they are or you can change their colors and create new scenes.

2. Stubborn Generator 

Stubborn is a generator for customizable illustrations that can help you:

• Edit your person any way you like by using ready elements and styles for your character
• Change and overlap your personas
• Create a unique story mixing styles, scenes, and objects for your website, application, or presentation

All components are vector-based and carefully grouped.

3. Vector Illustration Creator 

Vector Illustration Creator is a free tool for creating illustrations with no need for design teamwork.

Features list:

• Compose illustrations without needing to learn or download tools
• 12 striking styles to fit any theme
• Build unique vectors, not overused illustrations from templates.
• People, animals, objects, shapes, and backgrounds, +++
• Export to transparent PNG or editable SVG*Pro version available

4. Gravit designer 

Gravit Designer is a full-featured, vector graphic design solution for designers. The program provides a set of powerful tools that help the user to unleash true creativity in designing beautiful and detailed vector imagery. It is suitable for: websites, icons, UI design, presentations, or social media, marketing materials.
The tools include structure, vector, layout, precision, style, text, text, and many more.

*Pro version available

5. Smash Illustration 

Smash Illustration Is a very nice free illustration constructor that offers more than 250 illustrations ready to help you create unique scenes.

Features list:

• 45 characters,
• 200 objects & backgrounds,
• 20 ready-to-use scenes to use in your next project

All illustrations are fully vector & customizable. Also, you can use them with both Sketch and Figma.

6. Inkscape 

Inkscape is an open-source vector graphics editor similar to Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Freehand, or Xara X. What sets Inkscape apart is its use of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), an open XML-based W3C standard, as the native format.

If you are new to the process of creating vector graphics it may feel different, but you will quickly be pleased by the flexibility, and power Inkscape offers. Vector design is often the preferred method of image creation for logos, illustrations, and art which require high scalability. Inkscape can take you from this stage to a final, professional-grade design format that is ready for publication on the web or in physical form.

7. Color Hunt

Color Hunt is a free and open platform for color inspiration with thousands of trendy hand-picked color palettes.

Also, they have a useful Chrome extension for color inspiration in every tab to make it easier for designers to deliver their projects faster.

8. Grabient 

Grabient is a beautiful and very simple UI tool for generating web gradients.

9. Krita

Krita is a professional free and open source painting program. It is made by artists that want to see affordable art tools for everyone.

• concept art
• texture and matte painters
• illustrations and comics

10. Vivid.js 

Vivid.js is a very useful tool for designers that comes with ready to use Free and Open Source SVG Icons Pack JavaScript Library.

Features list:

• An icon can easily be used and its size along with colors can be customized with data-vi attributes
• Vivid.js have 90+ pixel perfect and handcrafted ready to use icons. *Request for new icons are also accepted
• Vivid.js is super lightweight and minified version equals around just half size of the original SVG icons.

How can I Make Money with Adobe Illustrator?

One of the tools used by an illustrator is Adobe illustrator. Adobe Illustrator is such a versatile piece of software and once you have even just basic know-how of the program, it can be used in so many ways to generate income for you if you are willing to dedicate some time to any one of the options we are about to go over.

We are going to talk about four ways you can make money from Adobe illustrator.

Sell Your Designs on Creative Market

CreativeMarket.com is the first option for generating income by most illustrators. Are you good at creating vector icons? Social media templates? Brochures? Business cards? Why not sell your talents to someone who really needs them?

You get to create whatever your heart desires and in turn, help someone else who is in need of your creations. You can easily apply to sell on CreativeMarket.com via their website.

Create Online Courses on Illustrations

Maybe you have a specific Illustrator skill that you think other people could benefit from. Maybe you are, like me, an avid Illustrator user and the thought of sharing your skills sounds exciting!  Why not create an online course that teaches people about Illustrator or a specific asset of Illustrator? 

Look at sites like Teachable.com, Udemy.com or Thinkific.com and learn more about how easy it is to create you first online course!

Social Media Pot Graphics

At the moment, the #1 marketing tool for any business, big or small, is SOCIAL MEDIA. Social media allows companies to instantly reach millions of potential customers.

However, in order to be successful on social media, you have to have great content and great graphics to promote great content.  Many businesses pay top dollar for custom designed graphics they can use daily to promote their content via social media.

Social media graphics are so easy to create using Adobe Illustrator. 

Design Website Graphics

Along the same lines as social media graphics, almost every business today has a website and every website needs graphics. For example, icons, custom banners, header images with text and/or logos added to them are very commonly requested from my clients. 

Most of the time these graphics need to be specifically sized depending on where they at placed within the website so many businesses need a graphics guru (like you!) to not only create and design their graphics but also to make sure they are sized appropriately. 

Can you Earn Money by Drawing?

Some consider drawing to be a hobby, something they do for fun. But is it possible to make money from your drawings? If that is possible, how do you go about it? The simple answer you will find online is to sell your drawings on Creative Market, Etsy, or by building an online brand via Instagram. Here is a more detailed process.

Draw For People Who Can Draw

UX designers, web designers, app developers and more are always looking for little icons to use in their work. you can find icons all over the place to use, but since other designers are already using them, it gets pretty boring.

Nobody wants to use the same thing as everybody else, so they look for alternatives — you know, like hand-drawn icons. Plus, other drawings and illustrations can be turned into website assets, and even your handwriting can become a font. That means pretty much everything that you’re sketching onto that scrap piece of paper can be turned into something that can make you some extra money.

Sell Your Drawings as Vector Artwork

For you to make money this method, you have to vectorize your drawings, which sounds a lot harder than it actually is. You can do this in a variety of different ways, from using an app on your smartphone that converts a picture into a vector (Adobe Capture CC does this, for example), or scanning your work and then pulling that into a vector-based program such as Adobe Illustrator, and then tracing out your work. Point is, it may seem daunting to do, but it’s really super easy.

There are over 4,000+ hand drawn products on Creative Market alone, which gives you an idea of the size of the market. One shop, WINS, doodles everything from house plants to festive party favors. That’s a shop that’s all draws all the time, including stuff like this.

Certain types of doodles that are in higher demand than others, like map icons, hipster coffee-ware, and hand-drawn fonts. Just think about what you could create and sell on your own, just by taking your everyday doodles one step further.

You don’t have to go after every single corner of the market, but chances are there’s someone who needs illustrations of something you really love to draw.

Using Instagram to Build You Brand

Instagram has increasingly become the space to build your portfolio and online following. It’s a great platform to interact with fans and ideally turn them into customers. Link to your contact information and online shop in your bio section to capture inbound requests. This is also a great platform to explore your creativity.

What is a Spot Illustration?

As we have discussed above, there are different types of illustrations. One of such is a spot illustration, it is also referred to as object illustration.

A spot illustration is an object that stands on its own, without a background scene. We use this type of illustration to highlight featured areas on home pages, and add personality throughout the site. Sometimes an animal or creature can be a spot illustration if it’s a simple object (such as a bird in flight or a teddy bear), rather than a full mascot with character.

How Much Does it Cost to Create a Logo?

One way you can make money as an artist is to design logo for different brand. But you might ask, is it really worth it to venture into logo design? How much can you make from logo design? Here are some figures to look at to help you decide.

Because of the importance of a logo to a brand, companies are willing to break the bank to get a well designed logo for there business. If you can design a logo that stand out, you will surely earn money for your work.

The cost of a logo design is anywhere from $0 to tens of thousands of dollars, but if you’re a small business or startup looking for quality design, a good logo design should cost between $300-$1300.

Logo design prices can vary, for instance, the price of a logo design depends on the quality and who created. Take a look at your budget and decide the best way to spend based on your needs. The table below will help you decide better.

	$10-$50	$300-$800	$800-$2,500	$2,500+
Logo design options	Logo maker	Freelance designer or design contest (starting at $299)	Freelance designer or design contest	Design agency
Quality	Basic and generic logos built with a selection of stock icons and fonts. Very quick turnaround time.	Designers with promise but limited experience or a smaller portfolio.	Experienced designers and professional service and advice.	Guaranteed high-quality designs from a full-service team of creative strategists.
Who should use it	Extremely budget- & time-conscious businesses that are OK with a generic design	Businesses that have a good understanding of the design process and would rather spend time than money	Businesses that want quality on a mid-range budget	Well-resourced businesses that want a complete, top-to-bottom branding package

Logo Maker

If you are just starting out and you do not have the budget needed to hire a designer for your logo, there are some cheaper options for you to get your logo done. Having some skills in design can afford you the opportunity of creating your logo yourself. No skill in design? There is another option. Logo generators.

While logo generators are the cheapest option ($0 to use the service and $10-$50 to purchase your design), they only offer limited, generic icon and font options. If you go this route and you have a fairly honed design aesthetic, you might get a usable (if generic) logo. If you don’t have any design training, you may end up with something that feels just a little off.

You can also get some freelancers who can create a logo for you with $300 or below. It may be a great deal, but like with all great deals you should ask yourself why you’re getting it. If you found them on an anonymous website, it’s not unlikely they’re going to give you something as generic as you could have made yourself.

How do I start an illustration?

From what we have discussed so far, a career in illustration is really worth. Whatever effort you put in to acquire the needed skills in illustration will pay off eventually. To help you kick-start you career, we will now discuss some steps you need to take.

1. Think about what kind of work you’d like to do

Most people start off in editorial illustration. It’s a good area if you’re starting out as art directors in this field are more likely to take a chance on someone new. Plus, you can build up your portfolio with local magazines. BUT! Editorial illustration is usually the lowest paid with the quickest turnaround times.

Areas such as packaging and advertising generally come with bigger budgets (although to be fair, no one gets into illustration for the money!). You can also illustrate for stationery, books, products, surface patterns…do your research!

2. Get drawing

Right, so you’ve now figured out where you want your work to be seen. So now it’s time to make some work. But don’t just draw any old thing and slap it in your portfolio. Be focused and create the work you want to be commissioned for.

Don’t expect an art director to look at your portfolio and think you’re suitable for a kid’s book if there’s nothing remotely similar in there. You can keep a list on your notice board of personal briefs relating to work.

3. Create a portfolio website

Now you’ve got some new work behind you, it’s time to show it off on your website. Not a dribbble page, not a tumblr, an actual website. You’re a professional now. If you can’t code, we recommend something like Squarespace.

It’s so easy to get up and running, everything you need is in one place and most importantly, it’s responsive and looks super. You don’t need anything flashy, just let the work speak for itself. Make sure you get yourself a custom domain name.

And don’t forget about email. Once you’ve got your own domain name, apply it to your email. None of this Hotmail crud. No excuses either as Zoho does free business emailing hosting.

4. Share your work on social media

A lot of my work and website traffic has come through Twitter so it pays to show off sometimes. Make friends with other folk in the industry, get involved in discussions and make the most of visual platforms like Instagram and Pinterest. And don’t just show your finished pieces, remember to take photos of the process!

5. Start hustling

So how do you get the actual work? Research magazines, publishers and studios that commission work similar to yours. This is really important, don’t waste time on places where your work doesn’t fit. And then get on the internet and Linkedin to find out who the important people are.

6. Make friends with other illustrators

Illustration is a lonely career and you’ll need like-minded people around you to keep sane and help you out in tough times. See if there’s a meet up in your city and if not, be the person to start it. Be nice to other people, appreciate their work, and share it without expecting anything back and you’ll get off to a good start making new friendships.

Head over to artist that you follow and love over at Instagram, Facebook, their portfolio site or any other place they’re displaying their online, and start looking what they’re doing to earn money as and artist, are they selling their illustrations as prints? if so, where?

Have they worked with any companies lately and if so could there be a similar opportunity for you to work with that company?

If it’s a artist that’s near you, you can see if they recently participated in any markets or events that might be interesting for you too.

Read Also: Tips To Make Huge Income Online With Website Design

If you have any questions don’t be afraid to ask them to these artists, people are usually happy to help. Just make sure you don’t ask to broad questions and don’t ask too much from these people, they’re giving you a piece of their time so respect that, limit your questions and be polite.

7. Get organised

Once you get into the swing of things, there’ll be so many things you need to do. Even when you’re quiet, you should be always doing something! You can keep a track of things you need to do with Trello and Google Keep and also set reminders to scan and file all my receipts and payslips at the end of the month.

There’s a lot of planning and organisation tools out there, do a bit of research and find out which one works best for you.

8. Don’t be in a rush to drop your day job

Being a successful illustrator is a long game, it’s not going to work out overnight. So you’ll need some stability and some regular money coming in.

9. Try not to work for free

Unfortunately, there are clients out there (and especially some big name ones too) who clearly have the budget but are unwilling to spend it on quality illustration because they just don’t believe it’s worth anything. But they can promise you all the “exposure” in the world.

There’s some that just don’t view it as a real job and that because you love creating, you’ll happily do it for free. If everybody gets paid but you, don’t even waste time on these people, delete that email and make your own exposure. If you’re going to work for free, do it for yourself.

This includes spec work. Spec work is where a client asks to see some concepts or finished work to win the job.

Finally

We have seen so far the different ways you can make money with illustrations. Do not limit yourself to the opportunities mentioned above. Keep your eye out for other opportunities. For example, browse online forums and look for jobs. Many companies, like video game developers, often post jobs for game level designers and character designers.