Everywhere you look these days, there’s a lot of talk about side hustles and starting your own business. With more people working from home than ever before since the COVID19 pandemic, starting a side hustle doing something you are good at and enjoy has become easier than ever. If you are passionate about graphic design, whether or not you do it for your main job, then this is definitely a skill that you can use to make money on the side of your full-time career, and perhaps even turn into a full-time business venture. Here are some of the main things you’ll need if you’re setting up a side hustle as a graphic designer.
Computer
First of all, you need to make sure that you have got the right tools for the job. It’s going to become increasingly more frustrating for you if you’re trying to do graphic design work on an old, slow laptop that keeps crashing. There are lots of devices that you can use for graphic design. Some designers prefer to use a laptop, iMac or PC, others use a computer connected to a graphic tablet, and some prefer a tablet that you can draw on. Either way, make sure that you get good specs including a powerful processor, a decent amount of RAM and a good graphics card like Lenovo intel graphics.
Graphic Tablet
Whether or not you use a graphics tablet for graphic design is up to you. Some graphic designers don’t use them, but if you draw your graphics by hand then they can be very useful to have. That being said, you don’t need to have a dedicated graphics tablet, as a regular tablet like an iPad Pro can do the job just as well, when coupled with the Apple Pencil, for example. Shop around to find a tablet that you like. Decide if you want one that connects to your computer or laptop with images showing on the screen as you draw, or whether you would prefer to draw directly onto the tablet itself.
Software
The software that you’ll need to get started with your graphic design side hustle will vary depending on what kind of graphics you’ll be creating and how you are going to create them. Photoshop is a must-have for most graphic designers, along with other options from Adobe like Illustrator and InDesign. If you’re planning to create products like social media banners, then even software programs like Canva might work well for you. If you’re using a graphics tablet, then you may also need to download compatible software to work alongside it.
Business Essentials
Once you have everything you need to start creating graphics, it’s time to make sure that you have all the business essentials to get your side hustle off to the best start. You’ll need a business plan, a website or online portfolio, social media profiles, a logo, blog, and a marketing plan at the very least to get the word out about what you do and increase your client base.
If you’re interested in starting a side hustle and enjoy graphic design, these are all the basics you’ll need to get started successfully.