Useful Passive Income Ideas 2019

Understand How Passive Income Works

The reality is: passive income (at least most forms of it) can take quite a bit of work and effort in the beginning. But it pays off. Why?

Because instead of trading money for hours, which is what most freelance designers do, you’re investing hours upfront and then reaping the benefit of your investment for years afterward.

Your business models go from this: Do the work once; get paid once.

To this: Do the work once; get paid forever.

Sell your design mockups

Did you create a mockup of a design when you were pitching some new clients only for them not to go with your design? Just because they may not have wanted your design, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t others who may find a lot of value from your work.

See here for some of the Premium Mockup.

Build an audience to grow your passive income

Of course, if you really like the referral/affiliate model mentioned above as a way of generating passive income as a designer, then you could take it to the next level by building some sort of larger audience.

Recommend resources to your clients that generate passive income

Another less-common but the brilliant source of passive income for designers with clients is recommending certain services to your clients that then include an affiliate payout for you as the designer.

Sell Tutorials

People are motivated to buy when they are facing a problem and need a solution. So, be the person with the solution! You can create walkthrough tutorials in the form of a video or ebook and show people how to create their own graphic designs or templates.

Creating a tutorial is fairly simple after all, you’re already doing graphic design. All you need to do is download some screencasting software and narrate your process.

Affiliate Marketing

If you already have a decent-sized following on your blog ( Like mock Location ) or social media, affiliate marketing can be a fun way to make a bit of passive income.

Affiliate marketing is when you provide a link or a shoutout to other businesses and then collect a percentage of the profit or flat fee any time someone uses your link to buy that product or service.

The larger your fanbase or audience, the more money you will make, so this could be quite lucrative if you’re a popular figure. However, be selective about who you choose to partner with.

If you refer people to inferior services or products, they won’t trust you anymore and this can ruin your reputation as a graphic designer.

Work for Commission, Not for Pay

This is a risky business move but it can potentially pay off in a large way, so be selective about when you use it. Sometimes, up and coming businesses will offer shares within the company or a percentage of profits in exchange for graphic design work Like ( Premium Mockup ).

While most freelance graphic designers would scoff at the idea (we need to pay the bills now), if a business does take off it could result in a passive stream of income that could be significant. If you receive such an offer or are interested in making one, make sure you do your due diligence and research whether it will be worth it for you in the end.

Passive Income as a Freelance Graphic Designer Isn’t Just About Graphic Design

If you want to make the jump from active income to passive income, you’ll need to expand both your mindset and your skillset. Building passive income isn’t just about graphic design–it’s about marketing, networking, knowing your audience, and being able to promote yourself. If you can do all of that, then it will pay off in spades.

More Passive Income Ideas

Open an online store selling your goodsSell experiences or workshopsOffer subscriptions to valuable resources

Advantage of Passive Income

Reduces Your Dependency on Clients

Most of the freelance designers that I know would love to be able to reduce their dependency on client work. Sure, client work can be extremely rewarding, but there are some significant benefits in not being 100% dependent on it.

Some designers choose to pursue streams of passive income to provide some extra stability for times when client work may be slow, and others choose to work towards getting away from client work altogether.

Useful Photoshop Tips For Graphic Designers

Undo, More Undo Please

Well as you might know by pressing Ctrl + Z in Photoshop you can undo the previous action you made, but when you press the same key combination again, it will redo the previous action.

Believe it or not, Photoshop has a specific button for multiple undo, and it is Alt + Ctrl + Z. Yes, by using this key combination you can undo multiple times, according to the value of History States you set in Edit > Preference > Performance.

If you’re used to common Undo’s key combination which is Ctrl + Z, you can simply press Ctrl + Shift + Alt + K to access Keyboard Shortcut panel and change Undo’s key combination under the Edit section to Ctrl + Z.

Smart Object For Smart Designer

Smart Object makes your editing smarter by carrying out 2 primary functions: perform nondestructive transforms and perform filtering. This feature comes in very handy especially when you’re producing a site layout with heavy graphics like stock photos, social media icons, and UI kits, and all you need to do is right-click a layer, then click ‘Convert to Smart Object’ to enjoy its benefits.

The first function says that once a layer is converted into a Smart Object, you can transform it any way you want without losing its original quality.

Most we use Smart Layer in Placing Design in Logo Mockup

Once you’ve made a logo, do the same steps as above to create an editable Smart Object. To summarize:

Copy the art in PhotoshopGo to Photoshop, add a new layerConvert to Smart Object, and double-click the layer icon to openPaste and crop the file’s dimensions to the artClose and save

Example: Poster Mockup ,  Bag Mockup , Premium Mockup

Transform: Change the size of an image, rotate, flip or distort it!

Click Edit > then click Transform > and select the action you desire.

Or try these shortcuts to make life even easier:

Press Ctrl + T on your keyboard and a bounding box will then appear around the image, indicating transformation. This means you can now resize your image. The best way to do so is by placing the cursor on one of the rectangle corners of the box and then dragging the corner while holding the Shift key. When you’re finished just press Enter and you’re done.

To flip your image vertically or horizontally press Ctrl + T and then right click your mouse. A popup window will appear with a few options for rotating and flipping the image. Select the action you want and when you are done press Enter.

To distort or skew an image press Ctrl + T and then place the cursor on whichever corner you want to distort. Press Ctrl while holding your mouse down on whichever corner of the image you’re looking to morph and drag it down to your desired point, finally press Enter to activate.

Learning Keyboard ShortcutsV = move toolF – toggles through display screen modesSpace bar = temporary hand keyB – paintbrush toolD – sets the foreground/background colorss to defaultX – swaps between background and foreground colorE – eraser toolS – stamp or cloning toolW – quick selection toolCtrl+j – duplicates the selected layer

Change Unit of Measure

You can change the units of measure that show up in your info panel, or that show up when you drag out a selection or the units of measure in the rulers that you can pull up around your document (Cmd/Ctrl + R).

Turn the rulers on by going Window->Rulers and then simply right-click the ruler anywhere and choose the unit of measure you prefer.

Apply Layer Mask Trick

Adding a layer mask is as simple as pressing the new layer mask button at the bottom of the Layers panel. The default, however, is to have a mask filled with white which doesn’t hide the layer.

If we want the mask to be filled with black (and therefore hide the layer it’s applied to) the trick is to simply hold the Alt/Opt key while pressing the new layer mask button.

Edit multiple text layers together

You don’t necessarily need to edit each text layer individually if you’re making the same changes to all of them. For example, hold down Ctrl or Cmd when selecting the text layers from the Layers window to snag multiple ones, then make your changes via the toolbar.

Save files up to 20x faster

From Preferences, choose File Handling then check the Disable Compression of PSD and PSB Files box. Your layered files will no longer be compressed—and take up substantially more room on disk—but saving them will be significantly quicker.

Insert dummy text

Many people use Photoshop to mock up layouts for websites and the printed page, and if you need to fill in an area with some dummy text then you don’t need to tire out your fingers typing it—just choose Paste Lorem Ipsum from the Type menu instead.

Use any image as a brush

Open the Edit menu, then pick Define Brush Preset to use the current image (or selection) as a brush. White areas in the source image count as transparent and black areas are where the virtual ink will hit the virtual canvas, so tweak the picture accordingly.

Be more precise with brushes

If you’ve got some precise editing to do, then the virtual brush tips Photoshop uses by default can obscure whatever it is you’re painting on (especially at larger sizes). Switch to a crosshair instead by going to Preferences then Cursors and changing the configuration.

Meaning of Mockups

What is a visual mockup?

A mockup is a file that allows you to create a sample of your product or show your work in a real-world setting without actually having to create a physical product.

Where can I download free mockups?

Mockup WorldFree PSD MockupeymockupunblastMockup TutorialGraphberryMockup DesignGraphic pearOriginal MockupMrmockupQuilt MockupFree Mockup

What is a website mockup?

A mockup is a visual way of representing a website (website’s pages). Depending on the level of detail, a mockup can have only some or all visual properties of a final solution.

Many designers confuse mockups with prototypes. These are not the same thing. Prototypes should resemble simulation (read, “interactivity”), while mockups are static representations of the design.

Online tools for Website Prototype:-

Adobe XDMockplusMoqupsMockplus iDocFlud UIMarvel app

What is 3d mockup?

3D Logo design plays a crucial role when it comes to the success of a design. And great 3D logo mockup templates not only help you better present your logo design but can also make your logo design process more streamlined and efficient.

Best Online 3D Mockups:

New 3D Mockup3D Mockup 20173D Clean Text MockupGold 3D Mockup3D Collection Mockup

What is the wireframe in UI?

A wireframe is often described as the skeleton of the eventual user interface. It’s a low fidelity sketch (sometimes literally a pen and paper sketch) of the UI. Wireframes convey the main features, functions, and content of a user interface, without getting into the visual design.

Best Tools For Wireframe UI:-

Mockup FlowMoqupsPidcoWireframe

What is the difference between mockup and prototype?

Wireframe

A wireframe is equivalent to the skeleton or simple structure of your website/app. Each one is used to describe the functionality of a product as well as relations between views (what will happen when you click a certain button). The decisions on what (content/features) and where to put on the website or app are usually made during this stage. This step does not cover the product’s design.

A few characteristic features of a wireframe are the following:

It shows the main chunks of contentIt draws the outline and the layout structureIt depicts the most basic UI

My favorite tool to do it: Balsamiq

Mockup

A mockup is a file that allows you to create a sample of your product or show your work in a real-world setting without actually having to create a physical product.

A mockup helps you make final decisions regarding a product’s color schemes, visual style, typography. With a mockup, you can allow yourself to experiment with the visual side of the product to see what looks best.

Briefly, unlike wireframes with gray lines, boxes, and placeholders, mockups are built with more visual details of the final web/app:

Rich colors, styles, graphics, and typographyActual buttons and textsContent layouts and component spacingNavigation graphics

My favorite tool to do it: Premium Mockup

How to Use a Logo Mockup Template

Using a logo mockup is quite easy. Mockup templates are usually available in Photoshop PSD file format. Once you’ve downloaded the mockup template file, all you have to do is open the PSD file in Photoshop and then simply drag and drop your logo design onto the mockup template.

Most mockups even include smart object layers that makes it much easier to place your own logo designs in the mockup template with just a few clicks.

Below is Some Handpicked Mockups For You:

Modern Logo MockupWindows Logotype MockupWall Gage MockupBottle Mockup