Small Businesses that Complement your Graphic Design Day Job

You know what they say another day another dollar, but times are hard right now and with the basic commodities going up its no small feat to make ends meet. Earning that extra dollar helps with the expenditures  and a better way to earn that is by having  another job. While most people do their neighbor’s lawn or do tutor gigs on their weekends. Most graphic designers do other design jobs by getting gigs online. But what if you want to do something other than freelance design work?

Worry not! Because we here at YTD have listed 5 small businesses that will not only gain you the extra dough but also give you a wider range of work experience, clientele and improving another skill set that you might already have. These are the businesses that you can do during weekends and at the same time have your knowledge and expertise in graphic design to complement it. Let’s start with the obvious one: 1. The Weekend Photographer Like music there are many genres under photography like portrait, fashion, wedding, events, still life and concerts. You can start small by doing portraits of colleagues at work or why not do a family photo shoot for your neighbor. All you need is a decent camera kit and the knowledge of how to operate it in Manual mode and you are set. 2. Try Baking Cupcakes Create a feast for the eyes and to the taste buds by whipping out sweet treats. Apart from the fact you get to practice your baking skills, but you also get to exercise your skill in combining colors and decorating as well. You can start off your small venture at the office by dishing out small batches and letting your colleagues have a go at it. Who knows you might be the  Buddy Valastro for cupcakes. 3. Do some Flower Arranging Just like in graphic design we have to consider different kinds of elements like shape, size and color in doing floral arrangements. Knowing where to get and how to handle flowers is also a good additional knowledge to boot. 4. Make Awesome Jewelry Why don’t you try your hand out at doing jewelry? Make use of dad’s tools while making a crazy design for a ring or you can try and sculpt something out of malleable metal. If you are wondering where you can sell your hand-made goods, you can either go to eBay or in Etsy. 5. Be the Customize Guy Paper is not just the only medium that you can draw on and nowadays more and more people are getting into customizing their stuff from their shoes, skateboards, shirts, caps, sunglasses and whatnot. This is also a great way to exercise your skills and techniques in using traditional medium and tools. People can make use of the Internet to advertise their work for free and with the boom of social media, getting clients is much easier than before. People can just simply put up their services in their own Facebook accounts or in their own blogs. While some opted for Craigslist and other classified job ad websites. Before we come to a close, I would just like to remind everyone that even though you have started a small business it is not advisable to gamble your day job right away but if you foresee your success and you have the drive, the knowledge and the resources by all means do what you have to do because you might be up to something awesome. Apart from that, there is no such business that doesn’t require a starting capital. The capital can be either in a form money, time or passion so spend it wisely!