Designers Using Freebies to Grow Their Business
Published in Business
With so much competition out there, freelance designers are always looking for new ways to stand out from the crowd. Some designers have used free resources to build their reputation. While it may seem counterproductive to give away resources that you have created, there can be significant benefits that make it worth your time. In this post we’ll take a look at 7 examples where giving away freebies has been beneficial to the business and career of designers.
Free resources like Photoshop brushes, textures, vectors, icons, and PSD files are in high demand because they can help designers to save time and create impressive results. Those who provide the free resources can also benefit from this interest even though they are not charging anything for the resources. The designer can benefit from added exposure and name recognition, from traffic to their site or blog (and possibly increased ad sales), and from the opportunity to promote their other products and services to these new visitors.
Let’s take a look at some specific examples of designers who have helped the design community, and themselves, by distributing free resources.
Jay Hilgert
Jay Hilgert is a designer and blogger that has used freebies to boost his profile within the industry. Jay’s blog Bittbox is one of the best resources for design freebies. Over the last several years Jay has distributed freebies such as Photoshop brushes, textures, vectors and fonts. Each week a new free texture pack is released, and the Bittbox Photoshop brushes are some of the most popular brush sets found anywhere (the watercolor brushes have been downloaded more than 1 million times). Currently, Bittbox release freebies from other designers as well, but Jay’s freebies are what established the site’s reputation.
As a result of the Bittbox freebies, Jay has a successful blog and is recognized as a creator of high-quality graphic design resources.
Orman Clark
Orman Clark is a freelance designer that is using freebies as effectively as any other designer out there right now. Within the past year Orman began selling themes and templates at ThemeForest, and he is already among the top 40 authors in terms of sales. Orman runs Premium Pixels, a site where he gives away freebies like PSD files. Because his freebies are useful and of high quality, the site has become extremely popular and gives Orman a platform for promoting his items from ThemeForest. On a few occassions Orman has distributed a free PSD layout for one of his premium themes, and of course he has linked to the ThemeForest page where visitors can purchase the fully coded theme if they are interested. This is one of the best examples you’ll find of a designer using freebies to promote paid products.
Chris Spooner
Chris Spooner is a designer and blogger. Chris launched Blog.SpoonGraphics four years ago and it quickly became popular with readers because of Chris’s tutorials and freebies. Chris’s vectors, icons, and Photoshop brushes have been used by thousands of designers around the world. The freebies helped Chris to become recognized as the highly-skilled designer that he is. His primary focus at this point is managing both of his blogs (including Line25).
Chris is a great example of how freebies can help to build a successful design blog. There are thousands of design blogs out there, so standing out is not easy. Releasing high-quality freebies is one way to help build a strong reputation.
IconShock
IconShock offers design services, including custom icon design. About two years ago IconShock was busy designing icon sets for many different design blogs to give out as freebies for their readers (they designed several sets for our readers). Those freebies that were seen and used by just about anyone who was reading design blogs at the time, and IconShock quickly developed a reputation as being a leading source for custom icons.
Most of the examples we are looking at in this article show designers who have distributed freebies through their own blog or website. IconShock took a different approach by working with several blog owners to produce free icon sets for their readers. This strategy helped them to get a lot of exposure and name recognition quickly.
WebTreats
WebTreats provides free resources like patterns, textures, and PSD files. They are also very successful selling resources at GraphicRiver and selling templates/themes at ThemeForest. WebTreats uses some subtle advertisements and promotions on their site for their GraphicRiver and ThemeForest items. The freebies draw people to the site and then they have the opportunity to purchase the premium items.
Grant Friedman
Grant Friedman is the owner of Colorburned and editor of Psdtuts. Through Colorburned Grant has released freebies such as vectors, Photoshop brushes, and Illustrator brushes. Grant’s resources have also been released on other sites like Psdtuts and Vectips. Grant has had a lot of success with his own blog, with Psdtuts, and he’s even written a book.
Rafi from GraphicsFuel
GraphicsFuel is a blog that gives out design freebies like PSD files and textures. At GraphicsFuel Rafi promotes his services for PSD layouts and banner design. The freebies allow him to reach a greater audience and his blog has some subtle advertisements for his services that send some business his way.
What’s Your Experience?
Have you used freebies to build your profile? If so, please feel free to share you thoughts and experiences in the comments.
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17 Responses
Thanks for this collection. Some I’d heard of (I find Chris Spooner particularly good) and others are new to me.
All of these names are familiar to me. I almost feel that I know them. I subscribe to each of the feeds and newsletters and hold a membership to a couple.
There are some excellent resources that are free. It works for both the reader and the designers. Each gives and each receives something. I think these folks have found their niche, sharing their freebies and attracting readers with tutorials and articles on a vast myriad of design related topics. Though each is different in their own way, they all seem to have that formula down. And, they are all conscientious and respectful of each other. I admire that!
PSD Fan is one that excels at this, as well. I’ve seen, personally, how they cater to their readers and members.
Thank you for a good read!
Su
I wasn’t familiar with some of these designers, many thanks for bringing them to my attention. I’m constantly amazed by so many bloggers’ generosity (including your own) in sharing their talents and resources. It’s good to know that same generosity has come back to them in fans, customers, respect, and reputation.
Some excellent resources here. Thanks!
Really great read!
It’s nice to see great graphic designers and web designers sharing icons, brushes, backgrounds, and especially vectors considering how much time they can take. It almost reminds me of the chefs on TV who give away their recipes and show people how to cook like them. But, just because the chefs and designers give away their recipes or art, it doesn’t mean we will be able to cook or design like them.
I’m doing the same with my own blog although I still don’t really know if I’m a web designer, front end developer or all-rounder.
I’m struggling with where I sit within the community but one thing I do know is I love to make things but I want them to look good.
IconShock looks amazing !
While this list is nice for the free resources, it’s lacking in addressing how much extra business is actually generated for the amount of time these people have spent developing resources for the community.
Variety of useful and creative graphic design resources u have provided in the post. These are really good references for design agency as well as for a freelancer web and graphic designer. Thanks so much for gathering all this together.
Jack,
You’re right that the post is lacking specifics on how much is generated from freebies, but it’s impossible for anyone outside to know how that information. But you can tell some things that help, like looking at Orman Clark’s sales numbers at ThemeForest. Or look at the amount of traffic that Bittbox receives and calculate an approximate ad revenue that is brought in from the site as a result of the freebies. In Chris Spooner’s case, he went from employee to full-time freelance to not taking many clients and focusing mostly on his blogs. Look at WebTreats’s sales numbers on ThemeForest and GraphicRiver. While these things can’t give a complete picture it is still enough to know that the freebie approach is working very well for some designers.
If I may… Many designers here in North America are using our platform for free to design and build websites for their own clients (who are the ones who then pay us a license directly). We believe in that model; we hope it becomes more common as we think it’s more sustainable in the long run.
I think you have an awesome collection of sites here that I’ve shared them with my community of freelancers on my Facebook Fan Page. Thanks for sharing these!
Jay Hilgert offers nice resources. Freebies are always great when they are useful.
now this is quite professional,is a must read for all designers….will help them as a guide.
Hi,
Could you add me in list, I ‘m too trying some thing same. http://www.cssjunction.com/freebies/ – here I started to share good freebie resources.
Some designers may shy away from giving their creative work away for free. But, freebies are great branding tool.