The potential to make money through calligraphy and hand lettering is H-U-G-E! In the United States alone, top-earning calligraphers make a whopping $115k yearly.
The freelance digital font designers on our platform, on the other hand, are getting truckloads of orders.
The demand for calligraphers and font designers is sky-high. Now, more than ever, is the best time to make money with your calligraphy and hand lettering skills.
What Are Calligraphy and Hand Lettering?
Calligraphy and hand lettering are often used interchangeably since both refer to the art of creating stylized writing. Their main differences lie in the methods used and their purpose.
While calligraphy focuses on creating single compositions, hand lettering focuses on the marketing applications of illustrative writing.
Both have their place in the modern talent market.
Regardless, honing your skill in decorative typography can bring myriad benefits to your career.
There are online courses, books, and tutorials that will put you on the right track. Some of the most accomplished professionals, like Paolo Vendramini, also pursued degrees to cultivate skills essential to their art.
Once you’re confident enough, you just need the right idea to turn calligraphy and hand lettering into a profitable endeavor.
How to Make Money with Calligraphy and Hand Lettering?
Here are four ways to make money with calligraphy and hand lettering:
1. Sell prints
A straightforward way to make money with calligraphy and hand lettering is to sell prints, which can be framed, hanged, or sent as gifts.
You can sell stylized text prints as a service on freelance marketplaces like Fiverr. Popular products include stylized inspirational quotes and custom-made-to-order calligraphy pieces, which clients can use for branding and creating personalized merchandise.
2. Create and sell custom fonts
Hand-letterers can generate passive income by developing fonts for various contractual projects—from websites to mobile apps. This requires a digital font creation tool like FontLab 7 or a graphic design application like Adobe Illustrator.
Learning how to use your font creation tool is your first challenge. Thankfully, each solution offers a comprehensive library of tutorials and learning resources on its website.
After creating your fonts, a long-term strategy is to build your own typography website and develop an online storefront. Hire professional, full-website creation services from contractors to get the ball rolling without breaking the bank.
3. Take on calligraphy gigs
Freelancing is a sustainable and scalable career path for skilled digital font designers. You can make money by creating custom fonts for businesses, web developers, and bloggers.
On Fiverr, freelance custom font designers can make hundreds of dollars, even thousands, providing typography services to clients. The key is to identify a unique selling point that sets you apart from other freelancers in the marketplace.
Below are some of the submarkets in this space:
- Comic book lettering: Offer font design services for graphic novelists.
- Tattoo typography: Help clients with custom calligraphy prints for tattoos.
- App interface fonts: Create custom fonts for Android and iOS projects.
- Logo design: Help clients complete their brand identity with custom logo designs.
- Non-English typography: Sell calligraphy and handwriting prints in other languages, like Arabic, Mandarin, and Japanese.
4. Build a calligraphy or hand lettering blog
Building a blog unlocks plenty of opportunities to monetize your craft. You can sell affiliate products, sell typography courses, and more.
Calligraphy and hand lettering blogging, however, isn’t a weekend project. You need to optimize your blog posts regularly and create high-quality content.
You also need to invest time in the marketing side of blogging, like social media and email marketing.
Make Money With Calligraphy and Hand Lettering Now
Are you eager to make money online as a professional calligrapher or hand-letterer? You can land your first freelance gig through Fiverr within a few hours.
Create your seller account for free and promote your services to millions of potential clients.
