How do you start a small design business?

Jump To

• How I Started

• Where I Found Help

  • Chris Piascik

  • Zen Watercooler

  • Mey Aroyo

• Platforms I Am Using

  • Adobe Fresco

  • FourthWall

  • RedBubble

  • Beehiiv

• My Recommendations

• Thank you!

• Check Out My Websites, Poll and Socials!

I have started many of my posts this way, but I’m going to repeat it here as well: I have no idea what I am doing. Absolutely none. But I have loved learning from others along the way. I am going to provide a short summary of how I started Designs by KLM and include some pivotal YouTube videos that helped educate me on starting my design business and made me feel not so alone in the process.

How I Started

I always wanted to digitally draw because I love drawing but hate the physical process of erasing, colors not being what I want them to be, and other nit picky, nonsensical things. In my mind, to digitally draw, you had to pay for programs, which is not true.

My best friend is writing a book, and I thought “It would be really cool if I could help save her money and draw her a map.” So I found a free drawing program and sketched on my iPad using a rubber tablet stylus. In that small experience, I became obsessed. I ordered a cheap tablet pen and started drawing more. I worked on drawing maps. I made content for our Bookstagram page. I doodled to my heart’s content. That is what led me to start drawing patterns.

I found a better free program and sat down one Saturday to draw a gnome, a hedgehog, a sunflower, a mushroom, and some small patches of grass. Those small characters that I thought were cute became my first pattern. This pattern made me think “wouldn’t it be cool to put this on something for people to buy?”

After my first pattern, I wanted to draw a second focused around cozy book vibes. So I did. When I sat down at my desk the following Monday to work my full-time job, I played YouTube videos all day long of how to better use the drawing program I was using. I looked up videos of how to put patterns on products, how to use sites like RedBubble, what print on demand was, the best platforms to use for free with low usage fees, etc. I was completely enthralled with the idea of me opening my own online shop.

If you want to read more of my journey, check out my post here!

Where I Found Help

I can’t remember the first video I found. I had so many videos playing throughout my work day that first week, I have no idea where I truly started. But I can tell you which ones help me the most because they had a lasting impact. Keep in mind, a huge focal point of mine was starting this journey for zero dollars. I will touch on that a few times and that was a big driving force behind my decisions in starting my business.

Chris Piascik

I stumbled across Chris Piascik’s YouTube channel when looking up how to use Adobe Fresco. I was torn between paying for Procreate, which seemingly has more people with tutorials, and using Adobe Fresco for free, while not being able to find a large number of videos. Chris’ “Adobe Fresco Tutorial for Beginners: Getting Started” video was a game changer. Not only did this video help me make my decision between Procreate vs Adobe Fresco, he provided fundamental knowledge on Adobe Fresco. I can usually pick up a graphics program and figure it out pretty easily, but it was very helpful having someone walk me through all of the basics as thoroughly as this video did.

If you’re looking for getting started in Adobe Fresco, check out Chris’ full intro playlist here!

Zen Watercooler

One of the first videos I watched mentioned RedBubble, which I had never heard of. They talked how it was free to open a shop, so I started looking up what it was and how to use it. That was when I found Zen Watercooler’s How to Start a Redbubble Shop tutorial. That one tutorial gave me the confidence to go ahead and open my own RedBubble Shop. I binged a fair amount of Zen Watercooler’s RedBubble videos over that week of research. One big take away was how important it is to have your own website, in addition to any merchandise shop. That lead me to researching how to create my own website, which I did, with the help of Mey Aroyo’s YouTube channel.

If you’re looking for more information on RedBubble or starting a graphic print on demand shop, check our Zen Watercooler’s channel here!

Mey Aroyo

I found Mey’s YouTube channel, Passive Income with Mey, from looking up what Spoonflower was and how to use it. (I will definitely be venturing into Spoonflower at some point). I loved that her message was teaching creative people how to make money by selling their art. Mey has so much knowledge from her years of creating and selling her own products, which is apparent in her videos. By watching numerous videos on her channel I learned how I should go about selling print on demand, how to set up my own website using FourthWall, ways to maximize Pinterest, and how to create a blog. She has so much insight into a world I am new to and her videos prepared me for how to go about starting my journey. I am now caught up on her recent videos and will continue to watch all of her new videos. Her topics are very relevant for where I am in my journey and I am looking forward to learning more from her!

Platforms I Am Using

These are all of the platforms I am currently using. The biggest reason I am using them is because they are free. When I decided I wanted to do this, I didn’t want to start by spending money on subscriptions or programs when I didn’t know if I it would be worth it. I went into this focusing on having little to no financial risk.

Adobe Fresco

I currently do all of my digital drawing in Adobe Fresco. Why? Because it is free. Well, that is the main reason I have stuck with it. But I love that I am able to pull it up on my laptop and everything is saved to their cloud. It makes it a seamless process when going from drawing on my iPad to my laptop to uploading designs to my website. The app has a wide variety of brushes and features available in the free version. I honestly don’t know if anything in the paid version would make a big enough impact for me to consider purchasing it.

FourthWall

When looking into website hosts, I looked into Shopify, Hostinger, and WordPress. I was set on using Hostinger for a very low monthly fee, and with the understanding that I would have to look into an ecommerce host to integrate into my website; that was when I found one of Mey’s videos about FourthWall. FourthWall is a free website host that has built in ecommerce. What does this mean exactly? It means, for free, I can upload my designs to products they have in their catalogue, while also having my website look the exact way I want it to. Not only could I create a Shop page, I could add in any other types of pages, like a Portfolio, an About and Contact page, and link my newsletter sign-up. All for free. The website also has the capability of selling digital files, which I am also interested in. I have loved using FourthWall and look forward to continue to develop my business using this host.

RedBubble

When I originally started my designs and wanting to put them on products, I first thought of Etsy and doing digital files. My main drawback to Etsy was the amount of fees they charge to start, list products, and after purchases. I knew I didn’t want to sell physical products because I did not want the financial overhead. That lead me into researching Print on Demand, which I had no experience with. When I found RedBubble and it was free to start and list products, I knew it was what I was looking for. With little to no consequences financially, I thought “why not just see where it goes?”

Beehiiv

Beehiiv is the platform I am using currently to write this blog and to write my newsletters. I had zero blogging or newsletter experience. I love that Beehiiv was able to integrate with my website to automatically update my subscriber list. At first it was a little tricky to figure out how to use Beehiiv, but I was able to with the help of a tutorial they had. They automatically give you a website builder and domain, which is great to use as a landing page for my blog, but it is very clunky to use. There are a lot of options that are listed but no explanation as to what they are or how to use them. But again, I am using this for free, so I am happy to figure it out at no cost.

My Recommendations

Do I have enough experience to be making recommendations? Probably not. But I will anyways. You could follow exactly what I have done and find that it works great. Or you could do the exact same thing and find that it doesn’t work for you at all. My biggest recommendation? Do a ton of research and find what is right for you. Finding what is right for you and what is right for your vision, is going to help make you feel like you’re starting on the right track.

Thank you!

I appreciate all of your support in my small business! If you have time, please fill out my poll below to provide me feedback and let me know if you enjoyed this post.

Check Out My Websites, Poll and Socials!