Learn How To Get 2024‘s Top 6 Best Creative Freelance Jobs

Freelance work encompasses so many benefits: setting your own hours, working remotely from anywhere you’d like, and generating extra income. Whether you’re looking for a side hustle or a step towards a digital nomad career change, creative freelance work opens doors to a lot of opportunities. 

Getting started is the toughest part, but once you get the ball rolling, you can start building a consistent client base. In this article, we break down our top 6 choices for creative freelance work, how to learn the skills needed, and where to look for work. 

How to become a freelance creative professional

First things first, you need to learn the tricks of the trade. Domestika, the fastest-growing online learning platform for creative courses, has the goal of helping users reinvent themselves professionally. With their wide range of creative courses taught by industry experts, Domestika offers quality lessons for users to learn new skills and, in the process, build a creative portfolio to attract potential clients.

Once you’ve honed your skills and developed quality samples of your work, you’ll want to set up a profile and get approved on a freelance marketplace. The popularity and prices tend to vary from niche to niche, so make sure to check out a few. Fiverr, Upwork and Freelance are all popular options. And usually, approval to offer creative gigs happens the same day.

Now you’re ready to market your skills. While it can feel daunting to start from scratch, you have several advantages on your side.

First, you can study the busiest and most successful freelancers in your niche and replicate their offerings – no need to reinvent the wheel.

Second, we’d suggest starting a little cheaper than the average cost in the market. You don’t yet have customer ratings to make you stand out so make it easy for people to take a chance on you.

Finally, because you’re new, you can be faster and go above and beyond for your first few clients. This will pay dividends in the long run with return work and great ratings.

We know it’s hard to believe how easy it is to find people around the world who’ll value and pay for your skills. Now let’s look at the most popular creative freelance jobs to give you some inspiration to start your entrepreneurial journey today.

2024‘s Top 6 Best Creative Freelance Jobs

While there are nearly infinite niches and bundles to offer your freelance customers, some areas are showing more growth and popularity than others. While our advice is to focus where you have both the passion and skills, it’s also helpful to be mindful of what’s in demand.

And while we might disagree that transcription is a top creative freelance job (side note: my mom was both a transcriptionist and very crafty, so I’m throwing no shade) we do agree with Indeed on several of the other best freelance jobs for creative professionals.

So let’s dive into more detail on the skills needed for one of these top creative freelancer gigs. We’ve taken the liberty of highlighting the best courses from Domestika in each area. We also did some research on the best platform to market your creative services.

USE CODE SKILLSCOUTER-10 FOR AN EXTRA 10% OFF ANY OF THE COURSES AVAILABLE.

Without further ado. Let’s count them down…

6. Freelance Graphic Designer or Illustrator

Think logo design, illustrations for a company’s social media, or designs for products. For those who would love to create illustrations or designs, but don’t know their way around Photoshop or Illustrator: Domestika has in-depth courses called Domestika Basics, where you get a complete walkthrough of professional creative software. For those who already are familiar with design software and want to build a portfolio, there’s a wide range of design courses available to choose from.

Here are a few:

Procreate for Beginners: Digital Illustration 101 (Basics)

Adobe Illustrator for Beginners (Basics)

Adobe Photoshop for Beginners (Basics)

Logo Design: From Concept to Presentation

Editorial Illustration for Magazines

Creative Patterns for Graphic Design

Where to find freelance graphic design and illustration work: Fiverr.com

5. UX Design and App Design

The future is now, and it’s in the apps on our phones and the experience users have online. User experience (known as UX) is very quickly rising in demand as companies start to pay more attention to how their clients experience their apps and websites. At Domestika, they have a variety of courses on the different aspects of UX.

Introduction to UX Design

UX Research 101

Introduction to Adobe XD (Basics)

App Design: Prototyping for Beginners

Where to find freelance UX work: most job websites including LinkedIn

4. Freelance Photographer

Yes, photography can be much more than just a hobby. A great place to start is by learning how to use a photographer’s two favorite software programs: Lightroom and Photoshop, then build your portfolio with product photography or brand photography for social media course. 

Adobe Lightroom Classic: A Beginner’s Guide (Basics)

Adobe Photoshop: Beginner’s Guide for Photographers (Basics)

Directing People for Portrait Photography

Creative Product Photography from Start to Finish

Lifestyle Brand Photography for Social Media

Where to find freelance photography work: Upwork.com

3. Branding and Social Media Management

Branding and social media go hand in hand. Branding is all about how customers perceive a product, and social media is one of the most important mediums to position a product. Both fields require strategizing content, engagement, as well as setting and reaching metric goals. 

Community Management Fundamentals

Instagram Strategy for Business Growth

Building a Personal Brand on Instagram

Brand Strategy for Online Platforms

Brand Strategy: Defining User Experience

Where to find social media management and branding work: Indeed.com 

2. Freelance Copywriter  

Copywriting is an excellent freelance job. Companies are always looking for new written content for their websites, articles, blogs, social media, etc. If you are interested in pursuing freelance copywriting but don’t have any experience, a great place to start is with a blog. Domestika has a number of writing and content marketing courses, which are very useful when starting out or when perfecting your tone and style.

Copywriting for Social Media

Blogging 101: Tone, Branding, and Strategy

Screenwriting Essentials: Create, Write, and Develop for TV

Creative Writing for Beginners: Bringing Your Story to Life

Where to look for freelance writing work: Fiverr.com or Freelance.com

1. E-commerce 

There’s nothing like being your own boss. Starting your own e-commerce business allows you to create something that expresses your own unique style, and you get to build something that is truly your own. Domestika has course options to start your own e-commerce business with little investment required, such as print-on-demand dropshipping, as well as courses to apply your illustrations on different products and how to sell them online.

Print-on-Demand for Creatives: Design and Sell Your Own Products

Digital Marketing Strategy: Build Your Online Presence

From Illustrations to Merchandise: Market Your Artwork

E-Commerce Fundamentals: Launching an Online Store from Scratch

Where to start: Shopify.com

When starting a new project, the first step is always the most difficult one. But as the famous saying goes: believe you can, and you’re halfway there. The best time to start your next project is now. If you’re interested in exploring the rest of Domestika’s course catalog, check them out here.