Latest / The Side Hustle Career Podcast with Fexingo: Second Income, Freelancing While Employed / How a Graphic Designer Built a 9000 Monthly Side Hustle in Packaging Design
Transcript
- Lucas: So today we're looking at a side hustle that might surprise people — packaging design. Specifically, how a mid-level graphic designer at a regional ad agency built a nine-thousand-dollar monthly side income by focusing exclusively on packaging for small food and beverage brands. Luna: Nine thousand? That's higher than most of the numbers we've seen. What was her day-job role? Lucas: She was a graphic designer at an agency in Portland — been there about four years, doing brochures, social media graphics, the usual. Pretty comfortable, but she felt stuck. She told me she was making sixty-five thousand a year and realized her agency was billing clients three to four times that for her time. Luna: Classic agency markup. So she started looking for a way to capture more of that value herself. Lucas: Exactly. But she didn't just go wide and offer 'graphic design services.' She got specific. She noticed that a lot of small food startups — hot sauce, kombucha, granola — were launching on Instagram and at farmers markets, and their packaging was… well, it looked homemade. No offense to homemade, but if you want to get into Whole Foods, you need a label that looks professional. Luna: Right. And those small brands can't afford a big agency, but they also can't afford to look amateur. That's a sweet spot. Lucas: It is. She started by doing two things: she built a mini-portfolio of speculative packaging designs for existing products she thought had weak labels — she didn't ask permission, she just redesigned them. Then she put those on a dedicated page on her website called 'Packaging for Small Brands.' And she opened a Fiverr gig specifically for 'food and beverage label design.' Luna: I love that she didn't wait for a client to ask. She created the demand by showing what was possible. How long until she got her first paying project? Lucas: About six weeks. First client was a local kombucha brewer who saw her redesigned label for another kombucha brand on her site and reached out. That project was four hundred dollars. The second came from Fiverr — a hot sauce maker in Texas — and that was seven hundred. Within four months, she had five regular clients and was making about two thousand a month. Luna: And she was still working her full-time job, right? That's a lot of evening and weekend work. Lucas: She was. But here's the thing — she got efficient. She standardized her process. For a typical packaging project, she'd charge a flat fee of fifteen hundred to three thousand dollars, depending on complexity. That included an initial concept, two rounds of revisions, and final print-ready files. She found that once she'd done three or four projects, she could turn around a new one in about eight to ten hours of focused work. Luna: So at three thousand dollars for ten hours, that's an effective hourly rate of three hundred bucks. That's way better than her day-job rate. Lucas: Absolutely. And she was able to scale that. By month seven, she had ten regular clients — mostly on a retainer basis for new product launches or seasonal updates. That's when her monthly income crossed five thousand. The key was that she stopped taking general design work altogether. If someone asked for a logo or a brochure, she'd refer them to someone else. Her entire side business was packaging, packaging, packaging. Luna: That takes discipline. It's tempting to take any money that comes your way. But by saying no, she built a reputation as the go-to person for that one thing. Lucas: Exactly. And that reputation allowed her to raise her prices. By month ten, she was charging twenty-five hundred to four thousand per project. She also added a small upcharge for rush orders — something like an extra five hundred for a one-week turnaround. Her biggest month hit ninety-two hundred, and she averaged about seventy-five hundred over the next six months. Luna: Let me guess — the biggest challenge was managing client expectations around printing. Because designing for digital is different from designing for a physical package that has to wrap around a bottle or a box. Lucas: That's exactly right, and she learned that the hard way. Her third project, she delivered a beautiful design, but the client's printer couldn't reproduce the colors she'd used — the label came out looking muddy. She had to redo it on her own time. After that, she started specifying CMYK values and requiring a proof from the printer before final approval. She also built relationships with a couple of small-run label printers and would recommend them to clients. Luna: So she turned a mistake into a competitive advantage. Now she can say, 'I'll not only design your label, I'll make sure it prints correctly.' That's huge. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the kind of service that justifies the premium price. She's not just selling pixels — she's selling a finished product that goes on a shelf. Luna: You know, hearing stories like this makes me think about how many of our listeners might have a skill they're undervaluing. If you've enjoyed this episode and find our show useful in thinking through your own side hustle idea, consider supporting us. We keep this podcast ad-free and listener-supported, and a small contribution at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo goes a long way. Lucas: Yeah, and we really appreciate it. It helps us keep digging up these detailed case studies. So back to the packaging designer — she eventually got to the point where she was making more from her side hustle than her day job. What did she do next? Luna: Did she quit? Lucas: Not right away. She actually stayed at her agency job for another eight months, but she used the extra income to pay down debt and build a six-month emergency fund. Then she negotiated a part-time arrangement with her agency — three days a week — so she could spend the other two days on her side hustle. That was the tipping point. Within three months of going part-time, her side hustle revenue jumped to ten thousand a month because she had more time to take on projects and market herself. Luna: That's a smart transition. She didn't burn bridges, she kept the benefits and the steady income, and she used the extra time to accelerate the side business. Lucas: Right. And eventually, after about eighteen months total, she went full-time on her own. She now has a waitlist of clients and is considering hiring another designer to handle overflow. Luna: What's the one piece of advice she'd give to someone considering a similar path? Lucas: She said: 'Don't try to be everything to everyone. Pick one specific problem that a specific type of client has, and solve it better than anyone else. For me, that was packaging for small food brands. For someone else, it could be social media graphics for real estate agents, or presentation design for startup founders. But get narrow.' Luna: And don't be afraid to show your work before you have clients. Those speculative redesigns were what got her started. Lucas: Exactly. That's a takeaway that applies to almost any creative side hustle. Show, don't just tell. Alright, that's our story for today. Next episode, we'll look at how a high school teacher built a side hustle in curriculum consulting for online education platforms. Luna: Looking forward to it. See you next time. Lucas: Take care.