Have you ever wondered how some people sell clip art on sites like Creative Market, Etsy, and their own websites? You can quickly build some clipart packs (aka vector graphics, Cricut cut files, SVG files, clip art packs) on your iPad and start selling them to both individuals for personal use and businesses for commercial use.
If you have no idea what vectors are you may want to start on this blog post: What Are Vectors and Why Do You Need to Use Them?
I’ll show you my whole process for creating these vectors from scratch starting from sketches in Procreate to finished vectors that are ready to sell. Let’s jump in!
Watch the Tutorial
If you’re a see it on “paper” person, keep reading below. Otherwise, check out this quick video tutorial in my new iPad Art Break Series on Youtube:
HELPFUL LINKS
The Steps
1. Choose a theme and start sketching. Honestly I don’t do a lot of planning before I start one of these because I want to just dive in and start exploring shapes, patterns, and motifs. I like to get straight to sketching and then decide later how I’ll package the clip art set. So you might start with something like “cute corgis” or “beach trip” as your theme to get your ideas rolling.
Note: My Canvas size is 1820 x 1214 because that works well with Creative Market which is where I sell my assets.
2. Using the Everything Bagel Brushset, I like to decide on an inking style at this stage. For example you might create block print style shapes with thick lines in between them, or you might do some sleek and fluid lines that build up the shapes. This is your time to play and develop a style that you like and that you think is missing out there in the clipart world!
3. Now it’s time to vectorize! You can use a free app like Adobe Capture (or your favorite vectorization app!) to open each black and white inked image and turn it into a vector. Once you do that, you can export the SVG file to Affinity Designer so you can start adding color to the shapes.
4. This stage is all about organization and grouping shapes, keeping in mind that your buyer is going to want a quick and easy way to recolor the vectors.
Note that I have an Affinity Designer 101 Class that is free and teaches you the basics of the app.
So in this example, I grouped the stem elements in one group, the leaves in another, and the flowers in another. I also kept all the petals and leaf parts separate, so if they want to have multiple colors on the petals they can easily do that.
5. Now we need to make the graphics pretty and presentable! I like to copy and paste each grouped graphic onto one canvas to make it easy for the user to find each shape all in one place. I name all my groups and layers so they will have no doubt about “what is what” as they try to use the shapes in their projects.
6. Once we have some pretty display images ready (this will vary based on where you sell so check the site where you are selling your work to see what image sizes they require!) it’s time to export files from Affinity in a variety of formats that your buyers might need.
I export both SVG and PNG files so that any buyer who doesn’t know how to use vectors can easily plop an SVG in any design app of their choice (hint: this makes your clipart accessible for more buyers!).
7. Optional: Create some repeat patterns (or reuse some that you’ve already made!) inside your graphics set. Most people in the “normal world” have no idea how to make a repeat pattern and would love to be able to use and recolor one of your patterns.
If you aren’t sure how to create repeat patterns, my Affinity Designer Foundations class is a great place to start!
8. Done! Let’s sell this thing! I like to create my buyers a map that shows what is inside the file since it can be overwhelming for people to open a huge list of files. The map is a one-page visual image that shows exactly what is inside, so even a non-techy person could sort it out.
You can see my Art Nouveau Clipart Pack here in my Creative Market shop.
But do they actually sell?
Umm, yes. Vector graphics are highly sellable because so many people are buying them (individuals, businesses, freelancers, community groups, churches, etc.).
I listed this in my Creative Market shop on August 15th. It’s September 18th now and I’ve sold 4 sets (that is $144 in profit in four weeks). That would be $1700/year on average. So how many sets would you need to make a full-time income? 20? Yep, this is a profitable venture y’all!
It’s important to focus on SEO though (of course, not all sets will sell at the same rate especially if they can’t be found in search). You can learn more about SEO in this blog post.
learn the app that makes this all possible:
If you aren’t sure how to get started with making patterns and using vectors, check out my free Affinity Designer Foundations class where you’ll learn the foundations for making professional artwork and graphics on your iPad!
Affinity Designer Foundations
- Learn how to make vectors and layered graphics
- Create professional patterns that licensors ask for in any file format that you need
