Graphic Designer Finds Success in the Cards

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

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As if you needed yet another reason to start an income generating project, I mean, there are so many, from being able to pay off your bills, pay down debt, build security, confidence, options for your future, et cetera. Another reason is to keep your skills up to date, especially if you end up changing roles at your company or you find you're not using a skill that isn't relevant in your current position, but could be valuable elsewhere. And that's what today's story will illustrate in more ways than one. It's all about a designer who works mostly as a marketer, but on the side creates and sells a line of handmade watercolor cards. These cards are now available at the Orlando airport in addition to online and in other local shops.

So how does she do it? Why does she do it? And what has she learned along the way? All those answers are coming up in the story, graphic designer finds success in the cards. [Music]

When Elizabeth Kraft started Bright Light Paper, she had two goals.

First, to keep her graphic design skills sharp. Second, to add a personal touch to the way people communicate. A self-taught graphic designer, Elizabeth originally went to school to study marketing. Her first job out of college was in a sales and marketing support role. While there, she was asked to create flyers for the sales team and instantly got hooked on design work.

From there, she improved her skills and eventually moved into design as a full-time job. A few years later, Elizabeth was coming home to Orlando, Florida after a trip to the West Coast. She had found some cute things she wanted to send to her cousin and thought it would be fun to make a card to send with the package. She enjoyed the process so much, she decided to start designing cards as a hobby. Now, what is that card designing process exactly?

Well, it starts when she comes up with a phrase and her inspiration comes from all sorts of different places. From there, she works out illustrations that go with the words. She sketches the illustration, then moves to the computer to put the design in a program. When she's happy with the design, she prints the card and then hand paints it with watercolor. The first design she made was a robot with heart balloons that said, "You make my heart smile." Others were similarly whimsical.

Elizabeth's goal wasn't to start a profitable business, at least at first. Instead, she just loved the idea of adding a personal touch to gifts and sharing witty or clever cards with friends and family. To her, getting a personal note in the mail is special, even more so because these days, everyone is desensitized by electronic communication. However, around the same time, her full-time job started shifting away from a design focus. She wanted to keep her skills relevant and she wanted to keep growing as a designer.

So she shifted her hobby into an official side hustle under the name Bright Light Paper. Getting the business off the ground was a low-budget effort, which was good because she didn't have a lot of money to invest. Technically, the biggest single cost would have been for design software, but Elizabeth already owned Adobe Illustrator, so that was free. She just had to buy stationary and art items, including paper, watercolor, and printer ink, all of which she purchased directly. Her first few sales were from friends and family and came right after she officially started the business.

Even now, Elizabeth does no paid advertising. She says that Orlando is a tight-knit community and loves to support local businesses. So she's found the support of local bloggers invaluable. Her first sale to someone she didn't know came through her Etsy shop, which she set up as soon as her personal sales confirmed this might be something people would be interested in. The Etsy shop is one of her main sources of business, but she's also found opportunities to get her cards in brick and mortar stores.

Some store owners approached her after seeing her work on Instagram or featured in local blogs. Then Elizabeth reached out to other stores because she liked them and thought it might be a good partnership. With those stores, she either has a 60/40 consignment split or she negotiates a wholesale agreement. At first, that agreement was done by email, but now she's developed a basic term sheet to give to prospective stores whenever she visits. One of her newest locations is a store in the Orlando International Airport.

They reached out to her to ask if she would like to sell cards there, and of course, she jumped at the idea. She also accepts custom projects, including logos and invitations. Her profit depends not just on card sales, but on how many custom projects she can handle. She has close to 70 designs now and still handles the process from start to finish, hand painting each individual card. Now that, of course, connects to her biggest challenge, which is figuring out how to grow her business.

Because every card is hand painted, it's a time intensive process, and she hasn't been able to find a good way to scale. Nonetheless, she's excited for the future of bright light paper. It's all about bringing joy to the people who buy her cards, the people that receive them, and, of course, to Elizabeth herself. [Music]

Well, as always in these situations where something is time or labor intensive, and it's difficult to see, you know, how is that business going to grow or scale, I think it's important to just point out from the top, not every project has to scale, and it's also totally okay to do something that is time and labor intensive because you enjoy it, and because you're not necessarily trying to make tens of thousands of dollars a month from your business, okay? But if you'd like to learn about how to go from doing everything as a one-off to being able to be in more than one place at a time, especially as it relates to the stationary business, I did some searching in the archives.

I found a couple of episodes to check out. Number 978, illustrated greeting cards provide personal touch. Number 1047, which was just recently a few weeks ago, event planner writes into custom calligraphy shop, and slightly different, but still about greeting cards. Number 744, it's no joke, prank musical greeting card earns $36,000 a month. So obviously with that one, number 744, he was able to find a pretty significant way to scale.

Slightly different, as I said, but also still relevant. And then last but not least, anybody interested in this world should follow Emily McDowell on Instagram. Her Instagram handle is Emily McDowell with an underscore. I will link that up. Emily is a friend of mine who's built a multimillion dollar independently owned business while focusing on her artwork.

And so she is an inspiration to many people, including me. I definitely want to check out what she is doing. All right, that's it for today. Congratulations to Elizabeth. Thank you for letting us share your story.

And listeners, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes, including links to everything I mentioned in the episode, will be at sidehustleschool.com/1069. That is episode 1,069. I'll be back again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.

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From the Onward Project.