How I earned $15,000 last month from freelance design

Hint: there’s no shortcut. I’ve been working at this for 17 years.

*** Update ***
I’ve written a follow-up piece about what I’ve done to sustain these freelance earnings over the long-term. Please also read How I earned $150K last year from freelance design.

I just sent off over NZ$15,000 worth in invoices for freelance design work performed last month. It might have been my most lucrative month ever. I’d like to talk about what’s making this period profitable for me, and share how I’ve gotten to this point in my design career.

I’m a freelance UI/UX designer in Auckland, New Zealand. I’ve been doing it since 2001 — starting part time as a student and then building my freelance business into a full time gig shortly after graduating. I’ve never been employed. This is all I’ve ever known.

I’m a T shaped individual with a broad range of design experience, but my bread and butter is in providing tremendous value to my clients all the way through a product, app, or website’s creation cycle: right from initial strategy, through IA and UX design, and UI design. I often do front-end code too, and sometimes even development.