Hey all.

I was just curious since there's a lot of talent around here on M9 if any of you that make themes actually do this for a living?
I'm sure there are some of you working in advertising and maybe even a couple of art directors.

But is anyone here making money out of making themes?
I'm pretty much asking just to see if there is a marked for it or if it should be kept strictly as a hobby.
I know that you're not making money from themes posted here. (even though maybe others do by stealing our work?).

Anyone doing commercial stuff you aren't posting here?

best regards / Johan

Like all hobbies...... turning it into your main way of earning money makes it compulsory. If I were to make my regular paycheck by making themes..... I'd have to start mass-producing them and charge a steep fee for them.

That would be one sure way of killing the joy in it.

I think there is no way just selling themes (and nothing else) could support me for a very long period of time. Apart from that it would be compulsory to get up and start theming 9 hours per day every day.... which sounds not very appealing at all to me

i make it a hobby... but i got an offer from a new company to make themes for them... there are a lot of us making themes i also do other graphic stuff for other people so this is like part time for me.

Since working for a mobile company based from another country is totally new to me, and our only communication is through the internet, cant help having a few doubts such as payment, whether they are real or not, etc... but i guess thats normal?... i give it a go anyway... for the experience ... they might start selling our work later this year.

I'd love to be able to theme as my job (unless my boss reads this, then I really wouldn't). Unfortunately I agree with Vlamm that I don't think it would be a viable main source of income. In order to match my salary I would need to produce an average of 16-20 themes a day every day assuming a price tag of £5 each (which I've seen some sites charge).

I have had people suggest charging, but at the moment I do it for fun only, unless a company comes along and asks me to do some themes for them, in which case I would treat it as a graphic design contract and would charge accordingly.

you can make tons of $ making some tracker skins/nokia 6600 themes,
you can make some $ making a tons of normal themes

@simon: that's a lot of money you're earning

it is, and yet I see almost none of it

I wasn't really talking about making themes exclusively.
But just id anyone is actually making money out of it.
I guess I should get my ass working on my website to start with and then be able to at least present my work and see if someone is interested.

Think one would need to do quite a lot of themes, if it was to be a "steady income" hehe

I do design for a living,.. both graphics and industrial (hardware).

Do adverts/commercials, logos, manuals etc for the company I work at, and also hardware designs.

Besides this I also do graphics stuff and design-proposals/concepts for other companies,... meaning doing it from scratch (hand drawings) and afterwards doing them on pc.
These could be mobilephones, headsets, dongles, whatever comes up.
This is all freelance work,..do it in my sparetime.
When working in the mobile/IT-industry, one does get a lot of contacts, hehe,.. and sometimes they want to use me for doing a specific design.


I also do themes for fun, havent charged anyone yet, and dont think I ever will. Sometimes its nice just to do something for free...
I've got enough deadlines already, hehe :-D


SIMON>
know what you mean,..where did they all go ?
(actually I DO know where they all went, taxes are far too high here )

br
Jan

I can cope with taxes - at least it gets taken before the money reaches me. Mine goes on bills and the family

Ohh yeah guess bills must be no.1 enemy, hehe

The tax-system in DK is ridiculous,... and also when I wanna buy a car,..I pay 180 percent on top of price !

Examples,.. a Kawasaki ZX12R is approx 234.000 dk kr,..thats approx £ 22.000
ZX10R is approx 21.000 UK £

A Porshe Boxster/BMW M3/Audi S4 is some 1.300.000 danish kr,..hmmm.

Soo you dont buy a new car (or bike) every day

And to make things worse, fuel/petrol is approx 9 dk kr per litre (approx 0.82 £)
(when I went to the US, they basically did not believe me when I told this, hehe)

BR
Jan

Fuel here is nearly 80p per litre too, but at least my company pays for that

Lucky you, hehe

EU has been chasing DK for years, because of our crazy taxes on these things, but finally there does seem to come some changes in this, although they will not happen immediately,..unfortunately

The pc/mobilephone market is crazy too here, hehe,..but thats an advantage for the consumers, since prices drop extremely fast on most stuff.
The pc-industry hates DK, because their product prices jump up and down all the time *LOL*,..not exactly stabile :-D
But at the same time, we rank high,..since a lot of people have mobilephones and computers here.

br
Jan

Fuel here is around A$ 1 / litre but it doesn't matter to me as I don't drive

oh yeah, jh67 made some graphics from scratch that makes one Very impressive.

Expert >

Quite cheap fuel down under

Our 9 DK kr is approx 2 A$

Thanks for the kind words :-D


BTW where in Australia are you ?
(just curious, hehe...I lived in Sydney for some years)


BR
Jan

I sometimes make themes for friends for a small fee

@simon & jh67
Try spending those income here in the Philippines, you'll definitely gonna have fun! Your earnings are big money when converted to Phil Peso!

@Zleepy
Same comment as Zeolyte, but I still gotta taste the first paycheck. I'm not too expectant about it though, cause as vlam has said, I need something more stable income generating job than thememaking.

Pia >

Actually know quite a lot of people in the philippines, so maybe I will go there one day ;-D
Also I dont have a family yet, so I could "just go" if I wanted to, hehe.

BR
Jan

Theming for money..... What a lovely thought but we have been on this roundabout before and for the most of us, we like to share our stuff and give people free stuff cuz the rip off Ringtone/Wallpaper sellers really milk it. It would be nice but then if you got fed up of making themes, you would end up knocking out poor excuses for themes and then nobody would want them.