As he sat, struggling for motivation as an electronics engineer in India, Anand Thangavel knew his career needed to take a more creative path.

It was then he took it upon himself to go against his family's advice and began looking for full time work as a designer - a decision that has proved to be financially, and emotionally, beneficial.

"I liked the idea of design, so I taught myself Photoshop and Macromedia and began spending the majority of my days practicing and honing my skills," he says.

"Today I'm the highest earning and number one ranked designer on online design crowdsourcing website, DesignCrowd.

"I've accumulated more than $1million over the past five years, building my fortune on thousands of jobs, sleepless nights, and continual determination."

Winning Web Design by pb

Despite this success, India-born Anand admits it was not an easy transition away from a steady job.

And having to develop his new design skills was given added pressure when his parents warned they would not support his further studies.

"While this has given me liberating financial freedom, the road to being a successful freelancer has not been a walk in the park," he says.

"My parents grumbled when they learnt I no longer wanted to continue working in my job. They announced that they wouldn’t pay a cent for me to study again, so I found myself struggling to figure out how I could quit my job, do something that I enjoyed and still make a living."

His commitment paid off and he secured a job as a graphic designer in the UK, where his family lives.

He spent three years working for the company, before a desire for a new computer made him assess his workflow.

My motivation at the time was buying a Playstation, which I couldn't afford on my wage," he says.

"It was around this time, I heard about DesignCrowd from my co-workers, who said it was a great way to earn extra money as a designer."

Winning Web Design by pb

At first, he wasn't overly familiar with the concept of design crowdsourcing, where businesses can pitch their creative content needs to a large online community of designers.

But he signed up under the user name PB, and soon began submitting designs to generate feedback and reviews.

"Constantly submitting work gave me more confidence in my designs and pushed me to improve my skills," said Anand, who was particularly motivated by the participation payments, which are paid invitations from a client to submit to their project.

"With each project I started to believe that I had the potential to go out on my own full-time. I quit my job (again) and dedicated all my time to freelancing."

Five years after registering, Anand has submitted almost 100,000 designs, and has earned more than US$1million from his work.

Working out of the UK, he says he participates in all the web projects he can manage, and revels in the freedom the freelance lifestyle offers.

"Working as a freelance designer is the best decision I've ever made," he says. "I'm working with clients from all over the world, I have the freedom to do the work that I want and I'm able to earn a good living from my skills, while picking the hours I work at my computer.

"Getting to this stage in my life wasn't easy, but it was worth the hard work."

A version of this article was originally published on Tech in Asia.

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Written by Kevin Bradford on Thursday, April 7, 2016

Kevin Bradford is a content editor at DesignCrowd with a background in journalism and digital production. Experienced in both writing and videography, he loves combining his skills to create captivating content across all multimedia channels.