Making Animated Gifs Is Now a Viable Career Option

Do you want to make more money? Sure, we all do! Well, all your time fucking around on the internet might actually pay off—literally. Savvy bloggers, designers, and artists have now found a way capitalize on the much-used but oft-slighted medium of animated gifs.

Forbes has profiled a number of digital artists who are cleverly carving out a niche business for themselves by tapping into the proven viral value of gifs. By creating “advertising, app development, page views and pure creative expression,” these entrepreneurs are using the moving images as marketing techniques for big brands like Victoria’s Secret and MTV and help magazines like XXL translate their content for the web.

“We get most of our jobs just because our work is shared,” said Pamela Reed of the gif-making design due Reed+Radar. “All of a sudden we’ll see it tweeted a few more times and then all of a sudden it’s on 100 blogs because it’s passed around. The next few weeks clients will start to reach out.”

Legitimizing the gif as a medium are apps like GIFBoom, Cinemagram, and Cinegif that enable users to create their own gifs on their smart phones. Graham McFarland, the CEO of Cinegif told Forbes:

“We believe that the animated GIF trend will continue and build momentum as it enters the traditional business marketing and advertising industry. What teens and artists started will certainly be visible in the near term in everyday e-mail marketing, website design, video teasers, social media and newsletters.”