Cheetah Mobile Inc. (NYSE: CMCM), a leading mobile internet company with strong global vision, recently held its 2018 CM Global Designer Meetup at the Cheetah Mobile headquarters in Beijing to honor the top designers on CM Design, an open platform that empowers third-party designers to earn money by creating downloadable themes for CM Launcher and Cheetah Keyboard. Nearly 100 designers from 10 countries including India attended the event, where they listened to speeches by Cheetah Mobile executives, learned more about CM Launcher and Cheetah Keyboard, and received awards for their outstanding performance on the CM Design platform in 2017.
Established in 2015, CM Design has quickly developed into a popular venue for some of the world’s top up-and-coming graphic designers. Through the platform, Cheetah Mobile is cultivating a growing community of highly talented individuals and teams from around the world, capable of responding to the latest trends and bringing users the themes they want.
“Indian designers are one of the most committed and cooperative talents we’ve ever worked with. We are building a robust system to connect designers and users,” said Edward Sun, SVP of Cheetah Mobile. “Not only does CM Design provide freelance designers with an easy-to-use platform to earn money, our crowd-sourcing model also benefits users, as they are given access to a massive collection of stunning themes to personalize their mobile experience.”
Nearly 3,000 designers and 100 design studios from over 50 countries are currently active on the CM Design platform. Together they designed more than 20,000 themes for CM Launcher and Cheetah Keyboard in 2017, with total downloads exceeding 200 million.
According to a survey by PayPal, India has about 10 million people engaged in freelance works, mainly in web and mobile. The survey also revealed that 61% have not been paid at least once in their career.
With CM Design, individual designers can earn up to $15,000 a month designing themes for CM Design, while design studios can earn up to $60,000 per month. More than 30 freelance designers have leveraged their success on the platform to establish their own design studios. As a whole, average revenue for designers was up 40% in 2017.
“We have long tried to get our name seen on a global scale, and thanks to CM design, this ambition has become a reality,” said Hiren Shah, Director of Herba Technologies Private Limited based in Mumbai. “We would be happy to see more design talents to join CM design team, and develop their career as an international designer.”
The Top Ten individual designers and design teams of 2017 were announced at the event, with each winner receiving a set of impressive prizes. The top designers were judged based on the number of themes they created during the year, the quality of their themes, and the number of times their themes were downloaded by users.
