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07/23/2005 10:57:11 AM · #1 |
I have just been offered a job, through my freelance business, to use photoshop to create adds for a local magizne. The owner found my website and wants me to do type setting/graphic design and I have no clue what to charge. I will be doing a quater page add, a half page add, and a whole page add. The graphics will be supplied all I will be doing is adding the type and making it look good. I was thinking something like;
3.50 for a quater
4.50 for a half
5.50 for a whole
what do you guys think, she needs an anwser by tonight.
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07/23/2005 11:11:14 AM · #2 |
Not in that field, but for an independent business it sounds way to cheap to me.
How long would each job take you? Figure out an hourly rate and multiply.
Be sure to add in "support time", the time it takes to discuss the job, discuss payment, etc., as your unpaid overhead when calculating your rate.
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07/23/2005 11:35:08 AM · #3 |
| I agree... that is too low. I used to work doing graphics and layout and we would charge $45/hour of work. I heard that even that was a low amount. Layout and making stuff pretty can take longer than you think. But in the end, charge what you feel comfortable doing. :) |
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07/23/2005 12:04:23 PM · #4 |
We do a lot of typesetting work... our usual rate is 20 per hour per piece min 1 hour for "simple" stuff...
If it requires art clean up or other manipulation it goes up to 30 per hour
If they want less than 24 hour turn add 15%
That may be a little high for your market but it is a tad low here in Dallas |
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07/23/2005 12:15:36 PM · #5 |
I did this for 7 years or so as a freelancer and as "house designer" for a local printer, working out of my own home a half mile away.
This was in California, and I was charging them 20 an hour for the contract work. I charged outside clients 30 an hour for typesetting and 50 an hour for graphic design. Work was done on a "firm estimate" basis for outside clients (I'd quote the job and charge a flat fee based on my rate of 30 or 50 an hour) and on a time x hourly for the printer (who knew I wouldn't run up his time).
The rates you have quoted are way too low; My minimum for a job was $20 for outside clients. I doubt I ever did a job for the printer that took less than half an hour except for the occasional "patch job" that involved setting a single word or somethign that they then pasted into an existing layout.
Robt.
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07/23/2005 12:19:16 PM · #6 |
Check your spelling real good. Example be sure to spell "Ad" with one "d" on your billing. :^)
Won't help for tonight, but good to have around for the future. Here is a link for a book on graphic artist pricing. But you will need to adjust prices for your local market. Graphic Artists Guild Handbook
In general out on the west coast graphic artists (production artists) don't make as much as a pro photographer or designer, so don't get too distracted. Aim for the better paying work. Graphic artist is a glamour job, sounds good, lots of fun, pay not that great. |
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07/23/2005 12:35:18 PM · #7 |
Originally posted by fulgent:
Aim for the better paying work. Graphic artist is a glamour job, sounds good, lots of fun, pay not that great. |
That's for sure. I finally got my first big contract, but it took me 2 years of doing $35 business card designs to "fall into it".
In San Diego, I try to charge $60 an hour, and generally get it. For larger jobs, I charge a flat rate (current job is going to run the client about $5000), but I even base that off an estimated time-of-completion. |
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07/23/2005 03:59:16 PM · #8 |
allright, I think that sounds good. thanks guys. Yes I know I can't spell but thats ok I'm an artist right? ha ha just joking. I think that due to my lack of education I will end up charging around $10 or $15. The problem is she wants to know price per add. she wants a quote for a quater page, half page, and full page add. I don't know, but thankyou all for being so helpful.
p.s. Robt, is there anything you haven't done? you are an amazing person.
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07/23/2005 04:13:12 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by gi_joe05:
allright, I think that sounds good. thanks guys. Yes I know I can't spell but thats ok I'm an artist right? ha ha just joking. I think that due to my lack of education I will end up charging around $10 or $15. The problem is she wants to know price per add. she wants a quote for a quater page, half page, and full page add. I don't know, but thankyou all for being so helpful.
p.s. Robt, is there anything you haven't done? you are an amazing person. |
I kinda backed into graphic design while I was cheffing, because I started doing newsletters for the restaurant and the printer liked them and referred work to me. So when I stopped cheffing I started doing graphic design as my primary source of income. I'd already retired from photography (commercial anyway) before I started cheffing. Graphic design/typesetting was the last kind of work I was doing before I moved out east to work for a software company a year before the dot-com crash; I did their internal education and edited a couple books for them too. When they downsized me I moved to Cape Cod and resigned myself to blissful penury in a lovely place.
Anyway, as far as pricing these ads, it of course depends on the complexity of the design involved. If they are simple text ads with perhaps a picture or drawing incorporated, and camera-ready art is provided for you to scan in and place in the design, and if you are working basically from a couple of templates of effective ads for whatever medium this is, you can probably produce an ad in 15-20 minutes when you get up to speed. And the time factor is interestingly inverted; in my experience, the bigger ads are easier to design and lay out, while the small ones can be maddening. It's hard to pack information into a small space effectively.
Tell the lady upfront that you're gonna assume for pricing purposes that the ads will take, say, 20, 30, and 45 minutes (small to large) and you will charge based on 20 dollars an hour, say, whatever that works out to, BUT... you reserve the right to come back and renegotiate in a few weeks when you have a better handle on what's involved. Tell her if it turns out you can do them faster you willlet her know and price accordingly, if they take longer you may need to adjust upwards.
Suppose you spent 8 hours a day at this; at 20 bucks an hour that's 160 dollars a day. Not even including your administration, filing, and delivery time. So say your ceiling, at 20 bucks anhour, is 6 hours of paid work a day, for 120 bucks a day. In a 5-day work week that's 600 dollars a week, or roughly 2600 dollars, before taxes, in an average month. These days, that's barely a living wage in California.
So don't sell yourself cheaply in the long term, though it's okay to discount your services as you get your feet wet.
Robt.
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