Advice for New Designers

photo by: D Sharon Pruitt

One of my fellow classmates asked me for some advice today regarding the business side of design. I've been doing freelance work for about 6 years and so I told her a few things that I've learned along the way. Thought they might come in handy for others too.

What to Charge for a Website

I asked a friend of mine who's been a webdesigner for about 10 years now, though, and he said that a typical 5-page website (xHTML and CSS type of deal) would be anywhere from $600 - $1000, depending on what the client wants. If they want more, it will cost more.

What to Charge for Print
The example my friend and I discussed was for a business card and gift certificate. What I do is charge $50/hour, but when I was just starting as a designer, I charged $25/hour. However, a lot of people want a flat rate, so the best thing to do is figure out how long it took you to design your own personal business card.  Multiply those hours by $25 and you've got your flat rate. Make sure you add a couple of hours to your estimate to allot for changes, because there will be changes for sure. People are picky, as they should be.  

The Client Who Turns it Into a Competition and Wants You to do All the Work and Then He'll Decide if He Likes it or Not and if He Doesn't Like it He's Going With The Other Person He Made to do the Same Thing and You're Not Getting Paid
I tend to stay away from people like that. They have a tendency to want free work, or ridiculously low priced work. They have no concept of the fact that it's your time and effort that they're paying for, not just a finished product. If most designers are like me, and I'm sure they are, a little piece of me goes into every single thing I design. Would you give a little piece of you for a ridiculously low cost or for free?

I also look at it this way... It's the same idea as to why bridal shops don't let you take pictures of the wedding dresses. Some people take a picture of the dress, then go to a seamstress who'll create it from scratch for cheaper based on the photo. That's copyright infringement if you ask me. This dude has the potential to do that with your design. Maybe his cousin's brother's kid knows Photoshop and can reproduce it. But, I do understand that you probably want extra stuff for your portfolio. So, if you decide to go ahead with this guy, here's some advice:

1. Make sure you send him low resolution or screen resolution PDF/jpeg proofs with a watermark across everything, so he can't steal it.

2. If you save it as a PDF directly in Illustrator, it saves all the nice vectorness of it. The PDF can then be opened in Illustrator by someone else later and all the vector elements can be stolen and used. So, make sure you save it as a jpeg first and then create a PDF.

3. Don't bust your butt on the initial design. If he decides yours isn't "the one" then all your time and effort was for nothing. (However you could probably edit it later and put it in your portfolio anyway with his name changed and stuff, of course.) Once he says he's going with yours, you can add the extra special touches.

The way I work is I start off with sketches and roughs. I give the client a handful of rough ideas to choose from, so that they're involved in the process early on and you can avoid the whole thing that I mentioned in the subtitle there. Then I polish up the rough that they chose and present it to them again. We go through a series of changes and tweaks and finally end up with a finished product. That way, early on, you can tell if they're the client for you or if you're the designer for them.

One More Thing

It's best to give the client/potential client a quote. Mine is formatted somewhat like this, only prettier because I'm a designer and this one's from a printing company. 

A quote is a good idea because it makes you look more professional and that you mean business. And it also prevents clients from being all like, "oh, you never said that". This way you can reply, "you have it writing, this is what it costs".

Another good reason for a quote is so that you can deal with the whole making changes issue. Clients tend to get picky, and so they should because you're creating something that's going to represent them. But again, sometimes they forget that this is your time and effort. But in your quote, you can specify that the cost includes x number of changes once the initial design is cemented. Then say any further changes cost $25 each (or whatever you deem fitting). So, in case you end up doing 15 more sets of changes where you end up with an entirely new design altogether, this will help you get the money you deserve for your hard work. It's then in writing and there's no wishy-washy-ness later.

I hope this helps somebody out. :)