I've just gotten a job with a local ice cream franchise to create some business cards, promo coupons, flyers, frequent buyer stamp cards and other such promotional stuff. They've asked me to name my rates.

Honestly, I have no idea what I ought to charge. I'm entirely self-taught and have no qualifications or education beyond the secondary level, but I do produce what I feel is quality work.

So for those of you who work in this field: how much would be a reasonable amount to charge for:

--6 unique business card designs
--2 coupon designs
--3 half-page flyer designs
--1 'frequent buyer' stamp card

All of this in full color.

Do you have any examples of your work? Are you efficient? For graphic work, I normally charge on an hourly fee, but if you're slower then a professional you need to adjust the price accordingly. Examples will provide an idea of what quality of work you produce.
Are they providing you with images or will you need to take these yourself?

Here is an example of some of the work I'm submitting to them:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v463/sydney_suff/coneclubcardsampler.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v463/sydney_suff/businesscardsampler.png

I'm definately not as fast or efficient as a pro; it took me two days to do those cards
I'm expecting it to take maybe 4 or 5 days in total to finish the entire project.

I haven't been provided with any images except for small, poor-quality jpegs of the logo and some small characters like that little milkshake guy on the punch card sampler; but if in order to use them I've had to blow them up and re-do them.

Be honest, though, and tell me what you think I could reasonably charge. It's my first job, so I don't expect that I'm doing it magnificently or anything.

Those are fucking brilliant! If the order I placed for you comes out that flawless, I will be flattered!

As you know I will soon have my business running.

The first thing to do is research what you are up against:

http://jobprofiles.monster.com/Conte.../jobzilla_html

You said you did not have any formal training so you already have one mark against you. However this doesn't give them the upper hand. They are no better than you are. You have advantages aswell as disadvantages. You will have to play to your advantages.

Because you know know this information, let's look at what you have that your competitors don't:

1. Drive.

• You obviously have photography and graphic design as a hobby. You probably never have viewed as an occupation.

2. Resourcefulness

• Though they may be able to afford legal copies of photoshop, nicer equipment, and have a large presence, you have a distinct advantage compared to them. You are like a shard of glass, nearly invisible, small, but when touched it cuts.

3. Research and New Ideas

• Because you have never had any formal training, you do not know the "proper way" to do something. You do it your way and you make it work.

4. Flexibility

• Because you are not big, you can adapt much more quickly to changing demands.

The next thing you are attempting to do is figure out what to charge. Well the first step is to figure out what the big guys charge.

A real hasty google search turned up these people.

http://www.ssgraphicdesign.com/

https://www.logoworks.com/client-app...on.do?new=true

http://www.dcfb.com/

http://www.imageworksstudio.com/

http://www.graphicdesignmedia.com/

I'm going to let you request a quote, but let them now exactly what you want, so you can get an idea to charge.

IF you need some more advice just ask.

those designs are pretty good, nice job!

Leper Messiah pretty much said what i would have, and more, but as a side note, i'll add this:

download "How to be a Graphic Designer without Losing your Soul" off this torrent (warning - Adult friend finder ads on the left side).

i found it useful.

That's great work right there. It doesn't matter how much time you spend doing a certain work, what matters more is that they are of good quality and your employer liked them. You have some creativity and talent keep it up!
Regarding the charge, it's good to ask someone who is maybe a pro graphic artist and ask them how much they charge for such work. In the field of digital art, most of the artists charge per hour. I'm not really that knowledgeable on how much graphic artists charge for their work.

I'm not sure how relevant it is for you to know that most designers charge by the hour since you'll be starting out and many projects will be largely learning experiences.

I'm in a similar situation myself, recently started a small design business. I spent the last week on a fairly simple site which could've been made in a day or so, but I used the opportunity to learn to use and modify Joomla.

Keep in mind that if you want to do this kind of work your first few clients will be most valuable to you as portfolio pieces (especially since you have no formal training).

Now to actually try to help you out a bit.
First of all, try to pay yourself an hourly rate. Not necessarily all the time you spent working on it, but a logical amount of time for the actual work, not time spent googling how-tos or anything like that. If it took you 2 days to make the business cards because you were downloading Illustrator for a day and a half... that doesn't count ( : For those business cards, I don't think I'd be likely to bill more than 1 hour per 2 cards maybe... depending on how many they wanted.

Pay yourself an amount you're comfortable with. Are you doing minimum wage work? If you think so, pay yourself that. I wouldn't think it wise to go below at least $10/hr. After that, charge enough that you'll definitely cover your expenses. Did you have to drive somewhere to meet the client? Did you have to drive to/pay for printing somewhere? Charge for it.

Understand that you aren't really in a position to squeeze lots of money from clients as a random stranger with no formal training who's just trying to build a portfolio, but there's no reason to lose money for it.

I'd try not to send anything to them at all that you've done before you've announced prices. Business cards aren't complicated, and they'll be paying for your skills in creativity and tastefulness at least as much as your ability to use illustrator. You don't want them to say, hey, that's a good idea... but that's a little expensive, only to give your mockups to their 12 year old myspace whiz to try to copy.

One of the worst things you can do though, outside of pricing yourself so astronomically that you'll never get calls unless Nike decides to hire you, is to undersell yourself. Take a look at how much other design companies charge.
Google "cheap design" or something and try to find some packages similar to what you're making to see the minimum your client would have to pay elsewhere.

edit: Also, do you have a website showing any design work or anything like that? If not, it's not that expensive to register a domain.

Leper Messiah: Thanks for the links; they've given me a good idea of what other people are charging for similar work, which is helpful. I guess you're right about having advantages about being small-time, but I'm just so anxious to start doing top-tier work, you know? I'll get to work on your logo soon, I promise! I don't want you to pay me though.

the_bamph: Thanks for the torrent link; it hasn't downloaded yet but from the chapter names I can tell it's going to be awesome, and I'll probably read it through several times. Thanks a bunch.

pengd0t: Thank you so much for the long reply! I didn't really take any losses or anything; all the files were digital and we've been communicating through e-mail, so I haven't had to drive or print or anything, so I don't have to worry about charging for expenses. It's too late, though; I've already sent them the samples . I got the job through a very close friend, though, and I trust them and her enough that I'm sure I'll get treated fairly and compensated for my work. I'm going to take your advice, though, and try to scope out the competition, so to speak, and see what I can fairly charge considering my level of experience.




So I guess when I'm finished the whole job I'll try and add up a total of hours spent working, and see how that works out with a $10/h range wage. I'm also going to look around at 'cheap graphics design' kind of websites and see what they're charging for similar packages. I'm just scared I'm going to ask too much or too little .

I appreciate all the input from everyone; it's been really helpful!

good luck, hope you make the right decisions, and let us know how the whole deal turns out

Yeah, just keep in mind that those who are in the position to be paying for design work for their business are looking at it a little different than we might be used to. I'd probably never pay anyone even a couple hundred to make a website or something like that, or much of anything else that didn't actually exist... I'd just learn to do it myself because until you've got yourself fairly well established in life, a couple hundred dollars is a considerable bit of cash for most.

With even a small business though that measures its daily income in the $1000's... or maybe even a real estate or car lot where it might be much more... things are a little different. You're generating more sales for them. That's valuable.

Something you could also do is check out things like average costs for large newspaper ads or radio commercials. These will be the kinds of marketing costs that small businesses are used to paying. Your designs you're creating for them are basically marketing materials they can use forever after a one time fee.