Whats the going rate per graphic design?

[KKoher]

Hey...so we're going to be having someone put together some graphic designs for us, but we're not sure what to expect pice wise. He's only sold his stuff a few times before, and we've never had anyone design stuff for us. We are looking for an average price per design, or per hour...just so we don't under pay him, or get over charged. If anyone out there knows what they typical or average is per graphic design please let me know.

[stand856]

Did you see his samples, also I think there are a few graphic designers here that might help.

[bzboy]

It will literally all depends. Depends on how many details you want. If you want just a simple logo design, expect to pay around $50 on average for a basic logo. Also usually whoever is going it will give you a couple rough drafts, you pick one you like, and then they make changes form there.

[KKoher]

Yeah..He's got some great work..So we're not worried about quality, we know its good.

[KKoher]

Most of it is very detailed, tattoo insipred work. We own a punk rock clothing store, and the Miami Ink style is very popular right now. He has already started drawing up stuff for us, we just got our first sketches in today. Hes not charging us for his time sketching up designs, we will just be paying for the designs we choose to use, and print on shirts.

[dfveteran]

Custom work is always expensive. So if he is doing something custom, pay him more and charge more for the project.

If he is doing general template stuff the cost would be signifigantly lower. Somone said earlier 50 bucks, that sounds right.

[Creadiv]

It completely depends on the designer and what factors of production he has to take into account.

Say you are working with me. I design at a rate of about $25.00 an hour. This covers my expenses, my time, and my design. I have very few expense because I do it by myself on my home computer and only do it part time. But somebody who is doing design as their primary income and who is running a business has to factor in, his cost of hardware, software, communications devices, printing devices, ink, paper, advertising, hosting, internet connections, and their time along with any other expenses involved in running their business. You can expect them to charge upwards of 50 to $100 an hour.

You might think that is outrageous, but say a designer working for a company gets paid 30.00 an hour. He has no expenses. The company paid for his computer, they paid for his design software, his printer, his paper, his ink, his pencils, his rulers. Everything. He has very view expenses so the justification to work for $30.00 an hour is there for him. While the guy you are dealing with doesn't have somebody supplying all of that stuff and has to factor those costs into his designs.

If you are worried about the cost of it, give him a project and have him break his estimate down and explain it to you. I did it just the other day for a client.

Web design estimated time 5 hours @ 25.00
Web developement estimated 10 hours @ 25.00
Wordpress install, script installation, and file upload estimated 1 hour @ 25.00

I expect to pocket about $18.00 out of each $25.00 with $7.00 representing the cost of my expenses and taxes to be paid. I can justify bringing home $18.00 and hour because it is comparable to about a $37,500 a year salary if you are working full time. However for somebody who is running their own business this may not suite their salary requirements and their expense may be higher so the have to charge $35.00 an hour to bump their take home up to $20.00 an hour and to cover any more expense that they may have.

[KKoher]

Thanks for all the help....He does this on the side, so its not his main source of income....and I'm not sure what the term graphic designer includes...but he actually free hands everything. All his sketches, and finals are by hand. Not to say that they aren't crisp or clean, b/c they are. We've only seen his sketches so far..and they're almost perfect. I can't wait to see that his finals look like. I'll let you know when we get to that point....but if anyone is looking for unfound talent, who can draw you out an idea in seconds..and have finals for you overnight, let me know...I don't mind sharing...He's going to do real well if he can market himself correctly.

[Creadiv]

I understand he draws everything by hand, but you can't print a hand drawing onto a tshirt. At some point that drawing will have to be created in an electronic form. Whether he does that or not is they key. Because when his sketch gets traced into a vector drawing program you may lose some of the original design and you may want him to be the guy to fix it, not just anybody working at a print shop.

[ltressel]

Creadiv has done a great job covering the artistic concept and technical stuff.

One thing I'd just want to add here is Shop rights. Please see below.

5. SOURCE IDENTIFIERS

Rights in trademarks, service marks, trade names and trade dress stem from the use of such in commerce. Thus, the ownership will be in the employer. Creation of the fanciful word or logo will not instill the employee with rights in the trademark. However, in appropriate circumstances an ownership question may arise under another theory, such as copyright. This could occur, for example, in the case of a logo designed by an independent contractor. Any trademark rights arising from use of the logo would be in the employer, but there may also be copyright in the design, which would remain with the contractor. Consequently, such situations require resolution by contract.

An interesting situation arises from the use of an employee's name as a trademark (e.g., Gallo wine). However, the same rules apply, and the employer is the owner of the mark. While the employee may thereafter wish to leave and argue entitlement to use his own name, courts are willing to either deny this request or impose restrictions to avoid any potential confusion.

Here's the link for the whole thing: Intellectual Property Overview Section C


Might be a stretch....Just never hurts to be thorough. Who knows you guys might get really big and your designer might get greedy.

Good luck guys.


LT

[KKoher]

We really havn't gone far into all the stages and steps of the whole process...I'm sure you can tell we are pretty new to this all. We don't know all the copyright laws, but have just started looking into them. Our original plan (and please tell me if there is something I am wrong about or missing) was to purchase his art at a flat fee, which would be for his time, and the right to the artwork. We are going to be screen printing them ourselves (this is where you see how small of a business we are, please feel free to laugh at my expense...but like I said previously, we are a small business...not alot of funds, and we will do anything we neccessary to make it). We've purchased a kit from EZScreenprinting.com (let me know if you've tried them yet), basically the chemicals are already in the screen...and you use daylight and tap water to create the screen. We've used it already, and it works fine. The screens are reusable, and only about $8 ea. It does work with hand drawings as long as they are drawn with an opaque pen. We've only tried it a few times...so I can't say it works perfect 100% of the time...and I know were more than likely going to run into problems and errors down the road...But for now, thats the plan so far. We've looked into having someone screen print them for us, and the price is just too high. So we found a new plan (previously stated)....Hopefully in the near future, we will just be selling too many to be able to screen print them all, and then will have the funds to hire out...I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens...