Design prices

Hey,
I'm just starting out on my own doing freelance graphic design, and i was wondering what are the average prices people are charging. and do you charge per piece or by hour?

thanks in advance!

 

I've seen a really good designer do WordPress designs for $200, some other people do $100 or less. It depends on the quality of the designer really.

 

I am just starting out too. I wasn't quite sure what to charge either. At the moment I am charging $25-30 per hour plus any printing and travel. So far so good...!

 

Don't they usually have entire classes on this sort of thing at the design school where you studied your trade?

 

One should not benchmark rates on creativity....After all, rates are decided by the experience and level of skill.

If you are just starting out, do some free work initially..and let your work demand its fair price...There is a danger of starting at low rates, for it becomes difficult to scale up afterwards.

Regards,

RightMan

 

It really depends on the quality of the designer. Some are doing designs for 25$ only where somebody are charging around 150$ for a nice clean design.

I am charging 75$-150$(depends on what kind of design it is) for a nice clean professional design.

 

I'm not speaking for any other trade here other than Graphic design, because that's the only one I've studied.

Graphic design is 95% concept and creative problem solving, and 5% execution and deliverables.

Any old fool with a small amount of technical skills can make a logo or a design if you tell them what to make - you hire and pay a graphic designer to find the *right* solution.

For any design problem there are endless bad solutions, a bunch of good solutions, and only a few really good solutions. You pay the designer what you pay them to increase your chances of them developing the really good solutions.

I full-heartedly believe you don't need formal training to do graphic design, but I will say, you need a LOT of experience and to be reading a LOT about typography and layout, and illustration, and colour in order to be decent without the proper training. What totally devalues the industry are people who know how to use 1 software application like photoshop who then claim they are designers and charge money.

Think of it this way - you're building a house, and the real, trained carpenter was put out of business by a bunch of kids who claim they are carpenters because they can use a hammer., and charge just as much as a carpenter.

I'm sorry, in the past few years I have developed such a sensitivity to Typography that even some of the other people I went to school with don't have. I can't imagine not being sensitive enough to see these mistakes, but they're blind to them. Imagine how much more blind a totally untrained eye would be!

Is a weak conceptual brain, and untrained eyes without the sensitivity to see mistakes, and without the experience or knowledge to deliver proper professional deliverables really worth any money to you at all?

 

What sort of things do you read?

What reputable blogs/websites are there? A lot I have found aren't very good and my graphics are better than theres which doesn't really help me.

 

what sort of things do I read?

Smashingmagazine, typophile, ilovetypography, designfloat, designporn, colourlovers would be a great start.

Honestly, there are a million great blogs out there. And keep brushed up on your skills with sites like psdtuts, vectortuts, nettuts on the technical side.

Most designers keep blogs on their sites too, so there is certainly NO shortage of design-related content online. Far more than you would find on....carpentry (and there are more carpenters than designers) so you're lucky that their industry involved the internet. Should be relatively easy to turn up some great stuff.

 

pay for $40 per item design,

 

hi
nice design.
pay for $100 per item design.

 

hey kerosene...

who said that you are cheap ??

I think these are the industries good price.

 

@Kerosene: with clients like that I really hope they cover the tab when they take you out for a quick lunch ;-)