Question from a young designer I just got a freelance opportunity to do some book publications for a local business and wanted to see if I could get some insight on how to charge them appropriately. I'm not sure if I should charge then hourly or a flat rate. If you have any suggestions that would be great!

My response

There are a lot of different thoughts about this. For instance, long term you could set up price levels for different sizes of clients: like $10 for desperate pro-bonos, $20 for non-profits and small businesses, $40 for freelance clients and $80 for design agency freelance (typically they would turn around and re-bill your work fro $100-$150 to their clients).

But most of the time I come up with an estimate number and share that with my client. I arrive at that number by guessing the amount of hours it might take and multiplay that by the appropriate hourly rate:

8 hours of work X $10/hr = $80

Thinking in the clients shoes I would raise to $100 per edition if they have plenty of money.

And my word of caution with publications: sometimes there are rounds of copy revisions so I would build that into your initial estimate. With that in mind, you could charge them hourly for the first and second editions, then based upon the amount of time spent and your hourly rate, arrive at a flat fee for all future editions. Your first edition may take longest due to setting up a new template — therefore keep track of time per task and phase of work to accurately capture your labor.

All these rates are purely subjective and you can create your own based upon your perceived worth. Lastly, I've heard a theory that you should come up with a price for your design and if you lose more than 50% of the client requests who come to you then reevaluate your prices lower until hit a sweet spot of staying busy within your market.

I wanted to create a post that shows transparency of my pricing and process, but also to show buyers of art the amount of time, effort and materials that go into a piece, but also to talk with other artists on how they should approach their work. I come from a design background — I would consider design as communication, and this communication is often done by a designer (artist/creative/problem solver, etc) on behalf of a third party (client) to inform an audience of their service/event/product. As an artist, I feel art is more of an expression of an individual, and it is up to that individual to include and/or communicate with (or not to) their audience.

I am a little exhausted of being treated by some as a mystical resource, creativity is naturally bubbling out of a designer or artist, so if it would be coming out anyway why should one pay for it? BUT, I will also say that due to my enthusiasm and creativity, and willingness to help others, I have also allowed myself to be undervalued in the past.


Think of yourself as a business
There are elements of my creative process I love, and there are elements that I do not need to do. Sometimes these obligatory "chores," lets say packaging art by buying crystal clear and backing each piece with board, become a bit monotonous and if I have a carrot like being paid it make the time I spend doing it much less tedious. 1, it makes sure that these obligations do not become a burden and time-consuming money pit that force me to be a starving artist and 2. if I build these costs into my art, then someday I could pay another person a fair wage to do them.

Salaries
The first thing I wanted to target was my ideal salary. Due to some discretion, I will not go into details but it looks something like this: what is our ideal income? This should include money for living, healthcare, saving for retirement, and I always roughly 40-50% will go to taxes (from what I experienced as a freelancer a long time ago). Also factor in vacation time, and also, worse case scenario, less hours per week expected due to slow work or illness. What if you can only work 25-30 hours per week?

Income required / (Hours per week x 48-52 weeks per year) then x 2 to factor taxes

I came up with $75 per hour for design work. This would enable my lifestyle with the amount of hours I would say could be a slow week. Plus, it works out to about half of what a design firm would charge a client per hour of my time.

So, here are the current rates that I charge myself when creating work:
Design for client (ulitising my 20 years of experience to solve problems and help a client communicate to their audience, a.k.a. creating the big idea): $75
Making art/self-expression/creative play (developing artwork and stretching my abilities, but still using my mind/creativity, which should be my #1 resource and should set me apart from others): $35
Techinical Skills (using technical expertise to ensure design/artwork can be produced with the determined medium): $20
Production/Retail/Errands/Chores (anything that I am not an expert at, AND, are jobs and skills I could eventually pay an employee to do): $10 (I am hoping someday minimum wage will be this rate, until then I will day that).


Example In Use
So, here are some numbers for a gig poster that I just created:

CREATION: 7 hours = $245
– Creating design in computer
– Handdrawing a keyline element

SEPARATIONS: 2 hours = $40
– using my technical skills to separate film for screenprinting

PRINTING: 6 hours = $60

BACK END: 2.5 hours = $25
– signing and numbering: .5 hour
– retail: 2 hours
(this does not include selling over longer period of time or packaging each item for retail)

MATERIAL COSTS:
Paper = $25 (bought in bulk to save money)
Ink = $30
Films = $10


Total Costs = $435
I will be using 35 pieces of paper targeting 30 good prints.
Of which, 10 prints will be given to band.

435/20 = $21.75 per poster

BUUUT, let's say I don't sell the whole run. OR I need to sell this in a store where I get only 60% of the final price. I would say our final price should be:

An even $30 for a 4-color print.

Once you do this for yourself a few times, it will become second nature and pricing will be easy. Getting a livable wage from my art adds to my enjoyment and it allows my art to be a sustainable entity that allows me to continue creating without being poor.

I am lucky I can divide these costs by a quantity of posters — now when you see a painting valued $200 - $1000 at the local coffee house you know why!