PPP: Th€ Pric€ i$ Right

Following our time planning session last week, today we had a session all about pricing our work correctly and how to deal with different types of brief and clients.

Opening Activity:

For four scenarios price how you as a Graphic Designer would charge these design jobs.

1) New Logo for a start up business by a newly graduated student.

• I would charge £70 as it's a start up business as well as the fact that they just graduated they might not have enough finances to support them.

2) Re-design of an indie magazine that's already published 2 issues but not much hype around it. 

• I thought £250 would be a good estimate as it may cover collateral that comes with redesigning the magazine such as posters and advertising, logo etc.

3) Branding for a Leeds festival aimed at students.

• I thought £750 would be roughly correct as a festival will require lots of collateral, however it will also depend how big the festival is and how long I will need to take in order to design everything. 

4) Branding a publication design for the Tetley.

• I thought £200 would be a sufficient amount as I thought it would be a pretty short job and possibly wouldn't require lots of time. 

Bearing these in mind, estimated our needs, essentials and cost for a month in order to calculate whether or not each the money that we charge for these projects can suffice us for a month. 

After calculating all my costs for a month, I found that I roughly needed £150 each month meaning that I probably won't survive if I was to charge projects like I was charging before. 

PROJECT BASED PRICING *charging up front (50% commencement 50% completion)

• client knows where they stand - as long as project specifics are down and agreed, it'll stop client to ask for me each time.
• BUT, because they've already agreed a fee, client's may actually ask for more stuff each time (maybe have a limit to how many amendments client can ask for) 

VALUE BASED PRICING (charging in reflection to the value of the project/client) *licensing 

• Licensing - having a small share each time there's roll out and client comes back for additional designs etc. 
• Assess the business - look at how it stands in order to factor its value and quote the price based on it.
• In an ideal world - we as designers may be able to scale with the business, make a change for the better for the business. Can be an opportunity to educate the client about it, whilst benefiting from developments that clients are experiencing.   

• VALUE over everything
• Asks lots of questions 
• Know your worth!
• Confidence

THE FUTUR - CHRIS DO

Invoices

• Invoicely
• Xero
• Anna
• Quickbooks
• Solna

*FREELANCE work TAX: Self Assessment Tax (gov.uk UTR # Unique tax reference) 

TIP for chasing payments from clients :

"The Accountant" - e.g. account@intern-mag.co.uk RED BOLD TEXT 

Thoughts & Reflection:

I found it eye opening and really helpful to know the kind of strategies and different types of pricing we could charge for our work as I never really quite grasped the idea before because I've never properly sold any of my designs yet. Knowing that putting value over time was really helpful, as it could help me in the future with dealing with clients and strategising if ever I was to do freelance work. It'll also help me understand my place in the industry and how I should place myself, despite being a new designer. It may also help me to be more confident when dealing with clients who may want to take advantage or downplay design work that I do in the future.