[thelist] Logo Design company graphics

[Mattias Thorslund]

dwain wrote:

> to determine what one should charge for graphic design work you first 
> have to know what is your "cost of doing business" (cob).  you know, 
> all of your overhead expenses (rent, utilities, insurance, equipment, 
> software, etc.) for a month.  then determine how many days a month you 
> want to work as a graphic designer and divide that number into your 
> cob.  that will give you a  base "day rate".  you can then determine 
> what to charge based on the time and effort (research) to come up with 
> a concept and present several (open to interpretation) ideas for a 
> final design.
>
> now comes the fun part.  how will the art be used and where and for 
> how long?  what use rights does the client want to lease for each use 
> (i.e. web, broadcast, print)?  a usual license will allow the client 
> to use the piece in a specified media for a specified time (or issue) 
> once during one year.  the more rights they lease (i.e. one time, 
> north american rights for one year; world rights on the web for one 
> month) costs more.  the examples here are in the hundreds to thousands 
> and even tens of thousands of dollars for usage.  now remember, these 
> rights are in addition to what you will charge them for creating the 
> art work.
>
> all of this must be spelled out in your contract, that is why it would 
> be a good idea to download and read the contract and adjust it to your 
> needs (this time).  btw, before you start work on the logo, get them 
> to sign your contract.  don't forget to have a clause for additions 
> and changes or a complete redesign (especially if they sign off on a 
> design comp).  indemnification is always an issue, so be sure your 
> covered with a clause protecting you from a law suit.
>
> there are more nuances to this, but i don't want to use too much 
> bandwidth.
>
> hope this helps,
> dwain


Errr... I think any customer who hires someone to design a logo for them 
would not consider anything but receiving ALL the rights for the logo.  
I certainly wouldn't want to get back years later once my business has 
expanded overseas and negotiate an expensive expansion of my rights to 
my logo.

And there are companies that charge a fixed price for logo design. The 
one we used basically ended up taking longer and longer time between 
each round of customer feedback. Basically, we were at the top of their 
list at the beginning and the longer we dragged on with requests for 
changes the less a priority we became.

I agree that before doing any work, the contractor should get the 
contract signed.  It could be a base number of hours for a set price, 
and an hourly rate after that, until the customer is satisfied. And 
after it's done, have them sign for that too.

/Mattias

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