Quantifying your Design Work and Putting a Price Tag on It
It’s Abstract
In its very essence, design is an abstract concept. Although designers produce tangible work, one cannot point at something and they ‘that is design’ or ‘that object used up this much design’. Being an intangible concept, quantifying design work can be a tricky task, and therefore adding monetary value to it is even trickier.
Such a task has often proven quite difficult for me. Reasons being various. Firstly, I do not have that much experience working as a freelancer. Therefore, the few clients I get I really do not want to push them away and I also want them to pay at the end of the project. Secondly, probably due to lack of practice as a sole trader also, I do not want to overestimate the amount of hours that I would take working on a particular project, hence making the estimated price too high. Whenever I issued an estimate I did put in an extra couple of hours as a cushion in anticipation of a low-productivity day or the project proves more challenging than expected, but I often catch myself exceeding the number of estimated hours because I get carried away. In addition to all this, I would not want to give a really low price. I do not want anyone to think they are getting low quality work. So it is a bit of a vicious circle here.
Setting A System for Yourself
There is a tsunami of articles discussing this topic. So much that is sometimes confusing because one contradicts the other… some say to charge clients by the hour, others say to charge per project. A lot of different opinions and tips. Personally, what I found useful whenever some project falls on my lap, first I look at how many deliverables are there. If it is a one-off logo, I would probably set a fixed price. If it is a branding project that includes logo, stationery, maybe some UI and stuff like that, I would charge by the hour. For the latter I sometimes vary my hourly rate for each deliverable. For instance, a logo design that needs to be design from scratch would take me longer to design than the matching business cards and letterhead.
As part of our resource material, we were given two articles from AIGA’s Professional Practices in Graphic Design about handling clients as well as the process of setting fees. Very insightful articles – no complex wording and simple step-by-step approach. I really enjoyed reading them as these are two articles that give a clear picture on how to go about such a daunting task. Also, I was happy to learn that although I am a novice, I am more or less on the right path. For future projects, I should start taking overheads such as electricity consumption and also any stationery supplies that I might use (even if it is a small amount) into consideration, as ultimately, they are also expenses.
It is Strictly Business
Throughout both articles, the authors iterated multiple times that the relationship between the client and the designer should be strictly professional. This included the nation of having everything recorded in writing, which is something I totally agree on, and try to do it as much as possible, for freelance work as well as at my full-time employment. Some may see it as lack of trust, but I think having everything in writing saves everyone the time of going back to discussion phases as well as not leaving room for loopholes and doubts. As already mentioned, design is abstract and not easily quantified, not having written documents outlining what is what can easily lead to quarrels between client and designer, as well as amongst designers in different departments.
I also find writing handy on a personal level. I find that writing down what I am thinking helps me structure better my thoughts and progress better through different phases of a project. This comes in handy later on during the project as I can refer to my notes should it be a rather long project that may had been put on hold for a while. I also use writing as a form of self-feedback. I write notes continuously next to sketches: what I liked, what needs to be fixed, etc.
My Thoughts
As far as this topic goes, I think that the fundamentals of how to put together an estimation of a project is the same for various projects, and that although some experts in the industry might disagree, all the information has a common denominator. I think that it is good to refer to reliable resources that discuss this topic, as it is one of the most debated ones in the industry. However, in the end I think one should what works best for them. Not everyone has the same clients, not everyone works in the same business, and most definitely not everyone fits in the same template.
