I’m not a graphic designer, but I like this post. You made an important point about this business that folks in advertising can relate to.

Okay, you don’t agree with designers charging upwards to $150/hour for their time. That’s fine. But with that in mind, let me throw this out for some thought.

What if IBM, Sony. Nike, or another large corporate entity came knocking on your door requesting a logo design? Considering the importance branding plays in the marketing of their products and services, would you still consider $150/hour a high amount to charge?

I think a factor to consider before finalizing on a project fee, is usage. The more a client uses your work – local, regional, national, globally — the more it’s worth to them and the price should reflect that usage. This isn’t a new idea, illustrators and photographers have based their fees on this premise for many, many years.

Without going into detail about how to establish an hourly rate – there have too many excellent articles written on this already — it is important for a designer to establish a set hourly fee. This not only imperative from a business perspective so you don’t go broke from under-charging, but it also helps set your own personal standard for what you think your work is worth. Once you’ve determined a base rate, the usage factor should come into play. Now, is $150/hour a fair amount to charge Ma & Pa PetStore, probably not? But I’d have a hard time thinking that designers such as David Carson, Neville Brody, Paul Rand, or George Louis would charge Coca Cola $45/hour to designer their logo.

As for the automatic sites that produce generic logos for $35, I say good for them for two reasons. First, because they’re filling a niche – business start-ups who either don’t have the funds for a great logo design based on strategy, just need “something” to get them started, or simply don’t understand the importance a logo plays in establishing their brand. Either way, it allows them to get a logo – albeit generic – that’s a thousand times better than what they tried to create themselves in some defunct graphics program. Secondly, the beauty of software is that once it’s created, there’s very little further development costs. Which means that their automated logo design software is, more than likely, generating them more than $150/hour.

The point to remember is the $35 logo is focused on a very specific clientele. Many of which, once their business has grown to the point that they actually have a budget to work with, end up contacting a professional to design a ‘real’ logo for their business.

i think some of you are missing the point.

first of all, i realize that this isn’t anything new. and secondly, yeah there are some designers who are worth more than $150/hour. they make up about 0.01% of the design community. i was referring more to the small design shops that charge that amount for local clients.

what i was trying to get at was that the more designers low-ball their services, the less value clients are going to perceive said services. so if the prices continue to get ridiculously low, then so will the perceived value over time.

in the 80′s and 90′s, a large majority of print shops had to close down because they couldn’t afford to stay in business. this was because only a small amount of companies were willing to pay for the prices (companies like nike or sony or ibm). this left a lot of skilled print professionals unemployed and having to find different occupations.

the point i was trying to make was that soon, the same will be for designers. you will still have that small percentage of designers earning $150 or more per hour, working on clients like nike. you always will. but what will happen to the other 99% of designers?

it just seems to me that there is a huge disconnect in the design community. it seems like more designers care more about themselves than they do about the industry. it seems they care more about today than tomorrow.

i don’t know.

but you guys made some excellent points. keep ‘em coming.

There will always be a market for quality.

Smart businesses know what happens when they get branding on the cheap. Template based systems are for those “clients” you don’t want anyways, like those in-laws or church jobs who keep bugging you for a logo.

If i can’t out design mylowlowlogoprices.com I should be doing ceramics or something.

You won’t believe if I tell you many advertising and design agencies in my region (Middle East) even outsource the design of corporate identities. How could a person off-shore design something that expresses a message? I call that cheap and undirected-art.

I was so pissed off at their dirt-cheap prices so wrote this piece to calm myself down.

As a business woman with a new start up, to pay someone upwards of $150 + is out of my financial range. I just got started in business and other needs come before my logo needs. Sure, the IBM’s and Nike’s of the world can afford those prices and I have nothing against them for it, but don’t shoot a hole in our bucket because we can’t. As I said, I just got started…