market research
Liorah (361 pencils) | Mon, 2011-10-10 21:46Hi everyone - I know y'all get mildly annoyed when us newbies post pricing questions, but there's no helping it - asking for your input seems kinder than contacting random designers and posing as a potential client.
Here's the situation: I am being hired by an NPO to design a magazine, and am donating a respectable portion of my fee back to the organization (which I am closely connected with).
HOWEVER, I've never designed anything on this large of a scale before, so I don't know what to submit as 'standard' pricing in order to get the tax receipt, etc. SO, roughly what would you quote for the following project:
- 100 - 125 pg magazine
- appx 20 articles, the rest pre-designed ads
- It's mostly a layout job: cover art and all article-related images being provided by another designer.
- page style and general setup design should be 'modern and muted' aka nothing too elaborate or dramatic
- you like said client and they are easy to work with
- deadline is 4 weeks.
I just know I'm going to make an unrealistically low estimate, simply because I've never done this large of a project before (and I always underestimate). Thanks in advance for the input!
From success to failure is one step. From failure to success is a long road.
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Well, how much time do you feel you'll be spending on it? Start with that. Do you have an hourly rate you personally know? Are you comfortable using that to calculate the cost for this job? Are you including a certain % of time dedicated to errors/ trouble shooting? Even if you finish, you should still be charging for this (I feel). It helps you make money while still keeping things cheap on an hourly rate.
I wouldn't feel terrible about charging a respectable amount of money given that you've said you'd like to reinvest some of your profits into their cause.
Overall, if about 20% of the magazine is articles, then you're looking at very little other than the placement and flow of your documents. As long as they're pre-proofed and the images supplied are ready to rock, it shouldn't be that much of an issue (hah, magazine, issue, get it? ugh). You may want to look at breaking the pricing down to the amount of grids/ custom pages you'll be creating for all of the content to snap-to, it might help you determine the worth and amount of work you'd like to under-take for it. I'd go with 7-15 different page layouts (throughout the entire issue) if it's a conservative magazine with nothing fancy.
The copyfitting on a job like this, with so many ads, could be challenging. I would like to know if the copy will be fully proofed, or if they are expecting you to clean as you go. And how about the ads? Will they all be professionally and properly done? Do you trust the other designer to do it right? Have you discussed what paper they'll be using for the magazine and is that other designer knowledgeable enough to saturate, or desaturate, her colors accordingly, use uniform resolutions on photos, etc., or will you have to go into every ad, the cover, etc. and make adjustments?
I would charge at least $1,500 for this. Then, if I wanted to turn around a donate most of that back, cool. Please be aware that donated service is not typically tax deductible, so I would resist billing this with a "discount" taken off the bottom line.
Mara
Thanks Guys :)
Mara - That was approximately what I expected, but wanted to make sure I wasn't underquoting. The agreement is that I will bill them for the full amount, and separately log a donation with them, so at least that aspect of it is straightforward. As far as the rest goes... I don't know much about the other designer, so I'm going to start there, before I decide how much work I'm looking at.
From success to failure is one step. From failure to success is a long road.
I would charge a lot more than that. A project like you described almost certainly isn't going to give you nice, formatted ads from a knowledgeable designer. Instead, you'll have 100 local small businesses, half of which are using Word or Powerpoint to lay out their art, and who you might be expected to have to individually contact if there's an issue. There can be as much or more project management time as there is layout time.
You're writing off much of your bill as a donation, so charge whatever high hourly rate you want and use it as a deduction. You can't quote an exact figure until you see the material you have to work with.
As much as I'm hoping that isn't what our Liorah is getting herself into, I have to admit you reflect reality. I've done lots of this kind of thing and you're right: the ads are usually a mixture of awful and worse-than-awful. That's why I added the caveat that if Liorah is faced with that, her fee should reflect the remedial work she'll feel compelled to do. Either that, or her contract should include a disclaimer that she's not responsible for the print quality of anything not submitted directly from the client through HER hands. Often, the layout designer gets blamed for crap imports that she either can't, or isn't being paid to, fix.
Mara
Well that is the ONLY beneficial thing about being the "secondary" designer on the project (the "primary" one, aka the owners son, doesn't know ID well enough) is that those issues are on him, not me. Unfortunately, that means have even less control over the quality - but at least it's also blame-free.
The more I think about it, the more I feel obligated to push them to agreeing to an hourly rate from the onset of the project (as opposed to a quote, with a stipulation to get paid more if the work is more than expected).
Thanks for the healthy dose of reality, as always, guys. :)
From success to failure is one step. From failure to success is a long road.
I just found out that the 2011 Pantone color of the year is Honeysuckle.
heh heh hehe hehehehe. I don't know why, but that is incredibly amusing to me. Although I will say, I'm kind of flattered that you made the connection. heh heh.
From success to failure is one step. From failure to success is a long road.
double post.
On a tangent, why does that happen? The double post thing, I mean.
From success to failure is one step. From failure to success is a long road.
Lag discrepancies from our computers to the server, it sometimes double-pings.
Liorah, get a deposit (maybe $1000) and put yourself on the clock. Don't even TRY to give them a hard quote on this. There are too many variables. If this publication is at square one - you don't even have a design yet - I would not be surprised if you go past the 4 week deadline trying to get the first issue together. If I were you - get a deposit and agree on regular payments.
Good luck.
Good advice.
Mara
Thanks. I know we've both fell into that trap too many times. :-)
It's really a good news/bad news deal imho. Great job to have - but if it's a regular gig, it's going to take a lot of time every month and cut into other projects. That means it has to pay well - especially if Liorah is going to donate back to them. And working with another designer? I refuse to do that anymore - seems like it never works out well.
I numbed myself to part of Liorah's original post because, yeah, me too. Although I've had great success collaborating with other designers (including one I met right here!), I think the difference might be that I selected them for (a) talent; and (b) compatibility. Having one foisted on you is really iffy.
Mara
Quick update and moment of appreciation (b/c I'm proud of myself) :)... I went with the hourly rate situation (despite my fear that it would chase off the client, which it didn't) so thanks for the push in the right direction!
I'll be back to complain when this other guy has me pulling my hair out :)
From success to failure is one step. From failure to success is a long road.
Good move, Liorah. It's real easy to look at a publication and think there's not much to it - but when you don't have anything - not even a page size or column width - there's a lot of ground work involved. This first one will probably be a back breaker - then it will get a little easier. You'll be adjusting the design for a few months - tweaks here and there - and then it will just be a shell dump and ads. But don't be fooled - even at that point 100 pages is a LOT of work. Depending on how much that other designer helps and how many ads you have to build - you still might be looking at two full 40 hour weeks of work for each issue.
Don't worry about the client - if they're involved in any way with the project - they'll see how much work you're doing.
You can only quote a job like this hourly, make sure you log EVERY hour and detail your invoice with a breakdown of what you have done / amendments to supplied artwork / client consultation / proofing and preparation of final artwork. This is going to take you a lot longer than you expect and will probably eat up nearly the whole 4 week deadline you have.
Supplied artwork, especially for local publications can be a nightmare, but for a job like this just rasterise any ad that is giving you grief. They won't notice.
How often is this publication being released?
As ArtD said, this first issue will be a ball breaker, but it will get easier.
Is the charity donation thing a tax dodge I don't know about? :D
living on dreams and custard creams.
Good going, Loriah! Congratulations :)
I'm going to echo what Art said. It's for jobs like this that contracts were invented, or at least a letter of agreement that spells out your arrangement, their obligations, who is the "gatekeeper" on appropriate content submission, and so on.
You might want to try a reasonably priced application I often use for tracking tasks on a project. It's called OfficeTime. You can download a free trial at http://www.officetime.net/ . I had to contact their tech support once, and they were wonderful. If you're as naturally undisciplined as I am, you might find it troublesome to remember to "pause" it when you step away from the job, or to switch clients when you go to something else, and so on (you'll understand what I mean when/if you try it), but it provides good support for your billing. It also reveals to you how productive certain of your tasks are (or aren't). Good tool, in any case.
Mara