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DMS · March 29th, 2007

What should be the price range for a design made by a free-lancer with moderate experience for a small printing company to run small ranges (25 to 50 pices per design)

Fluid · March 29th, 2007

If your designing for a print company that will be print stuff like Johns lawn care and so forth your pricing will need to be enough for you to make money yet low enough for the printer to make a little. Essentially its like wholesale goods and your a graphic designer pumpin out art.

For basic spot color work I charge my contract & freelance customers $20 per color which includes film output via Thermal Imagesetter.

I have standard rates that are generalized. Depending on the job at hand they may vary slightly.

Simulated process - $200 up to 6-clrs 7-clr or more Quoted per job
4-color process $250.00
Index $200 - up to 6-clrs

General Designing - $75 per hour

If your designing for a pre print line you need to base the art at a higher rate/ one time fee or add royalties.

My prices are not the cheapest and are not the most expensive. I try to make money and not take my client to the cleaners. A happy customer is a repeat customer.

Cheers

DMS · March 29th, 2007

Thanks Fluid for your help.
Being more specific I was thinking about how much to charge for one request for a design according to a specific Style/briefing where the customer will produce 20 pieces and sell directly to the end-users at average street-price ($19.90 to $24.90).

Fluid · March 29th, 2007

proabbly still in the area I mentioned above.

I offer freelance/conmtract art to other screen prtingin companies throughout the United States and canada. (A couple of times overseas.)

These jjobs range form Johns lawncare to corporate logo recreations and t-shirt layouts. The prices I stated above are my charges.

Note: My charges include film output as well.

You might be able to get more you might not. its a tough market as everyone out there with a computer is an "Artist" and seems to charge next to nothing for t-short art/designing.

If this is the market your getting into, get yourself some clipart packages. makes for easier and faster designing so you can make money at it.

Some of my clients get the clipart designs and the others actually pay the big bucks for the total custom designs - yet these are not as frequent as one would like.
Sample of a simple spot design priced at the $20 per color - Basketball
Sample of a Simulated Process Custom job charged $500 - Truck

tim3560 · March 29th, 2007

So, if I'm understanding you right, you had the clipart in a package and you just added the custom color? And you got $60 total? I'm just making sure I understood you correctly. That's great, where do you get your clipart from?

Fluid · March 29th, 2007

yes your correct. The bball player was the clipart, everything else is mine, layout, patterns, color scheme, etc.

I get my clipart from all over the place.
U.S. Screen Print and Inkjet Technology has some industry specific packages
you can find some at your local computer store. most are cheezy yet the cost is low and youll find some images you can use.
Google clipart as youll get a milllion hits.

Ive been collecting clipart for around 10 years, you'd freak if you saw my collection.

Some higher end clipart can be found www.dgusa.com check out the various image sites. they have vector and raster images. The price is high.

liquidlibrary - refreshing images and ideas ... monthly is one Ive been subscribed since 2000. its real pricy yet tons of high quality images.

essentially a client gives me the idea and I work up a couple layouts to choose from. Mostly just changing colors and font styles. But in essence iIimport some clipart, possibly various elements from many clipart images and combine to make my own custom clipart image, color to the clients specs and add text.

The basketball desing took me 30 min from start to film output. $60 in 30 min isnt that bad.

I usually pump out about 6-10 of these daily not including separations and working on high end art jobs.

tim3560 · March 30th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fluid


	The basketball desing took me 30 min from start to film output. $60 in 30 min isnt that bad. I usually pump out about 6-10 of these daily not including separations and working on high end art jobs.

Wow, that's great! How pricey are the higher end images each? I guess they're worth more to you every time you use one.

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