Average design cost?

2189 Views 21 Replies 8 Participants Last post by TABOB, Jun 17, 2018

markinnaples

Discussion Starter · Jun 14, 2018

Hello, complete newb here so I apologize for my ignorance. I'm looking at getting some designs and I have a company who wants to charge me $245 for 5 designs. Wasn't sure if this was reasonable or not. My design ideas (they haven't heard them yet) range from simple to moderately intricate. Am I getting wheezed on this deal or no? Thanks for any help you can provide.

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seacookie

· #2 · Jun 14, 2018

if we are talking about platforms, fiverr got you covered for 5 bucks but I heard you get crapy quality there. Crowd sourcing platforms starts like from 100 bucks per design. Upwork can be quite versatile. There is plenty asians there which would be happy to work for peanuts and even for free to get good review... But my 2 cents would be more money more music. It all depends. 245 doesn't sound high to me, but it also depends what are your designs...

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markinnaples

Discussion Starter · #3 · Jun 14, 2018

Thanks seacookie. I've used this company before for a separate clothing line I have with a partner, but I'm trying to build up a few tee lines aside from that with more focused designs and markets. Some of my designs are pretty simple and I could prob do them on Corel but I haven't mastered that yet, and I'd rather have them sooner than later. Thanks again.

NoXid

· #4 · Jun 14, 2018

You couldn't pay me enough to let someone else make my designs. To me, it would be like paying someone to drink my tequila, take my car for a reckless joyful hell ride, and fall in love with my wife.

Reactions: 1

TABOB

· #5 · Jun 15, 2018

$50 per design is reasonable and viable. Remember that this is a week's pay in some countries, and a skillful artist can do it in an hour or two. I've seen it with my own eyes.

I wouldn't go with a company though... I like to deal with the artists directly, and not with some smart-*** middleman.

Ask to be given all the draft work, plus exclusive and transferable copyright.

Reactions: 1

markinnaples

Discussion Starter · #6 · Jun 15, 2018

I understand what you're saying about designing your own, but honestly, I don't have the extra time and/or graphic design program knowledge to do it, not to mention my 7 yo son is only young once so I'd rather spend the time with him and pay a professional who will probably do a better job anyway. Just a personal preference. I do most of the ideas on paper and then have a professional create them digitally, although I may give this company a little more free reign to see what they come up with and see where that goes. Truly appreciate all of you opinions and I value them all. Hope you're all selling a million tees! A friend sold some 100,000 tees over about a year period and is now loaded, so I'm going off his lead, lol, wish me luck.

TABOB

· #7 · Jun 15, 2018

You are doing the right thing.
You cannot do everything yourself.
Just make sure you own the copyright exclusively, and your design is not sold on to others.

It's not going to be an easy road though... most people do give up after a while. So be prepared.

markinnaples

Discussion Starter · #8 · Jun 15, 2018

Thanks Tabob. I appreciate the honesty. Takes time and effort and I am ready to do that!

NoXid

· #9 · Jun 15, 2018

markinnaples said:
...A friend sold some 100,000 tees over about a year period and is now loaded, so I'm going off his lead, lol, wish me luck.

Without divulging any big "secrets," how did he accomplish that? Was he wholesaling, retailing online, doing Merch By Amazon, chasing some timely trend(s), going hard and deep on building a social media following relevant to a particular niche(s)? What is this person's background, marketing maybe?

Obviously there is more to success than anyone thing, but curious to hear about your friend's general approach.

An aside. Some of you may be familiar with Snorg, one of the larger online T-shirt sites. During his early days, the founder of that company was a member on here. I found it interesting to read posts from when he was first getting started (sorry, I don't remember his username). He had a background in marketing. I believe lack of such knowledge/experience/talent is the largest (of many) weak points that typical people looking to start a business suffer from.

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markinnaples

Discussion Starter · #10 · Jun 15, 2018

NoXid, my friend always had a knack for different ways of making money on the side as he is a pastor of a small church. He really got into FB marketing by building up and marketing very specific niches, and with all of his success doing tees, he branched out into social media marketing in general and now works with a lot of the big names online. He's an aberration to be sure, but I'd be happy with a fraction of his success. Generally, however, his main focus was marketing on FB and he has grown to be a well-known expert and speaker at some of the larger online marketing events.
Another friend's wife started her small clothes company for children on FB and has been fairly successful as well, however, she has over a dozen seamstresses who she works with and makes designs to order. A much tougher gig and I don't think she makes NEARLY the money my friend makes, but she has developed a significant FB following and usually sells a few hundred outfits within hours of posting them online. Two pretty good examples of what is possible.

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TABOB

· #11 · Jun 15, 2018

NoXid said:
Without divulging any big "secrets," how did he accomplish that?

1. Definitely he did not do everything by himself.
2. He has not revealed his secrets to his friend, otherwise his friend wouldn't be here asking us for advice.

snorg is a good looking site, based on Magento (open source shopping cart, but it is not as popular as you think, and I doubt it sells 100,000 shirts per year. It is receiving around 4,000 orders per month, but are any of them more than one shirt? I doubt it.

How does he do it? He is paying for advertising, and that's all there is to it. I could even tell you which advertisers he is paying, and how much.

If the guy is reading this, he'd probably be baffled how I know so much ...LOL!

Anyway, what he is doing is very easy to replicate by somebody with the necessary technical knowledge, like myself.

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NoXid

· #12 · Jun 15, 2018

markinnaples said:
NoXid, my friend always had a knack for different ways of making money on the side as he is a pastor of a small church. He really got into FB marketing by building up and marketing very specific niches, and with all of his success doing tees, he branched out into social media marketing in general and now works with a lot of the big names online. He's an aberration to be sure, but I'd be happy with a fraction of his success. Generally, however, his main focus was marketing on FB and he has grown to be a well-known expert and speaker at some of the larger online marketing events.
Another friend's wife started her small clothes company for children on FB and has been fairly successful as well, however, she has over a dozen seamstresses who she works with and makes designs to order. A much tougher gig and I don't think she makes NEARLY the money my friend makes, but she has developed a significant FB following and usually sells a few hundred outfits within hours of posting them online. Two pretty good examples of what is possible.

Sounds like he's got that salesman persona thing going for him. Can't do that myself, actually I generally despise salesly people. It mostly comes across as bull**** to me, and I don't want to be on either end of it. But that's me. Guess I'm not cut out for T-Shirt Riches (TM)

Regardless, thank you for elaborating a bit on your friend's success. Note the above was not intended to knock you friend, it's just not a path I am equipped to take--though it is the path I expected to see, and I asked on the off chance the answer would be different.

NoXid

· #13 · Jun 15, 2018

TABOB said:
...snorg is a good looking site, based on Magento (open source shopping cart, but it is not as popular as you think, and I doubt it sells 100,000 shirts per year. It is receiving around 4,000 orders per month, but are any of them more than one shirt? I doubt it...

Apologies, I misremembered. It was actually the guy from RoadKill (username: roadkilltshirts) that I was thinking of.

These post quotes are from 2007:

Having an advertising background we usually comp against last years sales but being so new last year it isn't comparable.

We spend a bunch of $$$'s on adwords and overture.

Start with Ebay...don't quit. On Ebay you load up your store with hundreds of designs for cheap. They do a couple of key shirts. We started that way and we are now one of the BIGGEST sites on the web!

About 3 years ago we started without a clue. All I knew is that I liked wearing t-shirts...I wore them FOREVER......I wore t-shirts everywhere....It is a BUSINESS and not easy. Lots of work, just like any business. We started on Ebay. You can open a store and put designs in there for something like 5 cents a month. I dont' remember the exact figure, but it is cheap. The key is getting people to the store. Lots of people pay 30 cent to advertising amoungst 100,000 other tees...get them to the store. Buy a feature banner and post your best shirts at different hours, get them to the store. Also, as a tag for your shirt put 100's of shirts inside, click here. People don't want to scroll....That is how we started...now ranked 10th for funny t-shirts and 22 for t-shirts. Over 1400 designs

At this point I don't know, but back then they were keeping a stock of Plastisol transfers and pressing them to a specific style/color/gender of garment as each order came in.

As to Snorg and multi-item orders ... they have gotten some from me

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dcbevins

· #14 · Jun 16, 2018

I just want to let you know fivver isn't always, (rarely,) just five dollars. They will have a basic "gig" for five dollars, but often add on additional gigs for high resolution, vector files, or other things. Think of it as twenty fivver. I won't even get into the hate fivver generates in the design industry. You can find good people there, but it is a dozen needles in a haystack. Beware using art from there if you are even slightly in doubt they just copied it from some place else.

As to making your own art, tshirt makers are more manufacturers than designers. Many are part of a thsirt, sign, vehicle and specialty printing operation. The design is part of the final sale. So they do it themselves as just one step in making the sale. It is rough on the bottom line to pay a designer when your margins for selling the end product are already tight.

The hunt for a designer is like the hunt for anyone with skills. You just have to keep at it to you find a fit.

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historygear

· #15 · Jun 16, 2018

markinnaples said:
Hello, complete newb here so I apologize for my ignorance. I'm looking at getting some designs and I have a company who wants to charge me $245 for 5 designs. Wasn't sure if this was reasonable or not. My design ideas (they haven't heard them yet) range from simple to moderately intricate. Am I getting wheezed on this deal or no? Thanks for any help you can provide.

As a designer for over 20 years. You get what you pay for. I cut corners recently and used a web delevoper in Asia via Up Work - he was 70% cheaper than US. Nightmare, took twice as long, was calling me in the early hours, override critical files... Plumbers often get more respect than designers - in the US a plumber is 100 bucks an hour in the greater NY area. A designer quotes that and it's hysteria.

2 cents - Make sure you designer gets you - and vice a versa, take the time to write a creative brief or describe in a face to face your vision and objectives - look at 4 sample designs from the designers portfolio and if your impressed go with your gut - if not keep searching until you find a match. Best of Luck!

markinnaples

Discussion Starter · #16 · Jun 16, 2018

Again, thanks for the solid designer info. I'll keep that in mind regarding a relationship we can communicate clearly back and forth.

Just to clear the air regarding my friend, he's the furthest thing from a slimy salesman, he just figured out FB advertising. Obviously, he spent a lot, A LOT of money on FB advertising but he made it work. Now, he employs about 6-8 people who work with him promoting websites and such, but in the beginning it was just him and his PC/phone and he made it work out of sheer will. I admire him a lot for that. He did give me some tips for my other clothing line and we used his designer from Upwork, but I was curious what other tee sellers used which is why I asked here. Anyway, I'm pretty hard headed and proud, so I usually try to do research myself instead of asking people, but I truly do appreciate everyone here's input, thanks again.

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NoXid

· #17 · Jun 16, 2018

markinnaples said:
Again, thanks for the solid designer info. I'll keep that in mind regarding a relationship we can communicate clearly back and forth.

Just to clear the air regarding my friend, he's the furthest thing from a slimy salesman, he just figured out FB advertising. Obviously, he spent a lot, A LOT of money on FB advertising but he made it work. Now, he employs about 6-8 people who work with him promoting websites and such, but in the beginning it was just him and his PC/phone and he made it work out of sheer will. I admire him a lot for that. He did give me some tips for my other clothing line and we used his designer from Upwork, but I was curious what other tee sellers used which is why I asked here. Anyway, I'm pretty hard headed and proud, so I usually try to do research myself instead of asking people, but I truly do appreciate everyone here's input, thanks again.

Again, no offense or judgement was intended. Hell, my dad has sold everything from used cars, new cars, RVs, real estate ... and he is even out of prison at the moment, so

FB ... My timid forrays with that may well not have been large enough to train the tracking pixel to the point that you get better results. It is something I intended to investigate again, but now my best sellers are all things I can't advertise via FB.

Best wishes with your endeavor. And come on back and school me in proper FB usage once you've got it all sorted out. Enjoy

webtrekker

· #18 · Jun 16, 2018

markinnaples said:
Hello, complete newb here so I apologize for my ignorance. I'm looking at getting some designs and I have a company who wants to charge me $245 for 5 designs. Wasn't sure if this was reasonable or not. My design ideas (they haven't heard them yet) range from simple to moderately intricate. Am I getting wheezed on this deal or no? Thanks for any help you can provide.

Hi. Can I just ask - is it YOU who's actually making these t-shirts, or are you outsourcing your designs to have them printed elsewhere?

Steve Mosier

· #19 · Jun 16, 2018

Depending on the complexity of the design, a good piece of artwork can take several hours to create. I think you need to determine if the art is consistent with the standard you want to achieve in your line and base the value of the art on your potential return on the investment in the art. BTW 5 for $245 doesn't sound high, but it depends on what you are getting. Best of luck!

markinnaples

Discussion Starter · #20 · Jun 16, 2018

NoXid, where do you sell most of your shirts now, if you feel free to divulge (if not, completely cool as I totally understand). I plan on selling my shirts primarily on FB of which I still have a TON to learn. I've built up a few pages that are niche/special interest pages so I'm hoping those translate into sales.

Regarding my graphic designs, I have several ideas in mind as to what I want and will sketch them out myself, but I am also going to give them some general ideas, very general ideas, and see what they come up with. For ones that only have verbiage, I want it stylized so again, I'll provide basic design ideas but also give them free-willy to see what they come up with.

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