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Just curious, how do you do it if you run the business by are not an artist? What is your normal cost you are spending on a design? Are you using a freelance artist or a company?
Home based shops - how do you outsource your art?
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I have practiced with Illustrator enough that I can recreate most designs, so if the customer just wants some new shirts then I spend $0. For the stuff that requires "artistic" talent I worked a deal with my local art teacher. Most designs are basic and I pay her $25 each. So my suggestion would be to talk to your art teacher/students.
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or look in the yellow pages for graphic artist, hopefully one that is reasonably close to you if it's important for face-to-face sit downs. rates can vary, depending on where you live. for instance where i live it would be more expensive than a person living in nebraska. some artists go by a flat fee some charge by the hour.
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78 Posts
never thought of craigslist.... have used guru.com with good results.
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I am good at doing somethings myself but in certain cases I hire a graphic designer. I just used Fiverr.com Graphic related tasks people are willing to do for $5 for a logo redesign. The design came out great and at $5 you can't beat it. I forget who mentioned this site on this forum but they have plenty of people willing to do just about anything for $5.
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When we started we used various different sources until we finally found 2 subcontractors... bottom line one paper make sure they are not to work for another screen printer in your region... also make sure you charge your customer for the design of the art and make sure you pay the artist for the art so that the customer owns his/her own art work. playing three way the wrong way in this area can cost you long term business. use an outside vectorization service not your artist to vectorize customer art work... its cheaper and you wont bore your artsist to death... keep them fed and make sure they know whose boss and everything should work out fine. Have paper in place to protect your clients 0 usually a 1 year no touch rule.
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wow. that was one of the best posts i've read on this forum in a long time. good job AKBDL!
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Go to Odesk.com it's a very popular freelance project, so you can find a very good designer from over see like India, or Asia or Philippines,Ucraine, Rusia etc countries where the salary is not so big as in Europe and USA, this guys are very good an affordable. Yeas and check their portfolio before 
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103 Posts
A lot of shops now are sub contracting out their artwork. Even larger shops sub stuff out now-a-days since the economy is bad, there are more artists that are working freelance. That is also a bad thing as there are more artists that dont know what they are doing out there as well, so finding a good one is tough.
However, when you find one they are great to work with. You get to write off the expense from your taxes and you can upcharge our services to your client and make a little money. You don't pay any payroll, unemployment insurance, no sick time, no vacation, no health insurance. It makes your life a ton easier as a shop.
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103 Posts
I dispise this site, Odesk and 99 designs with all my passion. As an artist myself, separations are an art form, and not just any artist can do. I have seen brilliant artists that can't separate a plastic bag off their heads. If someone is offering to do it at $5 period... then run away fast.
2 things can really happen here with a cheap artist.... It wont look good..... they leave you high and dry on a big project with no backup. Both are horrible for any shop out there. My company does cost effective separations, but $5 is just horrendous and you should smell scam all the way.
The fact that you got a logo redesigned there for $5 really scares me. While it may look OK, does it hit the target market? Does the designer even know what a target market is? Does it work well in both multi color and a single color? Is it just clip art thrown together or an original concept? Is it copyrighted by the designer and do you have to pay royalties? Is it in vector? Does the logo in any way match a competitor and is it unclear on your brand? Does it fit your current branding style? There are a billion other questions that need to be asked for a logo design that someone doing it for $5 will never ask.... they throw clip art together and you get a mediocre logo that is like every other logo out there. You will end up spending a ton more money to fix it and on remarketing your business all because of a $5 logo that wasn't original.
The biggest way I can get this across to people is what we all do for a living. Imagine a customer coming up to you and saying "But someone said they would print me 1000 shirts for $.10 a piece, cant you beat that?".
Quality over price every time!
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988 Posts
Dude please!!!! If you don't want to do logos for $5 then don't! But how crass can one be to assume that anyone that will is not an artist. You have people on this board all the time asking for help with their artwork and someone will do it for them real quick for FREE!
I gave the guy my current logo and asked him to expand on it. Tweak it if you will. He gave me back 4 possible designs all based on my original for $5. Whether it reaches my target audience is my problem. The original design is mine, so no it does not fall into any of the categories you mentioned above.
And why does it have to be a scam??? Just like there are people that will screen print a 1 color white tee for $2.99, I guess they are scammy too? That does not make them less of a screen printer, that just means they will do a job for less than you will.
If you don't like it then that's fine because its your prerogative, but unless you have used this service how do you no the work is mediocre? how do you no these questions are not asked? I sure communicated with the guy several times before I gave him my $5. I knew what I was getting and if he only did something that made me look at my original design from a new perspective it was worth the $5 to me.
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51,818 Posts
You can also find and hire several graphic designers right here on this forum by posting in our Referrals and Recommendations section
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103 Posts
That is perfectly fine to not do logos for $5 and I choose not to do that. However, I do need to explain what you get and don't get for that $5. I help people out all the time that want free advice and support. I will however not do a $500+ job for $5... thats just silly.
Again, you are completely correct here. What you pay for a service is completely up to you, yet again, I do feel that I need to explain on what a normal rate is and what someone should get. If someone chooses to pay less for that service then it is up to them
You are right. I did not mean to imply that every person that offers a cheap service is a scam or bad service. I do mean to say that people should be careful about severely underpaying for a service, especially if they don't know all the facts and what they need to be getting.
You were able to understand what you were getting, but how many other businesses get a $5 logo from some place and go on with their business only to get sued later on? There is a reason that an artist is doing something soooo cheap and it usually means they are doing less work.... less work mean less originality and that means confusion on the backend or a possible lawsuit for copyright infringement.
A lot of shops have come to us and said that their freelance artist (cheap college student usually) left them high and dry 1 day. For a shop, you can't afford to be without an artist for a day. So basically what I am saying is that you get what you pay for and people should be informed.
I am certainly not touting my services over anyone elses and in no way is my argument trying to get work. I just hate people getting bad service from an artist... it makes us all look horrible.
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YOU KNOW WHAT I'D DO FOR $5? SNEEZE. YEP. SNEEZE.
if $5 is all your time and talent is worth, great! go buy a box of macaroni and cheese and a can of schlitz and have a good day. drive safe!
all that these sites do is bring down the legitimacy and pay scale of true designers. what does that guy that charged you $5 make per hour, a quarter?
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103 Posts
I used to have a boss that had a great phrase of wisdom " I won't get out of bed in the morning for any less than $20 an hour"
It really highlighted the point behind it for me. I make what I make and while some people may want to pay less than my prices, I can't do much about that. I do think it is every good artists duty to change the misconception that we just draw pretty pictures for a living. We are researchers first and artists second and noone that is worth a dime will charge $5 for a logo.
Just as an idea of the number of hours it takes to design a good, quality logo - about 15 hours or so. Between research, logo sketches, first proofing, changes made, and creating the final spec sheet. At $5 over 15 hours that person made 33 cents an hour if they did it well. If they just threw some stuff together, it still would have taken about an hour.... still less than minimum wage.
The comment that someone will print $2.99 1 color white tees is very accurate. Except that in order to relate to the logo pricing it should be closer to $.50 per shirt. Anyone that can come close to that is just losing money or is giving you a horrible print and a crappy quality shirt.
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3,503 Posts
most of what i saw when i looked at the $5 site were people using photoshop filters or add-ons to "MAKE A SKETCH OUT OF A PHOTO" type deal. i can understand that. get the file/import it/make a few adjustment.........woila! $5 for 5 minutes. nice payscale. but to do three or for comps of a logo and even yet let the customer have feedback on it? get the H out of here.
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103 Posts
yeah that Fiverr site is just like that. Silly stupid things that you would typically see as an ad on myspace.
However there are people out there that do $5 logo. There is a logo creation program out there that just has a stock of vector clipart (like globes, wrenches, etc) and you can do some simple text effects to get a logo. Slap stuff together and you have a quick logo. However, there are only so many of the stock elements available so you are going to see those same parts over and over again.
Even the really cheap outsourcing companies in places like India do logos for like $50
However there are people out there that do $5 logo. There is a logo creation program out there that just has a stock of vector clipart (like globes, wrenches, etc) and you can do some simple text effects to get a logo. Slap stuff together and you have a quick logo. However, there are only so many of the stock elements available so you are going to see those same parts over and over again.
Even the really cheap outsourcing companies in places like India do logos for like $50
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