About a month ago someone contacted me to make them a design because they liked what I did with several of my own business/personal logos. I said that isn’t really my jam anymore, but if they really wanted me to do it, the base price I used to charge was $300 for the design, plus some finished assets that could be used anywhere. I was told that was far too much and they told me they were going to use one of the many “spec work” sites to get a great logo “for like fifteen bucks”.
I was only slightly bothered, but even just a few years ago, I would have really been caught up in the drama of second-guessing my pricing, the quality of work I produced and trying to find that “sweet spot” to get the right clients.
What’s changed? I know my worth. The confidence to not cave when bargain hunters come knocking on your door came with experience in my case, and I think it’s probably true for most artists.
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So what does quality branding look like vs the “$15”?
You see quality branding all the time, it’s what you look for when you’re hungry, thirsty, need a hotel, or to rent a car, especially if you’re in a city you’ve never been in before. You look for the branding, but you’re thinking about the product/service.
The cheap stuff is memorable for entirely different reasons. Sometimes you don’t even know what product/service it represents. It’s just bad. Visually awful. Sometimes even grammatically. This often happens when a non-native language speaker designs your logo. I’m positive that I don’t have the cultural references and language skills to properly design branding for a fast-food chain in Spain or Germany, let alone Iran or Lithuania.
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Yesterday the same person got back in touch with me and agreed to pay my fee, and attached an image to the email. They said what they got for their $20 (oh! big spender!) was grammatically wrong even after the two revisions they were allowed to request for that price. This isn’t the image they sent, but it is an example of what happens when you communicate the “feeling” or “vibe” of what you want in a design and get random matching words slapped together.
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