It is also disgusting to see some half-baked designers overprice their services. Yet, they don’t have the competency to give quality work. As a professional designer, it pays to understand the dynamics of pricing design works so that you are adequately remunerated for your skills and expertise.

Pricing design work features two components: Costing and then the actual price that you will charge your customers. On costing, you will have to consider all the financial facts such as the actual costs you incur in completing the design project.

Pricing, on the other hand, is more of an art than a science. You may have to play around with the figures before you finally settle on one that works best for your services. Presented here are some of the strategies you can employ when pricing design work-:

The Cost Price

As mentioned earlier, the cost price refers to the expenses you incur to produce the work, and this is the foundation of your business. You need to identify the “break-even” point where your expenses will equal your income.

Once you identify this point, you can mark up the price with a couple of dollars so that when pricing your design work, you don’t end up making losses. If everything goes wrong, you should never price your design work below the breakeven point. It won’t make any sense, and you will only be making losses.

The Market Rate

The other method of pricing design work is to use the market rate or the going rate. This is simply by evaluating what you competitors are asking for when offering the same services as you. Using the market rate in pricing design work is very common if you are in a competitive market with lots of designers competing for the same number of clients.

Sometimes you may be compelled to go slightly below the market rate to attract clients, especially if you are a new designer, and you need to build your portfolio and start getting the initial clients. This method of pricing design work will be common if you decide to offer you services as a freelancer in the freelancing marketplaces.

Value-Based Pricing

Value-based pricing is another approach you may want to consider when pricing design work. With this approach, you price you design work based on the value that it will add to your clients. When you use this method to price your design work, you won’t just give a quote for any design work that comes your way. Instead, you will set up a meeting with the clients and find out the particular things they are looking for. This includes the design, the challenges they are currently facing, and how you services are going to improve their operations as a business.

After evaluating these and many other factors, you will present the client with a proposal that will create high value for your business. Since you will be providing them with a high-value solution, you can then go ahead and quote more for your design services.

Credibility Building Price

There are certain occasions when you may want to work with some high profile clients with limited budgets. In such a situation, pricing your design work may not be guided by your need to make a profit. Instead, by a desire to build good credibility with such clients for a future working relationship.

You can decide to work for a slightly lower fee. This way can you build trust with them and make them have you as the go-to designer in case they will need your services in the future. You must, however, refrain from working for such clients for free unless you have decided to volunteer your services. If you work for them for free, there are no guarantees that they will pay for your services in the future.

Discounted Pricing

Discounted pricing is very rampant in the creative industry. When pricing design work using the discounted pricing method, all you are doing is offering discounts so that your prices are slightly lower that what the rest are offering in the market. This is especially important during low seasons when designs works are hard to come by. With your discounted rates, you will be in a position to attract a few of the customers available at that moment.

Retainer Pricing

Pricing design work can also be done on a retainer basis. This refers to a recurring fee that is charged for standardized work. Pricing design work on retainer basis is useful if you are working with large clients who supply you with regular work and you don’t need to have a confirmation for each and every project you do. It leads to a steady supply of work and income, only that it can stop at any time if you didn’t sign any binding contract in the beginning.

Keep your pricing in mind looking at the world’s most expensive logos!

The post How to Price Design Services: Pricing Design Work appeared first on LogoMaven | Easy Logo Design Software & Logo Maker.

The decision to begin to revamp your company logo is usually a tough one for businesses to make. Logos are the brand identities of companies and changing them implies that you are changing the whole face of the enterprise. Many are the occasions when business attempted to change their logos and got negative feedback from the clients only for them to revert to the initial logo.

This shows that before a business decides to change or revamp their logos, certain factors need to be given a lot of consideration. So how often should you be changing your company logo? Check out the following as a guide to knowing whether or not it is time to change your logo:

Consider the initial design approach

For most businesses, the importance of having a professional logo usually becomes apparent when they realize the need to brand and market their ventures. At the point of start-up, the logo is never in their minds since they are busy with other logistics trying to get the business on its feet.

Hence, they will use just any type of logo without giving it much thought. But when the business begins to grow and start to have a large customer base, branding becomes necessary for the continued growth of the company. If you started a business in this manner, then perhaps you should consider changing your company logo now that you are getting more insights and clarity into where you are headed.

When your logo design becomes outdated

Changing your company logo becomes inevitable if your current logo design becomes obsolete. Remember, the logo is the visual representation of your company to the outside world. Due to changes in operation and passing of time, the graphics or the text on your logo may cease to be relevant, and this may not work for the effective branding of your business.

The solution in such a case is to revamp your logo to be in tandem with the current business operations and also fit the general expectations of the customers as well as the public. In some instances, you may have used the logo for a very long time such that it doesn’t exude any vibrancy for the company. You must thus embark on changing your company logo to inject life into the brand image.

When there is a significant change in your company

It goes without saying that when your company changes significantly, then changing your company logo is inevitable. And this is usually one of the most significant considerations for businesses who want to change their logo. A logo represents the company’s image to the potential clients and customers. It reflects the values as well as the nature of the products and services offered by the business.

When a business, therefore, changes its operations or line of products and services, this must also be reflected on the logo to help create awareness and promote the new look business to the clients and customers. Rarely will you have significant changes in the operations of your business and fail on changing your logo either partially or completely.

When your logo is too complex

A logo should be simple enough yet properly designed to pass across effectively the central marketing message of the business. If your logo is too complex, such that the potential customers are not able to comprehend the meaning out of it, then it no longer serves its marketing and branding purposes and changing your company logo would be the best option.

The current trends have seen major corporate giants shifting from complex logo designs to very simple yet effective designs. There is a great adoption of the “less is more” concept where logos are not crammed with graphics and text but rather, they are designed in a minimalist way, and still manage to communicate effectively.

When your logo is confusing

Apart from starting to revamp your company logo when it is too complex, it is also important to change it when it is confusing. A logo becomes confusing when customers are not in a position to tell explicitly what the logo is all about. Either there is no correlation between the logo and your products or services or the logo is nearly similar to that of another business.

Hence, customers keep on confusing you for the other venture. If, suppose you hand over your business card to clients, and you notice that squinting in confusion, and then know that something is not right, and you should probably think of changing your company logo.

As observed earlier, changing your company logo is usually a tricky affair, and you need to be certain that the change is necessary. Do a lot of research to validate your reasons for changing your company logo, or else, it will be a waste of time and resources if you change it, and your clients reject the change

Check out these recent rebrands for inspiration if you have decided to change your logo!

The post How Often Should You Revamp Your Logo? appeared first on LogoMaven | Easy Logo Design Software & Logo Maker.