New Business- Need Logo advice

Savvi

Savvi

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I have started a dog bakery business from my home and the current logo has all the personality of a 3 day old mackeral. I did the best I could with the print program I have but it is really pitiful and the only saving grace is it is easily forgetable. I am living on SS so hiring a professional graphic artist is out of the question. I posted an ad in Craig's list for a talented amateur artist and the prices I was quoted just blew me away. The lowest quote was $200. It just does not seem to me that it would take to long for a talented artist to put together a picture of a happy, excited, big eyed dog in a floppy chef's hat holding a mixing bowl and a wooden spoon. I am not at all sure that this price--and up-- is justified. I don't mind paying a fair price for quality work but providing the down payment for their next BMW seems excessive. It has occurred to me that perhaps I do not appreciate what it would take to produce this image so I am turning to those of you in the field for advice. How much work is involved and what would be a fair price in your opinion? I would appreciate any insight you might be willing to share.
 
Graphic design my job. I can make one for you if you like. Just message details to me!
 
Sunny, may God bless you for your willing heart but my problem is what would be a fair price to pay for this service? I don't want to commission anything if the price is out of my budget and I don't want to be unrealistic about the work involved. I just truly do not know and that is why I am asking all of you who do know. Before I retired I could have just paid what was asked no question but now I do not have that option so I have to be very careful of the commitments I do make.
 
My company charge $54.10 + HST per hour for graphic design. I think 3-4 hours to do this.

I really will make one for you if you like, no charge :)
 
What does HST mean? That is such a generous offer but I really could not accept. Your work is valuable and you need to be compensated for the time you spend unless of course you are independently wealthy and just need a project. :)
 
As a graphic designer, I can tell you that it can take up to a week's worth of hours to produce a logo that satisfies the client. If you wanted a custom drawn logo, then you have to understand that there's time involved in sketching, producing several versions, presenting them to you, you making your choice then going back to the computer to convert the sketch into a vector artwork that involves tracing the artwork using tools in illustrator, then perfecting it, colouring it then converting it to an eps file that can be resized to any dimension without distortion.

Clients are always shocked when they see the bill but when it's broken down into hours spent on each step of the logo design, then they understand better why it's so expensive. And they learn that each time they say change this or that, that that costs more hours they have to pay.

People think computers cut down on amount of time spent on artwork, it doesn't. it actually adds more because in the olden days, it would be just handdrawn artwork but nowadays, it's hand-drawn traced by hand on computer then perfecting and even changing according to client's changing their minds which happens all the time.

One client sat down with me during a logo design process and came away with a far better appreciation of how much time actually goes into design work. We don't produce exactly what the client wants right off the bat, it's always a time consuming process.

That's why my golden rule is never to do work for family or friends, they think they should have to pay less while I do all the work they want. I wouldn't accept $200 as payment, that doesn't even come close to the actual amount of time and labour involved to produce a logo the client's happy with and it's offensive that they think it does.

I can tell you you get what you pay for. If you pay cheap, you get a cheap looking logo.
 
Thank you Deaf Caroline. I did not know all of that and I appreciate you taking the time to share that with me. I don't think the person who quoted me $200 was trying to be offensive. I think they were just trying to put food on the table like of lot of folks these days. Thank you again for sharing the process. It does help me understand it better.
 
Savvi said:
Thank you Deaf Caroline. I did not know all of that and I appreciate you taking the time to share that with me. I don't think the person who quoted me $200 was trying to be offensive. I think they were just trying to put food on the table like of lot of folks these days. Thank you again for sharing the process. It does help me understand it better.
Click to expand...

You're right about that, a lot of "graphic designers" will work for cheap but that means you get what you pay for. If you're willing to risk that, then go for it.
 
sunny_signs said:
Um...sometimes it mean they just very nice...
Click to expand...

That's true. I have done logos for free before, for various charities and always happy to - nonprofits who do work I admire, I enjoy helping them with graphic design stuff. this is the last logo I did for an organization called Bush Warriors:
deafcaroline-albums-logowork-picture5185-bushwarriors-06.jpg


I had done other variations for Bush Warriors as well (linked posted) and the logo shown here was their favourite. http://www.alldeaf.com/members/deafcaroline-albums-logowork.html
 
DeafCaroline said:
As a graphic designer, I can tell you that it can take up to a week's worth of hours to produce a logo that satisfies the client. If you wanted a custom drawn logo, then you have to understand that there's time involved in sketching, producing several versions, presenting them to you, you making your choice then going back to the computer to convert the sketch into a vector artwork that involves tracing the artwork using tools in illustrator, then perfecting it, colouring it then converting it to an eps file that can be resized to any dimension without distortion.

Clients are always shocked when they see the bill but when it's broken down into hours spent on each step of the logo design, then they understand better why it's so expensive. And they learn that each time they say change this or that, that that costs more hours they have to pay.

People think computers cut down on amount of time spent on artwork, it doesn't. it actually adds more because in the olden days, it would be just handdrawn artwork but nowadays, it's hand-drawn traced by hand on computer then perfecting and even changing according to client's changing their minds which happens all the time.

One client sat down with me during a logo design process and came away with a far better appreciation of how much time actually goes into design work. We don't produce exactly what the client wants right off the bat, it's always a time consuming process.

That's why my golden rule is never to do work for family or friends, they think they should have to pay less while I do all the work they want. I wouldn't accept $200 as payment, that doesn't even come close to the actual amount of time and labour involved to produce a logo the client's happy with and it's offensive that they think it does.

I can tell you you get what you pay for. If you pay cheap, you get a cheap looking logo.
Click to expand...

My brother in law and older sister are artists and did graphic design too, it is a lot of work like you said. They did it a farm that helped people have fresh veggies. My brother in law and older sister had to come up with a logo and that alone took time.
 
whatdidyousay! said:
My brother in law and older sister are artists and did graphic design too, it is a lot of work like you said. They did it a farm that helped people have fresh veggies. My brother in law and older sister had to come up with a logo and that alone took time.
Click to expand...

It certainly does...many clients don't even know exactly what they want or the idea they had didn't quite come out on paper like it did in their heads so they would ask for something different. All time consuming.
 
Savvi said:
I have started a dog bakery business from my home and the current logo has all the personality of a 3 day old mackeral. I did the best I could with the print program I have but it is really pitiful and the only saving grace is it is easily forgetable. I am living on SS so hiring a professional graphic artist is out of the question. I posted an ad in Craig's list for a talented amateur artist and the prices I was quoted just blew me away. The lowest quote was $200. It just does not seem to me that it would take to long for a talented artist to put together a picture of a happy, excited, big eyed dog in a floppy chef's hat holding a mixing bowl and a wooden spoon. I am not at all sure that this price--and up-- is justified. I don't mind paying a fair price for quality work but providing the down payment for their next BMW seems excessive. It has occurred to me that perhaps I do not appreciate what it would take to produce this image so I am turning to those of you in the field for advice. How much work is involved and what would be a fair price in your opinion? I would appreciate any insight you might be willing to share.
Click to expand...

$200 for a logo? that's normal to me and that's very cheap.

curious - what is a fair price to you?
 
DeafCaroline said:
That's true. I have done logos for free before, for various charities and always happy to - nonprofits who do work I admire, I enjoy helping them with graphic design stuff. this is the last logo I did for an organization called Bush Warriors:
deafcaroline-albums-logowork-picture5185-bushwarriors-06.jpg


I had done other variations for Bush Warriors as well (linked posted) and the logo shown here was their favourite. http://www.alldeaf.com/members/deafcaroline-albums-logowork.html
Click to expand...

wow I love it. I would say for that logo for nonprofit org, it would cost me at least $2,000.

this is what I have on my bike -

5974_844528336369_8825246_48132582_5579161_n.jpg
 
Jiro said:
$200 for a logo? that's normal to me and that's very cheap.

curious - what is a fair price to you?
Click to expand...

Now that I understand this is not something that can be completed in an hour I am embarrassed to tell you the original figure I had in mind. :(
 
Frankly, $200 is a bargain. Hope you will find what you need.

DeafCaroline, I didn't know you were a graphic designer. I happen to be one too.
 
Savvi said:
Now that I understand this is not something that can be completed in an hour I am embarrassed to tell you the original figure I had in mind. :(
Click to expand...

oh it's ok. don't worry about it. just something you learned today, eh? :giggle:

however - you CAN have it completed in an hour for that price figure you had in mind.... but my bet is that you would go -_- cuz some guy blatantly ripped off the design from somewhere and replaced it with couple of things :)
 
Jiro said:
oh it's ok. don't worry about it. just something you learned today, eh? :giggle:

however - you CAN have it completed in an hour for that price figure you had in mind.... but my bet is that you would go -_- cuz some guy blatantly ripped off the design from somewhere and replaced it with couple of things :)
Click to expand...

I had not thought of that and you are right. It would send me into orbit. All I wanted to do was keep the wolf camping in my front yard off the porch. I can say unequivically that running this business is a lot harder than baking the cookies. I suspect I will be learning about a lot of things before it is all said and sifted. :) Thanks for the input.
 
It took me about half an hour to design a business logo with the computer's paint program. They are using it. :P
 
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