so, this is the deal.. i love what i do and i love the branding/logo part of the business and unless i am in a really tough spot i would never do a logo for as low as $500 (and that’s for friends) unless i am in a tight spot..

90% of my clients are in the entertainment industry and party flyer designs starts at $125 so logos for the usual person should be worth at least 5x more.. not that i have not done a logo for as low as $250 but what i learned was that it took me as long as a $5,000 (which i also have done) just because i would put in as much love as i do for the big client$ (minus the guides, intense research, and more options, etc. that needs to be done with big client$)

$100 for a logo, HELL NO!..

if it’s young people i tend to use analogies, and compare logo price to sneakers or going out to a club and how much things cost and if people pay $200 for sneakers, shades, clothes or spend $200 at a club then don’t disrespect me with anything lower then $500 for something that will be the face of your company and if they are serious about their business then they will realize it..

even better what i would do (i have done this with other articles) is give them a link to this article and tell them to call you afterwards with a budget if they are really serious..

the problem is us!!!
if designers keep charging these bs prices then we will all be out of a job..
lets not compete with these wanna be designers and the way we win is by letting our clients read articles like this one.

i know, sounds like i’m pissed………….
HELL YEAH!!!

: )

- Ney Pimentel
http://www.BrandAnarchyGroup.com

One of my first jobs as a designer was working for a College in the Marketing Department, they commissioned a logo from a well know agency. The new branding and branding manual cost £40,000, including research and that was about 15 years ago.

Thank you for link, I will add a return one.

My take is you still can get a decent logo design done with USD100. It will depend on how your discuss and negotiate with the brand expert of freelance designer. I have offered free consultancy as well as below-cost creative work simply because my judgement, intuition and gut feel tell me it is worth investing my time and resources with this “poor” client. Worthiness can be future monetary returns, leverage of contacts and network, friendship etc.

In my other posts, I have discussed “Pay by Performance”. It may be difficult to implement for logo design, but there is still barter trade. Do you have something I want?

Another idea will be paying freelance artist designer $50USD for a creative design and scan it into the computer yourself. 2cents opinion.

Before even starting any sketching or creative work, we all hopefully try to understand what the client is after. When you’ve got all the information you need, try to determine factors that is plausible to be restricted.

I usually use a table, where I’ve got vertically
Time
Price
Quality/size

and horizontally
High
Medium
Low

Then I’ll have a discussion with the client, deciding which of these factors are the most important, and check in the corresponding boxes.

The fact that the product is priced as outlined is the most important? So be it. The suffering factors will be time and/or quality.

Is quality the most important? Well, up goes the price.

You -NEED- to have it by tomorrow? Price up, quality down.

This gives me something to check up on throughout the process.

At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. If you’re paying buttons then your logo may well turn out to be a button with some text set in Comic Sans.

Those with any size of budget need to be very careful when choosing a designer. Make sure they’re credible by following up on references and that they have a top notch portfolio.

It’s common sense.

Respectfully I’d like to share that logos are a part of business that need not be overly emphasised.
The big players i.e. MacDonald’s, Coca-Cola, spend millions on their logo, so that they will be able to leverage market recognition to maximum effect.
Smaller players simply cannot afford to do the same, and let’s be honest, are much more concerned with the bottom-line results (read Maslow, lol) than something less concrete as ‘logo-branding’.

A possible alternative approach could be what I call ‘results-based marketing’, where each and every marketing effort can be tracked to an increase in sales, or better yet, profits. Examples include good sales copy, direct marketing e.g. Ken Chee’s TV commercials, and an overall system to give maximum value to consumers (and maximum profits to our clients).

let’s explore few possible reasons why designers might take up a less then USD$100 logo job and the possible consequences it preceeds. Just a few to begin with…

1. blood relation

2. designer has a substantial share in this business

3. he has a logo generator freeware. you’re but the 100th user

4. your designer does it for pure passion not for a living. quite unlikely then will he approach your logo and tagline with business sense.

likely mentality for No.4 could be ‘you brief i do. nothing more, nothing less’

But a logo hardly ever gets approved by the 3rd round because sometimes clients get more ideas after seeing some ideas, which actually adds sparks to the works. its all great! only the project fee and the time do not justify.

more options, more changes, more variations from designer mean more time / less sleep /food and water (due to poor appetite) come on, designers have to fulfill their basic Maslow’s needs too.

by then, your 100USD or less offer has out run his time from his sketch pad to his computer if not his creative momentum.

if you’re lucky, your designer will most likely delay your jobs and put others as priorities for the time being.

if not he will fulfill your subsequent requests quietly. then pour his heart out to his empathetic community. world is small. words get around. somehow or another the next time you request for creative referral, you can expect some difficulty or delay. as you already got yourself a name before you even got started.

for start-up clients whose very first instinct is to just get a logo done up first, i would propose that we look at the whole branding exercise of your new born on a macro level. what do you see your business in 5 years time? what are the other items you’ll need down the road apart from the logo.

discuss your vision with your designer so that you dont have to return for piece meal quotation whenever a need arises. it may cost more in a long run.

So the question now lies in how much success and recognition you want to gain for your product as well. That is not to say that with that USD100, you will be unable to come up with a good logo yourself when you exploit your very talented intern/niece/nephew/son/dog who knows what a good logo would be.

Maybe Viv can write about the research involved in branding a product so there will be less questions regarding what people can get with budgets of USD100.

HI JEF!!!

Now, put that back to your logo design and your discussion with the designer/agency. Does it put it into a new light for you? If not, maybe you are not ready to do a real business yet.

If a start-up cannot afford, I guess they should get a friend to design it or they do the design themselves. Then, when your company grow, revamp it.