RE: yikes! how much do i charge?

OK -- I am on the Executive Committee of the National Board of
Directors of the Graphic Artists Guild (www.gag.org -- yes the site
sucks and they are working on that). We've been around for over 30
years and we are a union, only recently Affiliated with UAW and boy
have weve seen the benefits resulting from it already. For our Canadian
Friends -- The Society of Graphic Designers is a sister organization.

Every year the GAG (hee hee yep I know what you are thinking) publishes
a great reasource that no one can do without. Its called "The Graphic
Artists Guild's Pricing & Ethical Guidelines" -- it covers all areas of
visual art and now has tons of information on Digital and Web
Guidelines. While nothing is written in stone -- extensive research
goes into it every year and the pricing listed is fair enough. It also
gets into issues about copyright (even electronic copyright),
work-for-hire and all sorts of things we can often overlook in this
business. While it doesnt necessarily address fees for programming --
it is a base for assessing what you want to be (and SHOULD be) charging
for your work.

Stop by the local bookstore and have a look -- and add it to the
bookshelf. All of the major graphic design publications and leading
colleges and universities make use of it.

$1,000? ---- please what they are asking for is worth much more than
that -------- they obviously either dont have a clue or they are trying
to get something for almost nothing. Probably a combination of the two.
Reminds me of an almost-client who wanted an e-commerce site for free
-----

Best of Luck

--- Liliane Miller <lmiller(at)carolina.rr.com> wrote:
> Ok, I've come to you guys seeking advice with
> another very important
> question...here's the background:
> 
> I just got my 1st  "real" paying client and am
> intent upon delivering a
> great professional site for them.   Get this:  
> they've been waiting since
> October for this high school student to finish  a
> very rudimentary one he
> started for them.   He had taken the navigation
> graphics and layout off
> someone else's site, was going to scan their info,
> post it to  the pages
> (10 at most I think), and  charge them $600 for it. 
>   They finally gave up
> on him.   Interestingly, this is the second such
> story I've heard in the
> past few months.
> 
>  At the initial meeting I found that they needed not
> only "Web Design" but
> for me to virtually design their internet marketing
> plan, author/edit
> informational and sales text,  take and re-touch
> digital photographs, create
> interactive elements, image maps, style sheets,
> frames, 3d creation and
> animation;  create custom images and clean up some
> they already had, and lay
> out a customer service plan and
> messages/forms/orders routing.   This, plus
> they want me to do the magic webposition  thing and
> submit to the major
> search engines on a regular basis.   The site would
> be about 25 pages to
> begin with  AND they saw the site expanding rapidly.
>   Oh, and they want me
> to host it too (I'm a reseller).
> 
>  Now, I can know I can roll up my sleeves and give
> them what they want and
> more,  but how the heck much do I charge them for
> it? The clients waiting
> for my proposal  and I don't have a clue!   This
> kinda happened faster than
> I expected and I'm not quite prepared.
> 
> Can you seasoned pros help me out here?.   The last
> thing they said was that
> if I could do it for $1000 they knew the owner would
> agree.   Is this a fair
> price for a professional site which would include
> all of the above?
> Remember, I am just starting out...HEEELLLPPP 
> PLEASE GUYS.
> 
> Thanks again...
> 
> Liliane
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

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