Hi Stacey, correct me if I'm wrong, but you said you've just started out and you're charging £50 per hour........are you working on your own? That seems very high to me for someone starting out to charge (even in Essex) but then I work mostly in sleepy Suffolk, so.......
If you can get away with that, good on ya, you go girl, but when you say that's what "other agencies" are charging, are you talking other sole designers or actual agencies that charge that for their BANK of designers?
Maybe I should hike my prices up!!
Instead of cutting and pasting text, you should be importing it into a text box in Quark. The XPress Tags coding system makes it possible to include character and paragraph attribute info in ASCII text like that in Word.
Create a text box and select the Content (hand icon) tool in the palette. Then File>Get Text. Tick 'Include Style Sheets' and click 'Open'.
I have been searching the web but cant seem to find what im looking for!
I have recently had a meeting with a great company who last year spent over £400,000 on advertising. They are not currently using designers and use printers to do all their work.
I need to convince them that a qualified and expierenced designer would do the job much better!
Thay have set me a little tester and asked me to design a year planner.
Just a couple of questions!
1. Should I go in alot cheeper to make sure I secure the initial work?
2. How much should I be charging?
3. Does anyone know any creative sites for year planners or have seen any great ones?
Thanks
Stacie
I wonder why they've asked you to design a year planner...when they spent all that money on advertising...?
Anyway, be careful quoting too low - they will expect low prices throughout and get a shock when you need to hike them up. It's always easier to go down (from them haggling, for example) than it is to go up!
If you're unsure about what to charge, then it all depends on where you live and how much experience you have. I charge between £15 and £45 per hour, depending on where/who the client is, how frequent the work is, what the job is for etc. and I have just over 7 years' design and prepress experience. I mostly charge £20 per hour for local stuff, but charge more if the client is either in London or more "demanding"...!
I was told by an ex print colleague that one designer he knew started out charging £65 per hour 4 years ago because they got away with it!
Find out what other designers in your area are charging. It's not hard to find this out on the Web. If you're just starting out, it might be risky for you to try and win such a big client, but if you're clever about it, and cover yourself, this could be your big break.
Back to the year planner - find a printed one and copy the basic structure.
Good luck!:bye
Neither have I. The highest I've used is 1200dpi for mono line art scans. 600dpi is the highest res I've ever been asked for and that's 200dpi over the top!
Ask to speak to the Production Manager (or higher) and query this.
Wow, wish I was on £30k - you did that having left school with only GCSEs - makes me feel like art school was a complete waste of time (and student loans!!) Good on ya!
My advice would be whatever you decide to do, make sure you have your family behind you and they realise that thing may be tighter financially than before.
