Any other designers fed up of time wasters? How do you deal with them?

Just lately making logos I have had a lot of people wasting my time and trying to basically treat me as a slave over a $10 logo.

Does anybody else get annoyed with people who ask for something, get exactly as they asked for and then change their mind and want something completely different?

Sometimes I take payment up front and other times I take payment once work is completed, depending on who it is and how honest they seem.

How does everybody else deal with people who want everything for nothing?

Thanks

 

Simple, charge more. Value of a service can be contained in the price...

 

I agree to an extent!

I charge not so much because if I was to charge more (just on here for example) they would not be interested as yuo can get logos for as cheap as $2.

I have tried charging $30 - $40 for a logo but to be fair, nobody seems interested.

 

They won't pay $30-40 for a logo. Maybe for a complete coded template. You should always take payment upfront. Because you waste time, and efforts on creating the logos.

 

I think because I live in the UK and because of the exchange rate $10 is not as much to me as say somebody in India or a country where that much is a lot of money.

 

No, because I make them sign a contract. They get one edit, everything afterwards is a steep hourly fee that discourages behavior like that

 

How do you go about this contract? I mean if it is over the web it is hard to get them to sign.

Any more information would be great.

Thanks

 

Nick, I always send a hardcopy of the job statement and all of the customer's requirements via regular mail and I don't do any work until I get it signed and returned. I only do work for small companies (not individuals - the payoff is not worth the time spent), and small companies have no problem with contracts. Also, always ask for a down payment...whether that is 10% or whatever else you choose, that is non-refundable if they choose to drop out for any reason (state that on the contract, too)

 

The thing is though to make a logo that takes an hour it seems a bit overkill, and most of the people I do work for are in the US.

I could understand that if I was making a huge site this could be done but if I said they would have to wait a week to get this they would go elsewhere I am sure.

 

I'll vouch for not doing any work for individuals. That's my general rule for a variety of reasons but most of it comes down to time hassles. I also have far fewer problems with payments when I work with businesses.

 

Don't let anybody treat you as a slave, especially not for something so worthless. The problem here is you are letting them do it. Do you tell them beforehand what they will get for their money? For $10 they can't afford to be too picky when it comes to the design. If they expect multiple revisions, and hours and hours of graft then they need to put their hands deeper into their pockets.

You say you are from the UK - same here - and this is again another element to the problem. $10 is a very small amount of money in the UK (in fact its under an hour of work if you are being paid the minimum wage..) Your only option is to not cater for these clients who are paying $10.

You need to decide how much money you need to live on. If you are only doing 1 logo a day because they request loads of changes, you need to be charging $100 per logo to make it a respectable wage at the end of the week. Obviously your services then appeal to less people and finding clients will be harder. It's just one of the many catch 22 situations designers face.

There are always going to be many, many customers for $3 and $4 logos because in business you try to cut corners wherever you can and if these services are there, you will snap them up!

Maybe you should stop trying to compete with these smaller-charging users, and try to source work from elsewhere - clients that are actually in the UK where the economy is the same as yours.

 

That ($10) is ***nothing*** in India too. A decent logo designer charges $100 for a logo. Depends totally on your target market. There are people who are searching good designers for their brand requirements. Then there are webmasters who need tons of logos for their one page websites every week. I had a romanian co. design a logo for me for $75 recently. They started with showing me a scanned image of pencil sketches of the ideas. Then it was traced and finished with Illustrator. I do not think one should work this much for $10. Not worth at all. So make a rule for your service and abide by it. If possible make a contract letter too, show and get it signed (online) from the client before starting on it.

Personally I believe logo designs is one of the highly creative art (contrary to one pixel bevel and two pixel shadow that most designers do on a text). And by charging $10 for it you are completely demeaning it.

Just my 2 cents.

 

I agree with both Daveyboy & hexadesigns.. My logo rates (Via my site / repeat / referral) start @ $100.00 & go up from there. Each designer does it different, however for me, the base deposit is $100.00 for 3 ruff concepts & 3 free revisions & then $25.00 per revision after that (payable before master file release).

The stuff you see me do here on digitalpoint & other graphics sites is alotted in my spare time & or when business is a little slow. I find it to be GREAT (PR) Public Relations. Believe it or not, I've had several people request quotes from here after seeing an entry I placed in a contest.

A few months ago I was contacted from a member that saw a $25.00 contest submission of mine & sent me a PM request for a quote on a rather extensive project (Simply because he liked my work). In short, that $25.00 entry (Which I didn't even win) generated me a $2,600.00 Complete website & graphics design project. The $2,600.00 was in phases over the course of 2 months (Smaller projects here & there), but in total that one client & their repeat business made it well worth the time vested in the little $25.00 contest.

It's up to you on how you view things, Myself, I like to say the glass is half FULL Vs. Half empty & find the positive assets in everything I do.

I don't care what anyone says, Design contests (No matter how cheap it appears) is great for developing: A Portfolio, A client List, (PR) Public Relations, Added Marketing/Advertising, Branding your Company, & More! (Even if you don't win - imagine that)

I'm sure there are several other designers with similar success stories of their own, after a few years doing this, one tends look at things a bit different I suppose.

At any rate, I wish you all the best of success!

P.S. Just remember, it's your time & your design, if you get a quote request via PM it's your rates too. They can love it or leave it, simply explain Why your rates are the way they are (If needed).

 

I have done a fair few contests which has been good but I have then been spending lots of time on one logo to make it good and then even if I don't win I could have made 2 quick and easy logos and got the same amount.

I have a fair few logos in my portfolio, some I admit are rubbish but quite a few I am proud of.

The UK market is a hard one, I find it really hard to get customers from the UK who will actually pay top notch for a decent logo I would spend hours on to get every pixel perfect.

Sorry I came across moany just got annoyed with a customer who wanted everything for nothing and just wondered how / if others dealt with this.

Thanks

Nick

 

Your price attracts that poor sadists who has not $30 for a BDSM subscription. Give them twenty bux and shut down you computer right away!

 

So just as an example, what would people charge for the following logos:







Just so I know what I should be charging?

Thanks

 

Do you advertise in the UK or source your clients from forums and the like? You need to advertise locally, send out flyers and letters, contact people whose logos have seen better days. Just promote yourself a lot. The clients are out there that are willing to spend 200 quid on a logo, i've had a few myself and have gone on to create their stationery and in some cases their web sites. Most companies don't really have time to keep trying out different designers so if you find one and do a good job, you usually find you get business from them on a semi-regular basis.

The most important thing you can do is to stop trying to find high-paying clients on this forum because they don't really exist. Yes, you get lucky sometimes and get higher paying jobs - like ScorpionAgency managed to pull off that deal he mentioned above - but more often than not it's 2 bob jobs you don't need the stress of.

Get out and promote yourself, build a name locally for yourself and the business will come. You need to persevere, it's the only way.

 

I have not done any local work much but I don't do this full time. It is an after work / weekend thing

I am going to advertise in the local newspaper I think and see if I can get any work from that

 

for me it would depend on the # of revisions.. all three would have a base deposit of $100.00. & if they exceeded the 3 free revisions alloted, it's $25.00 per revision after that payable before release of files.

I can see #1 & #3 running anywhere from $150.00 - $350.00 easy (again this depends on revisions to get to the point they are now)

#2 while simplistic, I can still see running from $100.00 - $150.00 easy.

I recall all three of these designs from contests back in 2007 I believe. You did a good job & because they were contests with preset prizes, there isn't much you can do for additional fee's. The bonus here is that you got some good Public relations out of the deal & added samples for your portfolio

 

Yep, this was back in the day before I had much of a portfolio

It was just to get values for my work