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7 January 2009 | One Comment

As a designer I have worked with all sorts, some that approve the job on the first draft others who I have stopped working for because all they ever do is ask for drafts of one thing but they never seem to actually do the job.

This situation got me thinking… how many drafts should I do for my clients and at what cost?

Truth be told we are in Kenya and that means labour is cheap, even really skilled labour is cheap sometimes. This presents me, as a person who offers my skills as a service, with a really big problem – or so I thought…

When I graduated from the Polytechnic in Nairobi, I graduated with nearly 1,000 other Graphic Designers. This had me worried, though not about the full 1,000, you see, we had done an exhibition of our work at the end of the course and only about 150-200 individual designers worried me.

I was worried by the gifts all the 200 hundred had, some were exceptional typographers, others had a wonderful understanding of color, others looked like they had never had a similar idea or style twice.

All these things worried me, so when I started my business I did limitless drafts for my clients and charged a flat fee. What this meant, of course, is that some of my clients were getting a raw deal, they paid the same for a little work as other paid for a hell of a lot more!

What I am saying is that most designers are emotional people, they determine a great deal based on what they feel more than even what they may know is right. So I got to thinking, how should I even this out?

I must urge is that as a designer, develop a fee structure that you can refer to when you are asked to quote for a job. What you feel is then kind of put into a box into which you can decide what to charge, but it will always be fair to all your clients because you have a fee structure.

My suggestion is this, charge a flat fee for X number of designs presented, and Y number of revisions for each draft. Then charge a flat fee for any more drafts above your XY calculations.