Thread: GD work for flyers & posters

Hi,

I provide web design services and am getting asked more and more if I can provide flyers, posters and postcards etc and I would like to be able to provide clients with fixed prices for the the design of the following products.


FlyerDesign (single sided)
Flyer Design (double sided)
Poster Design
Roll Up Banner Design
Folded Flyers (up to 6 panels)
Logo Design

I already have printers in place and just need print ready designs (PDF)

These would be typical designs for small to medium companies.

These are the kind of prices I was thinking

I am 100% genuine and happy to work using services like escrow etc.

I will supply all images, logos (if they have one)text and colour codes.

If this is something that you would be interested in then please email me with your prices and work samples.

Sent you an e-mail with some pricing

Sent you a quick email with full details.

This is exactly why I moved out of full time design and into printing. How're you meant to eat when you're matching loss-lead prices on GD?

It's tragic, really. People just won't pay a decent rate for a decent service anymore...

Don't match loss lead prices! Increase your efficiency, differentiate your product, build relationships, gain reputation.

Hi there.

If you send your exact requirements to us at sales@toppersprint.co.uk we'll send you a quotation asap!

Originally Posted by Minuteman Press

Don't match loss lead prices! Increase your efficiency, differentiate your product, build relationships, gain reputation.

In terms of design though, it's a very labour intensive process. How can you increase efficiency there; amphetamine sulphate?

Seriously though, as far as I can see you can only really increase efficiency by reusing design work (and there's plenty out there that do that) which has the opposite effect to differentiating your product.

In terms of design if you differentiate, efficiency hardly goes hand in hand.

I've been doing this twenty years and I'm getting to the end of my tether.

If it weren't for the fact that we've differentiated ourselves by doing some incredibly manual jobs (so specialising in some quite complicated areas of print finishing - certainly not efficient by any means), we would have gone a long time ago.

Originally Posted by Arhiann

In terms of design though, it's a very labour intensive process. How can you increase efficiency there; amphetamine sulphate?

Seriously though, as far as I can see you can only really increase efficiency by reusing design work (and there's plenty out there that do that) which has the opposite effect to differentiating your product.

In terms of design if you differentiate, efficiency hardly goes hand in hand.

I've been doing this twenty years and I'm getting to the end of my tether.

If it weren't for the fact that we've differentiated ourselves by doing some incredibly manual jobs (so specialising in some quite complicated areas of print finishing - certainly not efficient by any means), we would have gone a long time ago.

My thoughts exactly. There are so many printers out there who offer design on top simply by outsourcing to India, or taking on workies. When you add in the hundreds of graphic design students willing to do something for nothing as a portfolio builder then the whole industry's pricing structure gets decimated.

You know, yay capitalism and all that, but it looks increasingly as though you either get lucky or you get out as a designer...:icon_Wall:

Charge fair market rates, deliver quality product, control costs and add value to your marketing efforts every day. Don't repeat mistakes / unprofitable practices. Charge for all your time.

We have three postgrad in-house designers and are still outsourcing projects / components.

Unprofitable projects should be handed to your competitors.

Not much more I can say. It works for us!

And if you're doing less than 60 hours a week / taking more than one weeks holiday, you're not working hard enough!

Originally Posted by Minuteman Press

Charge fair market rates, deliver quality product, control costs and add value to your marketing efforts every day. Don't repeat mistakes / unprofitable practices. Charge for all your time.

We have three postgrad in-house designers and are still outsourcing projects / components.

Unprofitable projects should be handed to your competitors.

Not much more I can say. It works for us!

And if you're doing less than 60 hours a week / taking more than one weeks holiday, you're not working hard enough!

While I admire your work ethic, I'd prefer to target my resources more effectively. I worked silly hours in my first year (well in excess of 60 p/w) and made just enough money to survive. For a designer out on their own there just aren't enough hours in the day to build a web presence, build up the client database, do the work and sleep at these kinds of rates! And if you don't have the presence or the database then you're not in a position to turn away work, meaning that you spend more time on low paying projects that never seem to end. I also found myself getting into a situation where I was accepting payment on delivery - or, as it's known, "not being paid".

Flash forward to moving into reselling. I've had time to build a solid base of clients, I have time to relax & enjoy living, I win enough work that I don't have to take on jobs with no margin, and I'm generally a lot happier with my lot. Obviously still love GD, and do a lot of it, but reshifting the focus was the best thing I ever did.

And I stand by my original point - the gradual erosion of pricing, to the point where wonderfully creative people can be expected to apply all their know how to a project at a tenner an hour, is a crying shame.