GD work for flyers & posters

D

dpcook

New Member
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.
 
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...
 
Minuteman Press said:
Don't match loss lead prices! Increase your efficiency, differentiate your product, build relationships, gain reputation.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Arhiann said:
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.
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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!
 
Minuteman Press said:
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!
Click to expand...
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.
 
Minuteman Press said:
We have three postgrad in-house designers and are still outsourcing projects / components.
Click to expand...
And how much do you pay them? I don't recommend anyone go into GD as a career choice anymore. Entry level remuneration is really not a lot better than working at Tesco. I'm buggered if I'm going to think for less than £30 an hour.
Minuteman Press said:
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!
Click to expand...
I don't admire that work ethic. To me that's a waste of a life. Now I grant you that there may be some merit in that short term if you're pulling a couple or three thousand a week, and you haven't got a life, but I want to see my kids, watch them grow up etc; enjoy life.

I've never know anyone lie on their death bed and say they wish they had spent more time at work.

There used to be a high entry level into printing and design. It doesn't exist anymore. It's now easier (and cheaper) to become a graphic designer than it is a painter and decorator. Everybody and their brother are now printers too. If I had my time again I would choose something different. I would head off into the more left field areas , some of which we've already identified.

Thng is though, I actually enjoy banging out 5000 letterheads or designing them, there's just little financial reason to do so now.
 
How much do we pay - payments to staff are confidential. Not a subject I would discuss.

Working hours - It's what you enjoy. For you a waste of time - for me - interesting (I also have two children and another business).

If you can make your hobby profitable - why not? :icon_wink:
 
It's all getting a bit heated here!

I do agree that working hours go a lot quicker if you're doing what you enjoy, but I'm surprised that you can't see the validity of the points we're making! Surely it's a given that people just starting out have a harder time of things because prices have generally come down a lot? If you're making £10 an hour you must be doing less well than if you were making £40, right? And if you're just starting out, you're not going to be able to walk away from a job just because it's a low margin, no?

Seems to me that you're a lucky man, Peter, because you've had a good career and a good chance to build up your business. All I'm saying is that my experience was that coming to a career in design in 2009 wasn't profitable...

Incidentally, Peter, which college were you at? Just being nosy really...
 
I understand; but only take the £10 profit per hour job until you have something better (and make sure it is profit!).

All good stuff. Just make sure you grow.
 
Minuteman Press said:
How much do we pay - payments to staff are confidential. Not a subject I would discuss.
Click to expand...
It was a rhetoric Peter, I answered the question for you.
Minuteman Press said:
Working hours - It's what you enjoy. For you a waste of time - for me - interesting (I also have two children and another business).
Click to expand...
I did say a wasted life, not time. I'm not going to get into a debate on the meaning of life but one thing which is not moot, is that we can't take anything physical with us when we shuffle off this mortal coil. I certainly don't want work experience to clutter the finite (increasingly so as age advances) corners of my mind.

As I said previously, nobody has wished they spent more time at work on their deathbed.
Minuteman Press said:
If you can make your hobby profitable - why not? :icon_wink:
Click to expand...
That's a little disingenuous. If you were gifted (for example) £10 million notes,you would, without doubt, do something else. I work to live, I certainly don't define myself by what I do for a living.
 
I currently put in my 37.5 hours for someone else and then probably about the same again chasing leads and producing design work for my own company. When the time comes to give up the day job, I doubt very much that I will suddenly stop the extra hours because I love what I do and if I'm completely honest I love the extra money that working so hard brings in.
 
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