Cafeteria food. Working vacation. Civil War. These terms, oxymorons, make no sense, but are used in everyday speech. Oxymorons give voice to life’s inherent conflicts and incongruities. I’d like to add one to this list: design professional. A plumber charges $125 just to show up at your house, and no one bats an eye. Lawyers routinely charge hundreds of dollars per hour just to look at your case; again, no eyebrows are raised.
“These people are trained professionals”, I hear you thinking, “you pay for their experience as well as their skill.”
That is very true, and it’s also the reason I get annoyed when clients (or potential clients) act amazed whenever a graphic designer attempts to charge a design fee.
I’m not alone with my frustration. Recently, designer Dan Cassaro publicly shamed Showtime for asking him to work for free. Showtime asked him to “submit” a design concept for an upcoming, sport-event graphic, and if his work was “selected” he would be flown to Las Vegas and see his design displayed at the MGM Grand.
Many designers would see this as a nice opportunity, but to Dan (and me!), it was a request for free work. This snippet from his snarky reply sums it up pretty well: “It is with great sadness that I must decline your enticing offer to work for free. You might consider compensating people for doing the thing they are professionally trained to do.”
Showtime replied with a short and very polite email. Dan remains convinced, as do I, that “to ask professionals to compete against each other for ‘potential’ exposure is demeaning and lowers the value of everyone’s work."
You read that right. As a design professional, you don’t just owe it to yourself to get proper compensation, you owe it to the rest of the design community. It’s your fiduciary duty. Remember, it’s not just about the money. The key isn’t to get every penny. Know your worth; be aware of the value you bring. Have your estimate factor that in. By all means, do pro bono work, but never lose sight of the bedrock principle that design is work, and it has value.
As with legal services or plumbing, a client is paying for knowledge, not just how fast his lawyer can type a brief, or how tightly his Roto-Rooter® guy can stop a faucet from dripping. Typographic artist Anthony Burril discussed the intangible value of creativity in an interview he recently gave about his work process. “When I’m working on a commercial project, I have to think about the audience I’m talking to and the message being communicated. Of course, there are also deadlines to deal with.”
No kidding. That sounds like work to me.
Iconic graphic designer Paul Rand famously agreed to design a logo for Steve Jobs’ Next Computer with two stipulations: He would create one logo (that Jobs could take or leave), and Rand would be paid his fee of $250,000. Jobs agreed; the logo was accepted, and the rest is design history.
Years later, after an inspiring presentation, I asked Rand about this rigid attitude towards client relations. His reply has stuck with me ever since: “Designers”, he said, “should always remember the deal that they make with clients.” To Paul Rand, the deal went like this: “I will solve your problem, and you will pay me.”
Since then, I’ve given similiar advice to design students, interns, peers, colleagues and 20-year veterans of the industry: Never be afraid to charge what you are worth. If a client is taken aback, or can’t understand what the designer’s talent and experience adds to the project, you don’t want that job. If the client doesn’t value you, walk away and don’t look back.
It is said that no one, on their deathbed, ever proclaims “I wish I’d have worked more.” I’ll add my own corollary to that. No designer, when he reaches the end of the road, stops and ponders “I wish I’d have charged less.”