Art Charges

[ThePrinter]

So I am a small shop that my mom and I run/own. I was wondering what does the average art charge that the market bares? Is there ever a time when you do not charge the customer for art? I like working with family, but the hard part is when you have different opinions about how to run the business. Thank you in advance for all of your responses. I have really enjoyed this forum and have already learned a ton from everyone here!

 

[J Hill Designs]

Most times I build art charge into sign cost, unless its logo development or logo redraw (read: vectorizing) in which case I line-item it on the quote @ $75-$100 per hour

 

[rjssigns]

We give an estimate and it stipulates the amount of design work that is included. After that it's shop rate per hour. Client also has the option to buy the art outright for X amount.

The per hour rate that works for us may or may not work for you. It is something you need to figure for yourself and stick to it.

 

[bob]

If you're doing some sort of sign it requires a ego the size of Montana to rationalize a separate charge for artwork. Back in the day when you lettered something you had to lay it out first. An act as basic as popping the lid off a can of One Shot or palletting your quill. That was the artwork. Certainly there are exceptions but, in general, what those who see themselves as ever so special as "Artwork" is just laying out the sign. Do you merely load all of the copy into a sack and dump it out on a board leaving it wherever it lands or do you try for a more thoughtful arrangement? To those more normal tradesmen, it's just part of the job. Some jobs take longer than others, but then others do not. It evens out.

There certainly are exceptions, but not as many as a lot of people would like to think.

The tortured rationalizations and vainglorious declarations of uniqueness by those who do charge for artwork are always amusing. Also amusing is that the most of those who rationalize their separate 'art' charges usually aren't all that good at it. A journeyman sign writer just does it out of hand and usually does it better than those who charge for it.

 

[Craig Sjoquist]

I with J Hill Designs on this subject.

 

[Desert_Signs]

if you're doing some sort of sign it requires a ego the size of montana to rationalize a separate charge for artwork. Back in the day when you lettered something you had to lay it out first. An act as basic as popping the lid off a can of one shot or palletting your quill. That was the artwork. Certainly there are exceptions but, in general, what those who see themselves as ever so special as "artwork" is just laying out the sign. Do you merely load all of the copy into a sack and dump it out on a board leaving it wherever it lands or do you try for a more thoughtful arrangement? To those more normal tradesmen, it's just part of the job. Some jobs take longer than others, but then others do not. It evens out.

There certainly are exceptions, but not as many as a lot of people would like to think.

The tortured rationalizations and vainglorious declarations of uniqueness by those who do charge for artwork are always amusing. Also amusing is that the most of those who rationalize their separate 'art' charges usually aren't all that good at it. A journeyman sign writer just does it out of hand and usually does it better than those who charge for it.

 

[neil_se]

I wish I was with Bob, still living in the 70s.

 

[Joe Diaz]

Whether what he says is true or not, if those that "aren't all that good" are getting away with charging an art fee, somehow convincing their clients that the art/designs have worth, and are making a living doing it, then surely those that are good, can do it too. In fact, they would have the potential to make a killing if they played their cards right. So you have to ask yourself this, are you afraid that some anonymous guy on a forum is going to think you have an ego, or do you want to get paid for offering a service?

 

[Billct2]

It's too vague a term.
Does laying out a No Parking sign require an art charge?
How about a contractors yard sign?
A 4'x8' Commercial Realty development sign?
A 2'x16" Electric sign face?
Those kinds of designs are included in our estimate, but not as a seperate line item.
There is a difference between sign layout and logo design or marketing concepts.

 

[player]

That is the trouble with the sign biz. Some of us do design work that is worth the price of the whole job (if the customer went to a designer first). Then we make the signs for free...

Other sign makers are more like quicky print houses and are in the business of duplicating what they are given, as well as some very basic layout skills. They don't charge for art, but they really don't do art, they do production layout.

So if you want to do a nice job, the only way is to break out the art charges from the sign charges on projects that are more than basic signs, or the customer does not have artwork, or the customer wants to get into a design approval, revisions etc. You don' t have to show the customer this break out, but the sign guy needs to know when to design and when to do basic production artwork.

 

[Baz]

Bob .... Please .....

Today it's a hell of allot more than producing a layout with grease pencils and masking tape.

I have allot of money invested in hardware/software. I can easily spend an hour producing a layout for a sign and add another half hour for little revisions. Larger projects like vehicle graphics can take 6 to 12 hours before i have something to show a client. I don't charge for something like a property rental sign that has three lines of text but anything that requires mixing photos and creating an original style for a sign. You definately need to charge for that time. If not then you are leaving money on the table!

I can make from 25.00$ to 650.00$ on art charges alone. That's allot of money. And the busyer you are the more you can demand/justify it.

 

[Dave Sears]

Customers are paying you for art set up whether they realize it or not. It is up to you how much you want to share with them. So you can set your prices low and charge separately for art - this is the online model. Or you can set your prices higher and include basic set up. This is the traditional sign shop model.
It really depends upon your target market. As to how much to charge, I have always felt that $75 was a good minimum for basic set-up/design on new orders.

 

[Joe Diaz]

Back in the day you didn't have a whole lot of clients expecting to see fully fleshed out layouts before you actually physically made the sign, like they do now. Not small businesses anyway. And those rare occasions when a customer would request something like that, you better believe that sign maker would charge for that service. Otherwise they created it on the spot, or there was a simple hand sketched design on a piece of paper, and some sign makers charged for that service too.

 

[bob]

...So you have to ask yourself this, are you afraid that some anonymous guy on a forum is going to think you have an ego, or do you want to get paid for offering a service?

In the sign business, the 'service' you offer is about as substantive as the emperor's new clothes. Just because you specifically [and smugly] charge for it, and manage to get away with it, doesn't make it any more real.

Do not think for a moment that the work that comes out of my shop is of some lesser quality in either layout or execution or that the prices are less merely because every step of the process isn't individually charged.

 

[Joe Diaz]

In the sign business, the 'service' you offer is about as substantive as the emperor's new clothes. Just because you specifically [and smugly] charge for it, and manage to get away with it, doesn't make it any more real.

Do not think for a moment that the work that comes out of my shop is of some lesser quality in either layout or execution or that the prices are less merely because every step of the process isn't individually charged.

Not sure bob, I'm not going to measure ____ with you. I've never seen your stuff. I'm sure it's great. Whether or not your stuff is superior to anyone else's, doesn't change the fact that a sign shop can "get away" with selling design as a service. It makes no difference if you think it's selling the emperor his new clothes, there are plenty of folks that don't see it that way and make it work. I'm not sure why you are so bitter towards those that do. If no one is better or worst, and no one makes a better or worst sign (which is ridiculous btw), what do you suggest we do about it, all charge the same price? I'm not sure where you heading with this, other than you don't like it that some people charge for design and you don't.

 

[player]

I could never be a realtor showing houses day after day for free. I know they get paid when they sell, but I hate working on stuff for free. "Draw it up and I'll see if I want a sign..."

 

[GVP]

The way I see it is that someone has to pay for the design time - it's either your customer or it's you. Whether it's built in to the final price or shown as a line item doesn't really matter. The difficulty I have is when artwork is "valued" over and above the cost it's taken to produce it - I see figures discussed that I have no idea as to how they are arrived at. Kudos to those who find it works for them, but for me, if I can't see it, I find it difficult to convince a customer to see it...

 

[player]

You have to let your past designs do the selling on the new one. Show your skills and sell them on being able to do something as nice as that or better if they order from you. But once you design it, the hard part is done, and the duplicators can come in and do just as good a job at duplicating your artwork. They don't have the cost of the artwork and the brainpower/skill-set to do the artwork. This is called building a specification. People charge to build a specification.

 

[neil_se]

Whether it's built in to the final price or shown as a line item doesn't really matter.

Exactly, either you build it into your standard price, charge your shop rate for the total time taken to do a job, or you list materials and design separately. Either way you've got to charge for it or you'll go broke.

I changed the way we price a few years ago to charge artwork separately, as we do have graphic designers on staff and sometimes provide design services only. It also means that trade customers or clients with their own designers/marketing departments providing print-ready artwork aren't paying for the service again by having it built into the materials prices.

On larger jobs we'll list it separately so that the customer knows what we've allowed for and doesn't just ask for 5 concepts with 10 changes on each. On smaller jobs I'll usually put it in the line item because customers sometimes have difficulty accepting that a job is really $5 worth of vinyl and $25 worth of setup.

 

[hotrod46]

No art charges ever!

This is not a problem. If you use only one font.....Impact, you can
squeeze it, stretch it, it looks good almost every way. On a 4x8 you
take a line out to 94", gotta leave room for the sign to "breathe", on
a 18x24 you can take it a little tighter, say 23.5.

Okay, it is a problem. First, the fee we charge is probably low at $45/hr
but it is working since 1986 when we adopted it. HA!
For a basic layout without any logo design there is no
added charge. Last week a new realtor ordered a 2 sided 4x8 and 10
yard signs with frames. The total was $1019.00. He provided his logo
as a jpg 2" x 2" 300dpi. Without saying anything I recreated the logo
as vector art in 1/2 hour. When he saw it on the 4x8 he was beside
himself with what I had done (improvement) and business is coming in
because of it.