Thinking of Design as a Business

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Graphic designer’s and other creative professionals often find themselves in a very difficult situation, they find themselves not being treated with the same deference as other service professionals such as electricians or mechanics. Designers photographers writers and artists often find themselves haggling with their clients and customers and having to justify the investment in their services in a way that other professionals do not. Somehow the value of their creativity, their technical skills,ability and education is not as clear to the average person or even two other professionals at these more excepted and conventional service providers.

The cost in investment of being a graph designer or another create a professional is rarely if ever taken into consideration. A set of craftsman tools and socket wrenches is a relatively small investement in terms of tools, when compared to the investment in a MacBook Pro and thousands of dollars of software from Adobe. But while $75 per hour is something people tend to live with when getting their car or their plumbing fixed, the idea of someone charging that to develop a logo or print marketing material or build a website for them somehow seems unreasonable.

Competing with the low-end market.

Part of the issue is inexperienced designers offering their services for free or near free in terms of their rates and creating the impression that it shouldn’t cost that much. This is mostly a result of younger designers either needing to make extra money to supplement their income or not being able to break into the industry directly out of college and wanting to find ways to build up their portfolio.

Both within and outside of the profession there is the idea that the value of graphic design and creativity should be driven by the what others are charging in the marketplace. While on some level this is how it actually occurs in every industry people are using globalization and crowdsourcing as a standard for determining graphic design rates. Even graphic designers themselves are mistakenly doing this.

For a hobbyist this is not damaging however for industry professionals as more graph design work shift from in-house designers to freelancers and small studios this becomes more problematic. The level of quality ability professionalism and investment is not being considered distinct from the services provided by students and hobbyist. They are being put in the same category without any regard for the difference in the value that they create for for their clients. In every industry someone with a decade or more of experience finds it reasonable to charge a higher rate than someone with only two years of experience. However creative services industry this is no longer being taken into consideration.

Operating like a business and setting your rates.

A good business person knows that your rates are not dictated by what people “want” to pay or by what someone else thinks they should be. Your rates are driven by the profits you want to receive. Once one considers the cost of doing business, which include not only the means of production but the means of marketing and acquiring new clients or customers as well as opportunity cost and losses, they then have to include a mark up that represents their overall profits. This this is the appropriate way to determine your rates. What your contemporaries are charging has nothing to do with it. What an individual operating in a completely different economy from you charges has nothing to do with it. None of those factors reduce your cost, your investment or in anyway dictate the quality of your work and the value that you can create for your clients. The most successful brands in the world’s charge more than competing lesser-known brands, and there is a reason for that. Understand your value and find a way to effectively communicate it to your clients.

Overcoming optics

The optics around graphic design and other creative service professions is that we belong to an industry full of people who get paid to sit around and play on the computer. In an age where everyone has a camera built into their phone photographers seem redundant and to be overpaid “artist”. There are publications that have gone so far as to fire established staff photographers and simply handout iPhones to their remaining staff, allowing everyone on payroll to become a “photo journalist”.

Somehow people have convinced themselves that is a good idea to pay five dollars to have a logo developed to represent their professional brand; Good enough has simply become good enough for the majority of people, even in the professional world.

So what can creative professionals do about this? There is a lesson in many regards to be learned from Apple as a brand. Ultimately Apple realized at some point that competing in the mass market for personal computers was not going to be viable. Instead they made themselves a product for a niche market and a status symbol associated with elites, hence the “think different” campaign. Apple targeted creators.

As a creative professional today there is a difference in the perception you’re met with if you take a meeting and present on your iPad or MacBook Pro versus any comparable product from a competitor. The perception of your value is augmented by your association with Apple as a Brent. This is not to suggest that you can immediately charge more if you’re using Apple products, this is just an anecdotal example of the fact that rather than lower it’s rates to be competitive, Apple simply decided on what they wanted their margins to be and made themselves desirable enough that people would figure out a way to afford it.

Creative professionals need to market and present himself in such a way that their value is undeniable see if they want to avoid competing on price and on the quality of their work and experience.

If you don’t want to compete with college students, overseas labor or someone’s cousin who will do it for free, then don’t! The idea is not to get as many customers as you can but you get the few customers who are willing to pay what you decide you are worth. You simply have to set your value accordingly and put in the work necessary to attract people who will evaluate and can afford it. While this is obviously easier said then done creative professionals know better than anyone that committing to a course of action completely is usually the difference between what is impossible and possible.

Some direct courses of action that one can take to create the necessary perception of value and transition into a higher and market in terms of clients are simpler than you might imagine. For one thing you should immediately do an audit of your own branding. Take a hard look at the quality of the materials that you were using to promote and market yourself in terms of your business cards, your own logo, your website and anything else that puts you in front of customers. Review your prefold out and take the weakest pieces out regardless of what personal value they may have to you. Focus on promoting and marketing the work that will attract the type of clients that you want to pursue going forward.

If you don’t feel like your local market in terms of clients can support the prices that you intend to set then you need to find a way to go beyond the local market. Consider investing more energy and learning about online marketing and how to attract business by leveraging SEO. This and other inbound marketing strategies will be very beneficial to you because you won’t be restricted by local economics or culture and will be able to widen your net and attract the type of clients that you really want, without regard for The demographics of your current location.

Remember at the end of the day as a creative professional your actual job is to help someone make their own business more successful, there is an irony in the fact that we tend to overlook this with regard to ourselves and our own careers. Apply the same care and th
e same thought that you would use to help someone else scale their brand to yourself and think of yourself as a business person first and an artist second. If you can alter that perception about yourself you’re more likely to be able to communicate it effectively to your clients and convince them very easily to pay you what you feel you are worth.

 

Roberto Blake is a graphic designer helping entrepreneurs and small businesses improve their branding and presentations. He also teaches graphic design and Adobe tutorials through his YouTube channel and community. See robertoblake.com for more details.
  • Barbara Rogers says:

    This was a great read!! It nailed so many relevant points that now plague the creaitve industry – graphic designers, photographers etc.The interesting thing is that a few weeks ago I did a blog post called “The Similarities Between a Car Mechanic & Graphic Designer” which literally addressed the fact that visual professionals ARE actual business owners and need to be treated as such. And we don’t work for free/on a speculative basis – cuz you wouldn’t ask a car mechanic to do so would you?

    • Thanks Barbara! I’m glad you enjoyed it, I’m going to try and find your article! It’s absolutely true, design and creative professions are devalued in a way that other businesses are not.

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