Cold Pitching A Redesign To A High School

[mark_lavis]

Over the past year and a half, I've been improving my logo design capabilities and now I'm at a point where I believe that I can start pitching redesigns to area high schools. However, I'm rather unfamiliar with how I should go about pitching a redesign to a high school out of the blue. As a journalist, I only have experience cold calling schools and companies as a member of a press and not as a salesman. 

 

Given how you can't throw a rock on this forum without hitting a high school redesign, I was wondering if anyone would help shed some lights on the dos/don'ts. I'm mostly looking at pitching to schools who are currently "borrowing" pro and college logos/schools currently using Native American imagery. Other than having a portfolio/lookbook handy to showcase my previous logo designs, should I preview my redesign for their school (if I've already made it) or hold-off to show it until we've reached some sort of agreement (if I should even have a pre-made redesign ready in the first place). 

[BrandMooreArt]

1. be clear on why you're interested in doing this and how it would benefit them. it has to be more than "ill make your logo look better". no one cares about that. 

 

2. use examples from other schools. even taking something like Nike's work with Tennessee would be beneficial. 

 

3. show work you've done that relates to the project but no concepts for the specific school you're contacting. those are done in your own vision. you need to find what their vision is for the school and their own beliefs, and design things that express them. 

 

4. have a plan for payment and project process. how long does this take? what do i (school) get from it? can i see how it will look on a helmet and tshirt? how will we execute the roll out? what do i do if i want to replace signage? 

[mark_lavis]

Do you mind if i asked what should be my price range. Having no real world experience to go off of, all I have for reference it was other designers say online. I've seen numerous places that for a freelance logo designer who has yet to accumulate a bulky portfolio of clients, the price should be somewhere between $200-800 for a single logo and more for a complete package that could include a secondary logo, a wordmark and a variety of team-specific wordmarks. Knowing that I'd be dealing with schools, I feel that setting the price too high would scare them off easily. 

 

Also, just to see if I'm on the right path, here's some of my responses to your bullet points.

 

1. Having your own unique identity is paramount to the longevity and success of your school's brand in the community. By using a pre-existing stock logo for your program, you risk your brand being co-opted by other schools in the state and local independent athletic teams which diminishes your brand's capacities. By using a trademarked logo belonging to a pro or collegiate team, you risk that team causing you to undergo a sudden redesign if they choose to protect their intellectual property (citing numerous case studies of this occurring). Given how fast they expected you to comply to your request, this could force you to spend money than if you initiated the redesign on your own terms. 

 

2. Research and show numerous case studies, shooting for unique and well-done high school brand designs already in use. 

 

3. Show designs I've made for fictional schools and how they were implemented.

 

4. Right up contract that names all of the logo(s) that will be provided to the school and the payment price/format that will be delivered to me once the logo(s) are given to the school. The contract also lays out a timeframe when the logo(s) will be delivered to the school as well as any sort of agreements regarding revisions (and how long they'd take) as well as previews involving the logo(s) usage on items such as a helmet. Would rollout entail me making one of those graphics where I have to point out every design choice I made and why? Does "what do i do if i want to replace signage?" mean recommending them outlets to have shirts made and helmet stickers produced?