Another great newsweek article

[Sterling84]

Article

Take special note of the Nike swoosh part at the end.

Dang.

[yh]

Bravo to the author for incoporating real-world business education into his curriculum. This is something that for the most part is sorely lacking in the university environment. One of my favorite classes in law school was my first year property class - not because it was interesting or even the least bit intellectually challenging (it's a very dry, dull course), but because my professor had just come out of 20 years of private practice with a large firm in Chicago and was always supplementing his lectures with practical advice regarding the business of the practice of law. Sadly, that was pretty much the only bit of practical advice any of us got for the subsequent 2 1/2 years of law school.

[pcgd]

Everyone here that has done a logo for a team for next to nothing should read this article. Focus on the last line.

[RedEye]

This is exactly why I hate to see some of the requests in the request forum asking for a lot for little to nothing in return. Aside from fantasy requests.

By agreeing to do design work for little to nothing we simply "educate" clients and prospective clients that our expertise is not worth what it truly is. Once they get it in their head that creative work is cheap to get, they will scoff at legit quotes. In the end the profession suffers from an ingnorance on the client's side.

Agreeing to do work cheaper than someone else so you can simply get the job only means you will always get clients expecting that type of fee. Starving artist you will be.

[Mings]

Put it this way, for as much work as I do for clients, there are many more that I turn down. Of course it is easy to turn people down when it isn't a primary source of income. Some people know of a sour experience I had with someone about them undercutting and stealing a client from me at one time.

Heck I had a gem of an email last week. Basically the owner of a team demanded that I do a logo and website for free. I laughed.

[quantum]

Great article. I think salesmen and management should read this article as well. Often art services are undersold by sales staff. I used to work for a printing plate making company. Many customers would have our company recreate a logo versus going to a design studio because we charged relatively little. I remember the graphics supervisor complaining about that all the time.