Unsure about Pricing Logos and Children's Book Illustrations

[miryhis.livejournal.com]

Hello!

Recently, I have been asked for two commissions, and I'm not sure how to handle pricing them. I purchased the Graphic Artist's Guild Handbook, but I can't seem to find a case that relates to the first one. I could be overlooking something, though!

1) Someone has asked for me to draw a logo, a mascot, and 4 pieces of art relating to their business. The 4 pieces are just going to be various electronics on transparent backgrounds. I'm not sure what to quote for a price, so I looked it up online, but I could only find prices just for logos and not for the mascot or the 4 extra pieces. I thought that mascots would fall under logos, but I'm not completely sure about that. All of the art will be used in signs and on their website. What do you think I should charge for this amount of work (logo, mascot, and 4 pictures of art)?

2) I have been asked by an author to draw illustrations for their children's book. I saw something pertaining to this in the handbook, but I'm at a loss because they want 40-50 pictures. I have no idea what to charge for that amount. I received advice that said I should charge a different amount per a page in case the author wants more detailed pictures for some of the pages. I'm going to meet with the client Sunday, so I will update the post with any new information. What would be a good price for a commission this size or what should I charge per a page?

Thank you for your help!

EDIT: Case #1 went through. Case #2 is in limbo. The client decided on 5-6 illustrations and wanted to pay $250 + royalties for the book. I was not sure if that would be a good price for that ammount of art.

Comments

[kashidom.livejournal.com]

Case #1:
You're dealing with not one but 6 commissions under one contract (you do have one, right?) ..it doesn't stop there, though; you're doing stuff over three distinct disciplines of creative release, a logo is a PR/PI design project, which are pretty damn expensive normally, the mascot is a marketing campaign, which is normally very rigorous to work on, and the four pieces of art are pretty much illustrative advertisements, which may or may not cost a lot depending on what you're delivering.

Now then, all six of them will fall under the creative-for-profit grouping, so that automatically includes your bonus and release rights.. this means contracts, big money, legal stuff, lawyers if there's a fuss and all that jazz. Fun times!

The formula I used to apply to logo design is based on files, file size and intent; will it be on just a site? Will they use it on letterheads, cards, printed media, billboards, or even the building? That all increases the scale of what you're doing. Will you design it in pixels or vectors? Will it be in colour, how many versions do they need, does it need to be optimised for certain media, etc. etc. ..there's a lot to keep in mind — however, the price to me was simply set to a specific amount I thought fair per file size or printed dimensions, or per hours if it was hand made (pixels/paint = drawing/painting). Public display cost more because of release rights and PR/PI campaign work (letterheads, business cards, etc.) was another bonus altogether. In essence a logo can bring you a couple hundred bucks easily!

The formula for the creative work (drawings/paintings) is usually: your personal value (time spent x effort taken[including frustrations, dealing with client, etc. if you want]) x your creative bonus (ego = is this my best work ever? or quality = how good of a job did you do? ..in percents of course) + release rights bonus (any sum that you agree will be worth their profit in your eyes — remember this is a one-time payment, don't cheat yourself!) ..if this is all too arbitrary for you, see surface area guidelines in Case #2 :P

[miryhis.livejournal.com]

This is excellent advice, thank you very much!

As far as I know, the image will be used on cards, signs, and the website. I will make sure to verify this. I also like that you provided a formula as a guideline, I'll be sure to utilize it!