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 #2:
This one is fairly easy because it relates to another version; comic books. There are more correct guidelines there but I'll not cite those here..

If you work per page, you might be biting yourself because that is a ton of pages, dammit! Here's where you negotiate with yourself: do you want to earn fair? Or do you want to get paid no questions? — in the former case, you're looking at at least a couple hundred bucks (potentially well into the thousand), in the latter case, you're looking at overtime slave labour :P

So, in this case the process is based only on the finished product. You can't look at anything before that stage, but you need to set yourself some rules to add to your contract: how many revisions per image/page/theme, how many modifications per stage, etc. etc. You're also working for peanuts compared to workload regardless the case, and the work isn't fair. As for procedure; you don't release anything until you have your concepts solid, you don't show the (raw) product before full payment, etc. (guess your guidebook tells you that already)

But, anyhow, to prices: take their maximum amount of pictures (not pages), page size and pages, then calculate how much surface area you're going to be drawing and calculate that base to a regular piece of your work at the same type and quality demand (say you usually do A4 illustrated works, or something), or go by comic guidelines per page for the quality required. Add to that the release rights bonus and you're done.


Now then, all that said, you're still left negotiating with yourself. Do you want to "get noticed", or do you want to get paid? That one's up to you.

For both cases, divide the final amount by any setbacks from your side (unwarranted delays etc — make sure to state when you have off days and such!) and keep a late fee at the side that you add on top per X-amount of days or so. So if all goes well you're looking at a nice amount of funds — usually somewhere in the hundreds for a logo design and somewhere in the thousands for the creative work.

[miryhis.livejournal.com]

This is really good advice! I know the illustration commission is going to be very time-consuming, which is why I want there to be a fair price for it. Thank you for your help! The last paragraph is extremely important to consider!