SB – you have my sympathies. Some of the responses and attitiudes on this thread are almost unbelievable. And even if your offer wasn't perfectly worded so what? Jesus people, get over yourselves.

And M_F – your business analogy is a bit poor. Maybe you should concentrate on educating/managing your punters so they pay fair prices for the amount of work you do rather than dicking one and using the profit there to offset the expense of servicing the fussy one.

Bit surprised you haven't made a conection between the fact some people (in your opinion) don't value design work and the fact you don't actually charge them for the real cost of dealing with them.

There's logos and there's logos. SB wants a 50 quid one. I think he's a smashing bloke and would be happy to do him that favour in other circumstances. If you're not, I'd suggest not getting involved? It's not like designers have a reputation for being touchy they need to protect 🙂

This thread smacks of people who want to make their jobs out to be more involved/complex/important than they know they are, hence the extreme sensitivity to it being 'devalued' by someone offering less than their usual 'going rate'. If they were really confident of the value of it, they'd have either said 'thanks but no thanks, that's not enough' or just ignored it.

🙂 <— please note, you overly sensitive types…

Are you all claiming you cannot make a logo within 2 hours @ £25 per hour?
Really is the creative process that slow?
Granted the I will pay if I like it bit is a tad unfair but how long will it take you to do a Logo to a brief?
What is your hourly rate?

Why not start a design business then clubber? You should find it pretty easy, plus you can undercut the established smoke and mirrors merchants quite comfortably. 😕

Hey – I just noticed that peopleperhour.com banner –>
Why not just get on there and see if anyone wants £50?

Are you all claiming you cannot make a logo within 2 hours @ £25 per hour?

I can make a logo. But I can't make the (specific) logo that does a very specific job, whatever that job is.

Even if it did take only two hours it takes many years t get to that level.

"What is your hourly rate?"

less than a plumber, and that's simply joining pipes together, right?

glenp – Member
Why not start a design business then clubber? You should find it pretty easy, plus you can undercut the established smoke and mirrors merchants quite comfortably.

I don't think I could – that's why I don't. Plus I don't think I'm precious enough for the industry 😉

Besides that I didn't make any comment about the actual value of design work anyway, only about peoples' responses to the question. You just came over all sensitive, pretty much making my point…

This does actually provide a good answer http://www.peopleperhour.com/find/Graphic_Design

There's 10,912 Freelancers on there apparently, plus a mechanism to offer the job for tender, plus portfolios to check out, plus they can all charge what they like. Sounds like an open, competitive market to me – see if anyone wants to do a logo for £50.

Even if it did take only two hours it takes many years to get to that level.

Doesn't really compute. It's typically the rate per hour which reflects the "years to get to that level", not the number of hours (which, the more skilled you are, should be less).

Besides, as the great CLassifieds Debates have taught us, isn't something only worth what people are prepared to pay for it?

I was wondering about whether the o/p could use the Mechanical Turk, but peopleperhour sounds better.

Clubber you were saying that deigners were trying to make their jobs sound more complicated than they really are, whereas the designers are frustrated because you can't see how it could be that complicated. I'm not sensitive about it as such. Your admission that you couldn't do it pretty much makes my point – most people think that they couldn't do it themselves but that the people who can do it find it so easy that they wouldn't mind not being paid very much for it! Just because I an "do" design, doesn't mean it is easy.

No, not really – I was saying that SOME designers don't really believe that their work is that good/worthwhile which is why they're so sensitive about it.

Just the same as I've dealt with plenty of people in my industry (IT) who are pretty rubbish at their jobs and are so terrified of being found out that they get extremely sensitive the second you question the value of their work.

What I said about why I don't start my own business doing design is that I couldn't do it profitably as an ongoing concern for £50 for the sort of work that is being asked for, especially on the basis of only being paid if it's used. That's not the same as saying that the work is actually always worth the money to the customer paying for it. Plenty of logos/branding concepts/etc may come out of all sorts of creative meetings/experience/thinktanks/etc without actually providing value to the customer – only the good designers/companies do that and they do cost more.

Are you all claiming you cannot make a logo within 2 hours @ £25 per hour?
Really is the creative process that slow?
Granted the I will pay if I like it bit is a tad unfair but how long will it take you to do a Logo to a brief?
What is your hourly rate?

it depends on a whole host of things – what is it for -if it's just a pretty logo for someone who'll be happy with a pretty logo then 2 hours is plenty.

If it needs to be a well thought out brand device which works across all types of media, at all sizes, and conveys the correct message for the company then no, it'll take a lot longer than 2 hours. You're creating a brand identity, not just a logo.

as for rates – commercial company rates range easily from £50-£100 per hour depending on location in the UK. For me to do a 'foreigner' I'd charge around £25 per hour

finally, apologies for the link if it caused anyone offence – forgot it was a little colourful language wise!

and apologies to the OP – no offence intended

Why bother with the debate?

Honestly, the thread has no intrinsic value if you're a designer (or similar) in this thread you're simply rising to the Trolls, you are not going to convert the unconverted.

I've stopped voicing my opinion on similar postings, "tell me how to photograh XYZ for free or at cost – please!" as you're banging your collective heads against the proverbial brick wall.

i would stop trying to explain things to the visually illiterate and ride your bike instead.

MrSmith – Member
i would stop trying to explain things to the visually illiterate

Rather lazy to hide behind insults there.

oh and the 'pay if I like it' is unfortunately a way of life in advertising

it's called a pitch, and is usually the norm for a company looking for a new agency. They'll give half a dozen agencies a briefand ask them to come up with ideas – they'll spend 2 days coming up with some great work. the client gets a load of good ideas for free, and only chooses one (sometimes more) to work with. the rest get sweet FA.

i would stop trying to explain things to the visually illiterate

Do they teach you to sound that snobby and pretentious or does that come with your obviously enormous gift of creativity?

M6TTF – there is a slightly higher risk to reward ratio involved when agencies are pitchng for work.

oh and the 'pay if I like it' is unfortunately a way of life in advertising

For individual creative workers and/or creative agencies do you mean?

Are you expected to absorb the cost on behalf of a client pitching for the work or are you pitching direct to the end client?

My company does a reasonable sideline in advertorials but never work for free.

We know from experience that too many people in advertising couldn't sell their way out of a paper bag.

Grum – the best thing about this is the bit you can't even see. As designers we all possess a carefully honed look of withering condescension that we deploy in meetings/pitches and suchlike.

It saves us the trouble of pointing out in words what a visual illiterate/philistine you actually are. It works every time. You should see mine. I've been deploying it to great effect for nearly 20 years. Its a belter 🙂

Ah but you don't get to see the way that us non-designer types p!ss ourselves laughing later about those withering looks that you think we actually care about 😉

I tend to work on the principle that if I haven't thrown my rattle out of the pram at least once during a meeting, then I'm not taking my job seriously enough 😀

M6TTF- yes that link you posted up was indeed very funny I liked his tone and use of graphs it was superb.

I think the OP is not asking you to rebrand and re launch Ratners or something huge – well I assume not for £50. It seemed resonable , to an outsider, to get a logo.
I assume the OP knows what £50 will get him a logo without the BS 😉

less than a plumber, and that's simply joining pipes together, right?

Depends one wanted £50 from me to fit a compression joint to stop a pipe so not even that. I did not pay him £50 for 10 mins work due ot hsis wealth of experience in tightening nuts to squash an Olive.
May industries overvalue/charge for their worth plumbing [imho] is one as the average DIY can do about 50-60% of their job IMHO – dont get me wrong I am not fitting a boiler but I have done all the water plumbing in my house including the radiators.

Please some of this is tongue in cheek dont flame me go for Grumm he desrves it …ask him what he does for a living

After a quick speed read this could be summed up with:
A guy asks designer types to knock up a quick logo for £50 if he likes it and uses it.
Some designer types pull a button off of their frilly shirts in exasperation at their precious time being far too expensive than that dahling but obviously being on this website is worth more than the 10 minutes (= 50 squid in the sky rocket) that it would probably take to do it.
A more mature and reasoned person(s) has suggested that maybe the above types would not be interested in knocking something simple up for £50.
Mastiles Fannywhateveritevenmeans is being a cock again.

Grum – the best thing about this is the bit you can't even see. As designers we all possess a carefully honed look of withering condescension that we deploy in meetings/pitches and suchlike.

It saves us the trouble of pointing out in words what a visual illiterate/philistine you actually are. It works every time. You should see mine. I've been deploying it to great effect for nearly 20 years. Its a belter

Got any pics? For free of course. 😉

Please some of this is tongue in cheek dont flame me go for Grumm he desrves it …ask him what he does for a living

Oi! I'm not a plumber. 😛

think you have hit the proverbial nail there barca.

no idea why anyone would be offended… im sat here, with potential free time on my hands, if some one offered me 50 notes to knock something up that i could do in half an hour then i probably would.

bit like someone giving me a fiver to true their wheel. if i was in a shop it wouldnt be enough, but in my spare time why the hell not?

Rather lazy to hide behind insults there.

i was going for a bike ride to didn't want to waste any more time typing a longer reply,

Do they teach you to sound that snobby and pretentious or does that come with your obviously enormous gift of creativity?

they are independent of one another.

I'm with Barca on this one, put it better than I did.

this gives you a feel for my work.

my terms are £49.50 upfront and the balance (50p) payable on receipt of logo

The amusing thing is that there are probably loads of people who would be happy with that 😆

Not everyone wants everything to look like an Apple advert 😉

I think that'd look sweeeeeeeet on Stratobiker's downtube.

See, there's 2 recommendations already. I'm getting a name for myself…

bad kerning.
probably passable for the visually unaware

ah but next time you'll now have to charge for this last hours experience…

Oooh look he can use technical terms like 'kerning' – he must be so visually aware. 😛

i bet you had to google that. 🙂

The amusing thing is that there are probably loads of people who would be happy with that

So true – I've produced many a shite logo at the customers request!!!