# How to pay Graphic Designer



## RiverBoyApparel (Sep 18, 2012)

Hey everyone, I'm a Highschooler hopping into the Tshirt Business! Now I'm in a little bit of a predicament. Both myself and a friend have put down roughly $500 combined, on entry level Heat pressing equipment. We have a third member acting as the Graphic designer and overall artistic member of the group, and he is not apart of the financial effort. Now are main niche is going to be custom shirts for our highschool classmates, however we do have a few basic bread and butter images to start out with. How should I go about paying the designer for the images that we request, both the bread and butter images and the custom images? 20 percent of every shirt with his design on it? Buy each image at a flat rate? If you have any opinions on the situation your help would be greatly appreciated and if anyone has an alternative I would Love to hear it! Thankyou -Harris


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## ironchef (Apr 28, 2012)

I would just put him on an hourly. And bunch all your jobs so you only use him a couple days a week, until you guys grow larger. And maybe offer him the ability to get his own clients. And give him a good price like at cost or at a whole seller price...have one year, 5 year plans and so on. Maybe move into a flea market or mall space(the lil shops in the middle).and once you guys grow even more. He can be your manager and maybe have a percentage. If your going to be a legit business get a lawyer to help you so your not breaking any laws. Class dismissed. Lol
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## ironchef (Apr 28, 2012)

Oh i forgot to mention about price of logos. Lets say a customer wants a logo, whatever the designer creates is his by law. So the clients nor you can take that design else where. So make sure you let your customers know that if they want the logo on a disc or emailed in a high quality format or vectorized. It will cost them extra. And then it will be theirs to use as they please. Don't go cheap guys. Or you'll mess up the sign shops around the area. We already have a problem with lowballers. We welcome new guys. We even work with other people that resell our product. So we give them wholesale pricing. Just remember people actually rely on this kind of work to make a living. So i repeat do not go cheap! Lol btw im new to the apparel too. Been doing vinyl for over 15 years and started printing with a large format printer earlier this year
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## RiverBoyApparel (Sep 18, 2012)

Thanks for the advice! I get the sense that you think we're farther along than we really are. We're just a group of friends looking to make some money after school (high school) and on the weekends, contracting my friend to work by the hour at this stage, just doesn't seem right. We're on a small stage right now. Thanks for the input!


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## critzerk15 (Sep 11, 2012)

I paid my graphic designer, nzgraham from the forum, hourly


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## ironchef (Apr 28, 2012)

Even local designers that do freelance do it by the hour. 20 to 25 an hour. And if you want ownership/rights you have to pay them extra. 50 to 150 normally. But it goes into the thousands when it comes to big corps. Its ok to split the profits with different percentages, or evenly. Some designers get paid by job like for vehicle wraps. Around here its from 200 to 400 for design. But that includes at least 8 to ten hours of design time plus a couple/unlimited revisions

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## suzamac (Mar 18, 2008)

If you employ a graphic designer NOTHING he(she) creates while being paid by you, is his (hers).


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## printingray (Apr 4, 2012)

Hire him for per month work with specific timing or let him bid first on your designs then decide to give money.


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## ironchef (Apr 28, 2012)

Suzamac. This is true... if you have it on paper. Work for hire... if you don't have those words on a contract. The designer always wins. Well most of the time.

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## musicthreads (Feb 3, 2012)

I'd pay him per shirt sold at this point. This way he wants the designs to do well and since your market, you said, is your classmates, he would also in a way help the marketing process. If he has an interest in how many sells then he wants the designs to fare well and he'll put more work in it. This also doesn't put you out any money. Y'all are starting just a little bit before me, definitely a fun hobby hope y'all enjoy it as much as I do. One thing someone beat me to was an unofficial senior shirt. You can easy design one of those bad boys and sell dozens, and way more than that if you have a large class size.


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## ironchef (Apr 28, 2012)

Per shirt? Really? So if you have a simple layout, just letters and 100 shirts, what then? What if a customer wants one shirt but with a logo that takes 10 times longer then the simple layout?

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## GraphicsFactory (Jul 17, 2007)

I'm a graphic designer. I charge hourly. What I charge my clients (printers and ad specialty distributors,) is not necessarily what they charge their customers. You have three options, or some combination. You can pay him per design, by the hour, or by the shirt (on commission.) The method depends on your business. First, if you are selling your own shirt line from a website, then I would pay a small per design flat fee of $15 to $20. Then as you sell the shirts, split the profits three ways at the end of the month (or some period of time,) with the artist making half the commission you and the other friend each are making. Next, however, if you are doing custom orders, charge and pay by the hour so the fee/charge varies with the complexity. In this scenario you charge your customers the going rate, roughly $25 to $50 per hour. You should shop around and make sure you are in line with your competition. But, because he has no real experience, he should only make about $10 per hour. That should increase as your sales builds. My basic rate is $24 per hour (15 minute/$6 increments) for basic stuff with a 30 minute minimum. Most of my more complex jobs run about $70 to $120.


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## silkworx (Oct 3, 2012)

RiverBoyApparel said:


> 20 percent of every shirt with his design on it? Buy each image at a flat rate? If you have any opinions on the situation your help would be greatly appreciated and if anyone has an alternative I would Love to hear it! Thankyou -Harris


i chose this quote because i do the same to my graphic artist..although im a graphic artist too i put him(my friend) to be my graphic artist. i gave him a 10% share in 1 whole project.that's how i pay my workers and they agreed too. you should talk to your artist and make an agreement.or better make a contract signing before you start the project so that no one's gonna complain after. what matter is there should be an AGREEMENT to all of your workers. that's it. good luck dude.

Drex Allan from Philippines


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## ironchef (Apr 28, 2012)

Hey graphics factory, do you do 3d art/letters? If so shoot me your email. I work with some local designers and if not i do it myself, i only know corel x6, and omega 5 (cutting software)

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