DESIGNA MAGAZINE DESIGNA ISSUE III 2019 2 | Page 102

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Are these rights transferrable if the
company is sold.
What kind of company is it? Is it for a
Mom-and-Pop business, a multi-
billion dollar corporation or something
in between?
By now your head must be spinning. This
is some complicated stuff, right? Maybe,
but this is how you can actually make a
living doing illustration and design and
maybe even eventually quit your but-they-
give-me-health-insurance barista job.
What follows is a fictional pricing example
to show how powerful licensing can be.
I'm going to write it in the context of
lettering, which is priced essentially the
same as illustration. Graphic designers
should still pay attention though, because
when I talk about buyout pricing, that's
essentially what you're going to be
thinking about when pricing logos. My
price points will be higher than what a
fresh-faced fresher or one who only knows
design software can probably charge, but
should at least illustrate how much of an
impact licensing can have on the cost of
artwork.
3. The Correspondence
Dear Ms. Mwangi,
I'm an art director at One touch design
Agency, working on a campaign for an
international clothing brand (on par with
The Gap) and am writing to gauge your
interest in creating artwork for us. We
need one five-word phrase illustrated in a
script style. The artwork should be highly
illustrative, attached are some examples of
work you and others have done that are in
the ballpark of what we want for the
campaign. If this sounds appealing to you,
please send us a quote by end of day
tomorrow so that we can present your
work, along with a few others we are
gathering quotes from, to the client.
Thanks so much and look forward to
working with you!
Sincerely,
Athanas, Director
They didn't give me much to go on here
aside from the actual work I'm creating. It
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June 2019
sounds like a cool job, but I'm going to
need to do some investigating before
giving a proper quote. The biggest young
designer mistake here would be to quote a
flat fee without finding out what kind of
usage rights they want.
Thanks so much for thinking of me
Athanas! I'll put together a quote this
afternoon. Do you want me to price for
every usage scenario or do you have some
specific uses in mind?
All the best,
Jane Mwangi
Usually here they'd write back with some
very, very specific uses in mind, which
makes it a bit easier to quote, but
sometimes you'll get a letter that looks
something like this:
Hi Jane,
Great to hear back from you! We're still in
the exploratory stages of the project, so we
can't give specific usage situations yet.
Please quote for creation of artwork for
presentation only and for a few ballpark
usages.
Athanas
4. What We Know
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This is for a big international clothing
company.
They are gathering prices from a few
different people. They'll present several
artists to the client, who will chose
based on style or lowest price
depending on what the client's priority
is.
They want a price for presentation
only. This means you create the
artwork and they only have the right to
show it around in-house and to the
client, NOT to use it in any way for
their campaign.
They want a number of usage
scenarios. This is on top of that initial
creation / presentation fee.
5. Pricing for Presentation
If you've done any editorial illustration
work (magazines and newspapers), you
know that the rates are pretty standard
across the board say: Kshs. 25,000 to
50,000 for a spot illustration, 50,000 to
75,000 for a half page, 100,000 to
150,000 for a full page, 200,000 to
300,000 for a full spread, 150,000 to
350,000 for a cover. These are all pretty
normal prices and there are of course
magazines that pay higher or lower. I
tend to start with these prices in mind
when thinking about pricing for
“Presentation Only.”
They want a five-word phrase that is
highly illustrative, which equates to “a
full page illustration” or so. Because this
is for advertising and not editorial, adjust
your rates depending on the client. This
is for a big company, so my presentation-
only fee might be somewhere around the
50,000 to 70,000 mark depending on
how complicated what they're after
actually is. If this were for a smaller
company, the presentation-only fee
might be closer to 20,500 or 35,000.
6. Sample Usage Scenarios
If a client doesn't tell you specifically
what usage rights they need, you should
make sure there is a good range
represented. In this situation, I'm
definitely going to price based on the
length of time they need it, plus some
general examples of what context the
artwork will be used in. When you send
your quote, it should be broken down as
clearly as possible so there is no
confusion as to what the clients are
paying for in each stage of rights
licensing. This would be the quote I
would send back:
Hi Arthur,
Below are a few sample quotes for the
project. As I did not have much info
about what usage rights you needed, we
would need to talk specifically about
anything not mentioned below once the
client has a clearer picture of what they
need.
Presentation Only: Kshs. 70,000
Two to three initial pencil sketches