3 things designers need to know before we start your graphic design project
1. Time Frames – How quickly do you need it?
A. When would you want to start your project, and B. when do you need it completed? Typical website projects take us 8-12 weeks, and we tend to book out 4-8 weeks in advance. This may sound crazy, but similar to a popular restaurant on a Saturday night the best advice for getting a table is to call for reservations! Smaller projects require less lead time, but it’s always a good rule of thumb to let us know as soon as possible, so we can make time to help you.
2. Budget – What does my project cost?
Our least favorite question simply because there’s never a good way of knowing until we talk to you about your goals, and figure out the real scope of the project. Asking how much is kind of like asking how much does a meal cost? The answer really depends on where you’re eating, who’s cooking, what you’re eating, etc… That’s why every project starts with a free scope meeting. We take the time to get to know you, your project and identify what’s needed (and provide a quote) before we start a project. Just to give you a ballpark, typical website project run around $3000. Completely custom websites start at $5000. Start to add things like e-commerce, excessive quantities of pages, custom functionality, etc. and you’ll see an increase in price. Logo designs start at $700 and other print work ranges from $100 to $100,000. Project cost is determined based off of our flat studio rate and the amount of time we believe it will take for us to complete you project. We use your specific project goals and reference our history of similar projects to come up with fairly accurate estimates.
If you have a budget in mind, it’s best to let us know up front. We can tailor a solution to meet that budget or point you to alternate resources; or possibly provide recommendations on how to reallocate unnecessary funds to another project to help meet your goals. Nothing is gained by keeping a budget a secret. It usually just wastes everybody’s time.
3. Everything Else – What else can you tell us?
This is your chance to put it all out there and tell us everything else you know or think you know. Who are you? Who are your competitors? What’s the one thing that makes you special or unique? What is the main search term people use to find you? Do you know your customer demographics (everyone everywhere is NOT an acceptable answer)? Does the president of the company have a love affair with orange? What are you long term goals for your project and are their any other components to your marketing efforts that may affect this project? What do you want your customers to do? Pick up the phone, email you, buy something, share with a friend? What calls to action do you think will get them to do that? Also, are you suppling the text and photos? Do you need to hire a photographer? The more you tell us now, the less we have to ask later.