Styleguide cost
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- sabatizer0
Pricing style guides is tricky since they have so much unseen work behind them. Hopefully the client realizes the price includes not just the time to create the document/site, but also all the work, thinking, approvals, etc that needed to be done in order to come up with those rules (which is usually most of the project). For example, the client may first pay for a design job, then they have to pay again for you to build rules around your designs, and test those rules - and the deliverable from that second assignment is the style guide.
For this reason, I've usually heard of style guides charged on a per page basis (or on a site as suggested above, a per "topic" basis) which ends up being pretty expensive if the client was expecting just the cost of laying out a document or building a site.
- The rules have already been established, this is essentially gathering and publishing it all in one place
flashbender - So, flashbender, this is essentially a layout problem. Or maybe gathering graphics?Josev
- The rules have already been established, this is essentially gathering and publishing it all in one place
- cannonball19780
If you are designing things that need style guides, you should be charging time and materials with a cap. Fixed bids are for suckers in this business.
- To clarify - yeah, that is a time/materials estimate. not a fixed feeflashbender
- Continuity0
Your Hourly Rate x Number of Hours to Do the Job = Style Guide Cost
It really is that simple. If you're offering fixed pricing from an à la carte menu (e.g., 'Style Guides: £250') for every client/project, you're just selling yourself short, and likely making a loss. Every project is different, every project has different variables, every client is different, and you should be billing by either the hour or day, not by type of project.
This is isn't product sales, it's service provision.
- flashbender0
Thanks, I was looking more for an acceptable range to produce
THis is actually for a project that I had an agency do and they came back with an estimate of £4,000 - which frankly seems very high to me.
- toodee0
I guess as a rough guide you could use a percentage of the website design fee.
Don't know what percentage though. Maybe 10-15%? I don't think you'd need to do much thinking to create it, you will have already thought about everything as you were designing the site.
- Continuity0
The acceptable range to produce is exactly the formula above. I don't see what so difficult about it. And yes, 4k is high, but that's agency pricing, and you know what? They arrived at that figure using exactly the same formula, but with extra services factored in: account management, creative, production. So it's likely three different hourly rates in play.
- you need to simmer down, you act like you're taking this personally.flashbender
- Soz, didn't mean it to come across that way.Continuity
- yay, we're all good. I get what you're saying though, but for me a style guide is a bit different than actual design work since it is just compiling informationflashbender
- ... than actual design work since it is essentially compiling informationflashbender
- hans_glib0
those style guides are a total waste of time. no-one uses them, far less reads them, or even understands them if they do actually read them. they're just an excuse for agencies to rip off clients, as you're discovering.
- I had to refer to a styleguide recently that didn't even adhere to its own rules...detritus
- this is true, but it seems an unfortunate by-product of the corporate worldflashbender
- the last one i saw used a logo with a mistake in it!!! FFShans_glib
- Continuity0
Also, with agency pricing, they factor in general overhead by using the cost+ pricing model. Which is to say:
Graphic Designer cost: 50/hr + 20% (random figure here) = cost coverage and profit
- BaskerviIle0
As a designer I'm charged out (by my agency) at about £1000 a day. So that would be 4 days of my times. 4 days to do a style guide is no time at all, normally it would take a couple of week, including writing the content, pulling together all the visuals, layout etc.
But then I work at quite a large agency, working on large international clients, who generally require pretty in-depth styleguides.It all depends on how detailed and content-heavy the guide is
- I appreciate this, but pretty sure they will have a jr. or an intern do it since it is really just compiling information. Not super content heavy eitherflashbender
- << content heavy eitherflashbender
- It's not as siple as "compiling information", determinging what should be included, making the information consistent, resolving inconsistencies, etc. It's a lot of workJosev
- inconsistencies, etc. it's a lot of work.Josev
- BaskerviIle0
Also, I'd recommend that all style guides from now on are simply very useful websites that really help the user find what they want in a quick and efficient way. The days of printed guides and even PDFs should be well over by now, but they not for some reason.
Why wouldn't you want an updatable website that's controllable by the client, always up to date. That way you know everyone's singing from the same hymn-sheet and can download all the correct artwork etc- i recently pitched this idea to a client. they ignored me and went with an agency proposing the usual useless shithans_glib
- clients always get the work they deservehans_glib
- though a website controlled by the client? they usually haven't a fucking clue how to maintain a brand identityhans_glib
- ooh i'm angry !!! ANGRY, I tells ya!!!hans_glib
- flashbender0
^ this is a great idea. I will definitely be raising this.
- BaskerviIle0
We've made a couple of on-line brand centres/guidelines which we control and update content for the client. It's so much better than a PDF which becomes out of date as soon as you make it.
The new brand sites are responsive and work on iphones etc, so it makes it really easy for anyone need even the smallest bit of info about a brand guidelines. Plus you can sell a web project to a client while also making their lives easier (and you can make money by maintaining the site for them)