When I was growing up most of my friends were DJs. For a moment I felt like I was rising as a designer in the same way, but it never quite turned out the same.
Let’s take a step back. When I say my friends were DJs, I’m talking about guys who were making me mix tapes that I took to boarding school with me. They later became headlining acts at Ultra. They came up playing every gig that would let them play, even if it meant no one on the dance floor and they played for 8 hours straight. Then later they were demanding insanely high salaries for playing one hour, because their name was bigger than the event itself.
Growing up with that, it felt normal for me to rise as a designer with aspirations of doing something similar. I certainly gained a name for myself, built a solid reputation, and increased my fees. But I never quite felt like I was the big name my friends were, and I never earned the type of money they could demand as the headline on the flyer I used to design for them.
I’ve had moderate career success and made some loot, but nothing close to what they charge for an hour of work. Some of them are flying around the world, at the promoter’s expense, stacking that international cheddar. I used to get frustrated when they would ask me to build their sites for less than they earned in an hour. What I didn’t always consider was that in their business that’s all they get. We don’t see the hours they put in for that one moment, never mind the weight their name carries, often far outweighing the event itself.
So do they make more per hour than I have? Certainly yes. But overall, I have managed to earn more hours. That doesn’t mean I have earned more. Let’s be clear: I have not. But their reputation and experience have compounded, and now they earn a fixed fee for that one hour. Something we all struggle to wrap our heads around, especially when we charge by the hour and literally put in the hours’ work.
Instead we should be thinking in terms of the value we bring. I’d go so far as to say you might want to trade the monthly retainer fee for a flat fee to do the job. Even if it takes you months, long term it could work out better financially if you invest correctly and pay yourself over time. A lesson I recently learned from Dan Mall.
And for our names carrying weight, maybe we need to start thinking of them as more than a well-designed logo. They need to be spoken about as our reputation, the same way a major brand leverages theirs. Designed by Craig.
I used to brand everything with Design by Digiguru or Made with love by Craig Jamieson.
I stopped doing this, at some point I got a little too modest to do it and focussed on other peoples brands. But maybe that’s a mistake. If you speak it, others will believe it, because you believe in yourself and the value you bring.
I want people to go: “It’s a CR—G.” Even when I don’t have my clever little logo on it, it’s in the quality of the work I do. So even if it’s for a big brand, people would still talk about the creative vision and excellence I bring.