Help – How to price this job

[Lynn Normington]

Hi Garrie can you show us what you mean ? is it just cut vinyl ?? do you know the font ?? what is the logo ?? if he want’s you to replicate it has he the original ??

Lynn

[Garrie]

Hi Lynn,

Thanks for the reply, it will be cut vinyl, 1 colour only.

the logo is the "floyd" from the below picture

Cheers
Garrie

[Garrie]

sorry I should add its supply only for now.

[Chris Dowd]

There’s a version of this on Brands of the world, different font tho.

[Garrie]

funky, however its just as easy to recreate, as the customer wants it exact.

[Lynn Normington]

Garrie if you only want the word Floyd (unless I’ve misunderstood) there are several fonts that look similar, unless your man is a font addict he wouldn’t know the differance, you could also point out that is a very thin font and not readable from a distance, there are some stunning font’s about get him to go for his own look 😀 I’m probably barking up the wrong tree usually am sorry 🙄

Lynn

[David Rowland]

hm.. i bet u he’s got the LP sat at home…
how about scanning in a hi-res then vectorising the results

[Garrie]

cheers for the replies, recreating the font isn’t a problem, its something we do all the time, plus its all ready to be cut, I’m just really stuck pricing the job as its not much vinyl at all..

would £10 be too much or too little, I honestly have no idea as its such a small job..

Cheers
Garrie

[Chris Dowd]

We have a minimum order value of £25 (and looking to increase it to £50), so that job would fall withing that band.

Lets face it, by the time you’ve set the job up, cut it, weeded, taped, raised the paperwork, the time soon mounts up!

[Garrie]

aye thats true enough, the time spent does add up pretty fast 🙂

[Phill Fenton]

I agree with Chris – you need a minimum order value for jobs like this – £25 is not at all unreasonable – if you start doing jobs like this for just a tenner you’re on a hiding to nothing and you are undermining the value of the service you provide.

[Nicola McIntosh]

have to agree with chris on the minimum order value…mines is set at £65 plus vat and has been for absolutely years 😕 dont sell yourself short 😉

nik

[Lynn Normington]

sorry got carried away we have a minimum price of £25.00 for a one off no matter how small, unless it’s a regular customer and for something like that it’s a fiver in the charity box (lets face it you always have enough scrap vinyl to do this ) when you say that they usaually put £10.00 or £20.00 in and I really do have a charity box. If this is a one off walk in off the street and they baulk at £25.00 they are not worth your time.

Lynn

[Phill Fenton]

Well said Lynn – we also have a charity box and ask for a donation from people who come in looking for "off cuts" of materials and similar things which are too little to justify a charge. It’s surprising how generous people are when you give away off cuts and ask for a small donation instead of charging for the material that would otherwise end up in the bucket.

I used to chase away any one coming in scrounging materials – much to Alisons dismay (bad for business) – but nowadays I am much more helpful and have raised a fair sum for a local charity group by asking for donations in exchange for off cuts. Every one wins – the scroungers are happy (they get their off cuts and feel they have done well by donating to a charity) and my reputation as the local ogre is on the decline 😕

[Garrie]

Hi,

Thanks for all your replies, really really great advice, thank you.

The problem we have is we are really really small and just starting up ourselves (although we have years of experience designing within other companies, however we are now doing it on our own).

We want to make a name for ourselves but not a "do a van for 50 quid, etc" name, too many cowboys or ebay numpties see to that and make life difficult enough for us :(, credit where credit is due, designing, quality vinyl, cutting, weeding and fitting etc all adds up (plus I’m a little greadier than that 😉 )

A Quality professional service is what we are striving for, with a personal 1 on 1 kinda feel.

Problem is I don’t have the confidence to say minimum price of xx, although I would like to, its kinda catch22, how did you guys first start off, if you don’t mind me asking?

Does that make sense? <beer>

Garrie

[Garrie]

sorry to go off topic 😕

[Lynn Normington]

makes you wonder though the ones that scrounge off cuts are they making signs with a pair off sissors 😛 i expect that’s they next technology we have to be ware of 😀 most of my off cut go to nursary schools and old peoples homes .
sorry Garrie I’m off again you know if they come to you they can’t buy it off the shelf anywhere so don’t feel guilty,if they want it they will pay if they can’t afford they don’t reallly want it so no worries

Lynn

[David Rogers]

I’d probably charge it out at £10 for a friendly/good customer, but £25 to anybody else. Where else is he going to get 2 custom cut vinyl graphics for £20 odd quid? Giving away stuff for free is a no-no, you’ll de-value your work.
The material cost is only a couple of quid – it’s your time.

I normally quote about £25/30 an hour and only give ‘minimum orders’ to customers I don’t really like.
eg. Today, one guy (a PITA regular) wanted me to travel a 70 mile round trip for free to measure up for a £30 job, I told him that would be £50 before I went…and another £50 to travel out to fit it… eejit.

Dave

[Jayne Marsh]

I would charge around the £25 mark, wether it carries the promise of more work or not. I cant count how many times a customer has asked for something small and promised me more work. In reality it doesnt materialise very often.

[MartinDenton]

I would charge a minimum of £25 but tell him that he can have some additional text in a ‘standard font’ provided it is from the same vinyl weeded at the same time –
ie boat or car registration, private mooring etc, that way he gets perceived value without significant additional cost to yourselves. = win win?

[Stephen Morriss]

If it’s for friends then I would charge £10 ish but it would be 20 – 25 for a customer sometimes for a regular customer that spends a lot I’d charge very little.

Good idea the charity box, I think we’ll start that, sometimes you don’t feel like charging for a silly little job but don’t want to give it away either and that’s a perfect solution.

Steve

[Checkers]

Maybe my conversions are a little off here, but attempting to do a job for about $45 US sounds a little cheap.
By time you meet with the client and determine what he wants, estimate a price, write up an invoice, collect payment, record the payment, get to the bank to deposit the payment, digitize the graphic, cut weed and tape the graphic, clean up the mess you made, call the client to let him know it’s ready, explain to the client about proper cleaning and installation techniques, and send him on his merry way, you’ve probably wasted a lot more than an hour. And then you have to add your material costs 🙂
I work from home and determined that my hourly rate needs to be about £50 to make money. If I had a storefront in a decent location, the rate would be about £58. My minimum order is about £50. However, I may waive this charge for existing clients.

Checkers
a.k.a. Brian Born
Harrisburg, PA USA

[Marcella Ross]

Garrie…. don’t sell yourself short. The guy is paying for your expertise!
£10 is waaaaay to cheap. I have a minimum charge of an hours work plus material, whether it takes 5 minutes or not! 🙂

Marcella

[George Elsmore]

£2 then :lol1:

[John Childs]

I’ll have a fiver’s worth then. 😀

[Marcella Ross]

you pair of cheeky bu**ers! :lol1:

Could you handle me for two and a half hours then John? 😉

[Chris Timmermans – Neon]

quote :

Could you handle me for two and a half hours then John?

:nag2: :hung: 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

Chris

[Garrie]

quote Marcella:

you pair of cheeky bu**ers! :lol1:

Could you handle me for two and a half hours then John? 😉

:lol1: now theres an offer 😮 😀

on a serious note, thanks very much for all the advice, its much appreciated and will be used <beer/whiskey>

Cheers
G

[John Childs]

quote Marcella:

Could you handle me for two and a half hours then John? 😉

I don’t know Marcella.

But I’ll give it a go. 🙄

added on edit: You on a diet? I might find my way to Ypres this weekend.

[Marcella Ross]

quote John Childs:

You on a diet? I might find my way to Ypres this weekend.

:lol1: :lol1: :lol1: ….. I should be! :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

[Lynn Normington]

Marcella you shouldn’t 🙄

Lynn

[John Childs]

quote Marcella:

I should be!

No promises, but if I do get that far I’ll bring a spare box.

If you feel guilty about it I’m sure your daughter will help out. 😀

[Hugh Potter]

quote Garrie:

Hi Lynn,

Thanks for the reply, it will be cut vinyl, 1 colour only.

the logo is the “floyd” from the below picture

Cheers
Garrie

i’ve done this before whilst messing about learning how do vector quicker, if i can find the art, i’ll post it for you !!

this is how i did it iirc….(corel 12)

firstly, get on the free font websites and look for ‘floydian’, it is the correct pink floyd font.

draw your text and size to suit, put to one side,

now draw a rectangle and size it to the regular block size, fill it white, then copy and paste it as many times as required to fill all the blocks, then do the same with the part blocks,

select all the blocks, and convert them to one object (not group), lay you text over the top, then weld and trim, that font is alot easier to reverse weed, than to weed normally ! trust me ! i stuck it over a black background, so all the black shows thru as the text and the mortar lines,

x2 in one colour i would still want £25 for a ‘non pal’,

[Hugh Potter]

found it, will post it in the font/vector thingy forum !!

[Marcella Ross]

I’ve got floydian but it’s not that Hugh! It’s different. When I saw this post yesterday I thought I’d type out the text and post it, but floydian is definitely different from this visual. 😕

[Hugh Potter]

it is slightly different, i agree, but it’s the closest available and short of phoning storm thorgerson for an autograph it can’t be matched !!! it can be played with though, needs to be manipulated, iirc, then storm actually made the floydian font for general use, may be a myth though !

https://www.uksignboards.com/viewtopic.php?p=156641#156641

[Garrie]

Cheers for that, however I’ve already recreated the word "floyd" in illustrator 🙂

Will download Floydian thought, could be a handy font for messing around with, thanks 😀

Ta
G

[Marcella Ross]

Garrie,

floydian is available to download free on a website for MacFloyd, a tribute band. That’s where I got it, a customer of mine directed me to this site as he uses floydian for his company logo.

Marcella