Occasionally, a contractor or homeowner will ask me to provide a sketch of a certain feature or area or a project in conjunction with a set of plans. I can easily sketch most things in an hour or two. I am pretty good and fast at hand drawing and I was an avid painter/watercolorist before I could cross the street alone... However, sometimes I tend to obsess over things...going through 10 versions before I feel like I want to show the client. In reality, the first version is usually fine...Should I charge for OCD time? Serious question...
x-jla
Sep 14, 15 3:18 pm
How do you bill for "process" time if that process time is probably linked to a mild mental disorder?
JeromeS
Sep 14, 15 3:40 pm
For smaller things I always think of things in day/half day increments. I won't take a project for a fee smaller than one-day.
Perhaps a sketch connected to project is worthy of a half day / quarter day increment.
go do it
Sep 15, 15 1:07 am
Remember to charge for your skill / talent. Years ago I built a house with a self suporting circular staircase and I asked a custom stairbuilder I knew for some tips. His advice "make sure you charge enough because not everybody can do this". I doubled my price.
Larchinect
Sep 15, 15 4:42 pm
Good question. My initial, pre-canned, response before I finished reading your original post was 'charge your regular rate...whatever amount of time it takes you..with a minimum charge of cours, say, one hour'
However, after finishing reading about your 'OCD time' I have to tell you that I completely sympathize. I am also a 'draw-er' and often obsess over graphics and the way they communicate the idea.
Im a landscape architect, but self-employed and often find myself in the smae or similar predicament to yours. I approach it on a case by case basis considering the scope of the task, amount of time allotted by the client, and amount of time obsessing over the execution (ie graphic) versus time spent delivering substantive value to the end product (ie built element).
In other words, if Im working on a Sunday with a day to come up with five different concepts for a neighborhood park by Monday morning for a council meeting Im chargin my time plus at least 50%. I dont necessarily reflect this in my invoice--I just add extra time. If I spin my wheels on a task I realize should probably take half the time I spent I will usually bill the time I spent unless I wasl also putting significant thought into the design, then there is design/thinking time in there too.
Bottom line is its not as straight forward as some might think, especially when you're self employed and youre not just entering time into deltek, but putting your time on an invoice you give directly to the client.
Carrera
Sep 15, 15 4:55 pm
Had someone once tell me “I never work by the hour; I’m not an employee, always charge for the value of what you produce”. Good advice, but difficult starting out when “value” is hard to discern.
chigurh
Sep 15, 15 4:57 pm
take all the time you want creating your artful drawings...charge as much as you can get for them..you are an artiste.
awaiting_deletion
Sep 15, 15 6:57 pm
basic rendering ( not computer) starts at like $1500......so a sketch is what compared to a rendering?
Larchinect
Sep 15, 15 7:10 pm
I could easily see a scenario where a sketch takes 3x longer than a rendering.
awaiting_deletion
Sep 15, 15 7:11 pm
so its more like a 'rendering' than a sketch. when i think sketch i think 5 minutes max....
Larchinect
Sep 15, 15 7:26 pm
a rendering is more production intensive where a sketch is more thought intensive..how i think of it
awaiting_deletion
Sep 17, 15 7:08 am
so its a working drawing? that makes it tough to price unless you think of it similar to a CD set or something. are these like sketches that show a few drawings to clarify not only design but possible details and construction?.........i see two parts to this problem. 1) value of production ans 2) value of "art" aspect of sketch. 1) is easy, 10 hours to produce x hourly = $$$, 2) unknown but could be relative to the hourly. For instance I would not pay me more than an intern to sketch anything by hand but if I did it in the computer easily $100-$150 hr given the quality of what can be produced in that time.....
awaiting_deletion
Sep 17, 15 7:11 am
i guess 3) would be what do you charge an hour to design if you are indeed designing via sketch on paper? for instance I design in my head and then produce a drawing for representation, so the time spent drawing it is my maximum billable hourly closer to $200/hr. so you could skip #2 and use 1 and 3 as means for determining value.
Carrera
Sep 17, 15 11:15 am
Maybe you’ve all already seen this….
x-jla
Sep 17, 15 11:57 am
^ thats awesome!
Brud-G
Sep 17, 15 1:05 pm
$1,000,000
Sep 17, 15 1:54 pm
Brudgers ! ! ! !
archtern2016
Aug 6, 16 8:45 pm
free
saraotto
Jan 26, 18 11:19 am
I charge $75 per hour for environmental and product renderings. I work in photoshop and sketchup and do not have a minimum time requirement. A realistic rendering of a room or exhibit booth is about $800, but the value of not purchasing or printing items that end up not working is much more valuable. An overhead rendering of a furnished apartment would be about $300. Creating a rendering for a fashion designer is about $75/look. I'm a designer by trade, but have moved into 3D rendering to accommodate clients for whom I create visual merchandising guidelines. Many of them also want 3D shop renderings, or breakouts of fixtures to better illustrate the finished product.
joseffischer
Jan 26, 18 4:47 pm
When I was in the design/build market on houses, I asked owners and contractors to develop houzz and pinterest photo catalogues of the products and rooms they're liking. With a large enough base set, my design services included a couple hourish long meetings bouncing my working drawings off of these photos and working towards a design consideration.
Many times, especially with owners and not much with contractors, they couldn't wrap their heads around what they wanted. For this, I had 3 basic currated examples for each space (say a kitchen) and a slew of questions that if they couldn't answer, I'd then say would be an additional service.
Basically, I charged for the "I'll take your wife shopping and we'll come back with a couple options for each thing for you to veto. Give me your budget beforehand and I'll keep her in check." I know this comes off as chauvinist at best, but as a marketing tool, it sold. It would usually take me the good part of a weekend each round of "shopping" and I'd charge $750 each day. My goal would be to come home with some key items everyone just loved, and then design the room around that. Part of my $750 was justified into "incorporating your wife's design decisions above and beyond the base contractor grade items" and part of it was hidden in the "we just bought a $3000 stove and $600 kitchen sink".
Eventually we'd get around to a sketchup model as part of the design contract (basic services) that would include the elements, but I rarely ever did renderings. If they wanted a more realistic sketchup model, I'd tell them the time it took to make the base model, and give them my hourly rate to do the upgrades. Most of the time they balked and made a decision based on the photos of products and the sketchup model after that.
Driko
Jan 26, 18 4:48 pm
WWKD. what would kanye do. Then just do that. He sells white t-shirts for $500. be more like kanye
Occasionally, a contractor or homeowner will ask me to provide a sketch of a certain feature or area or a project in conjunction with a set of plans. I can easily sketch most things in an hour or two. I am pretty good and fast at hand drawing and I was an avid painter/watercolorist before I could cross the street alone... However, sometimes I tend to obsess over things...going through 10 versions before I feel like I want to show the client. In reality, the first version is usually fine...Should I charge for OCD time? Serious question...
How do you bill for "process" time if that process time is probably linked to a mild mental disorder?
For smaller things I always think of things in day/half day increments. I won't take a project for a fee smaller than one-day.
Perhaps a sketch connected to project is worthy of a half day / quarter day increment.
Remember to charge for your skill / talent. Years ago I built a house with a self suporting circular staircase and I asked a custom stairbuilder I knew for some tips. His advice "make sure you charge enough because not everybody can do this". I doubled my price.
Good question. My initial, pre-canned, response before I finished reading your original post was 'charge your regular rate...whatever amount of time it takes you..with a minimum charge of cours, say, one hour'
However, after finishing reading about your 'OCD time' I have to tell you that I completely sympathize. I am also a 'draw-er' and often obsess over graphics and the way they communicate the idea.
Im a landscape architect, but self-employed and often find myself in the smae or similar predicament to yours. I approach it on a case by case basis considering the scope of the task, amount of time allotted by the client, and amount of time obsessing over the execution (ie graphic) versus time spent delivering substantive value to the end product (ie built element).
In other words, if Im working on a Sunday with a day to come up with five different concepts for a neighborhood park by Monday morning for a council meeting Im chargin my time plus at least 50%. I dont necessarily reflect this in my invoice--I just add extra time. If I spin my wheels on a task I realize should probably take half the time I spent I will usually bill the time I spent unless I wasl also putting significant thought into the design, then there is design/thinking time in there too.
Bottom line is its not as straight forward as some might think, especially when you're self employed and youre not just entering time into deltek, but putting your time on an invoice you give directly to the client.
Had someone once tell me “I never work by the hour; I’m not an employee, always charge for the value of what you produce”. Good advice, but difficult starting out when “value” is hard to discern.
take all the time you want creating your artful drawings...charge as much as you can get for them..you are an artiste.
basic rendering ( not computer) starts at like $1500......so a sketch is what compared to a rendering?
I could easily see a scenario where a sketch takes 3x longer than a rendering.
so its more like a 'rendering' than a sketch. when i think sketch i think 5 minutes max....
a rendering is more production intensive where a sketch is more thought intensive..how i think of it
so its a working drawing? that makes it tough to price unless you think of it similar to a CD set or something. are these like sketches that show a few drawings to clarify not only design but possible details and construction?.........i see two parts to this problem. 1) value of production ans 2) value of "art" aspect of sketch. 1) is easy, 10 hours to produce x hourly = $$$, 2) unknown but could be relative to the hourly. For instance I would not pay me more than an intern to sketch anything by hand but if I did it in the computer easily $100-$150 hr given the quality of what can be produced in that time.....
i guess 3) would be what do you charge an hour to design if you are indeed designing via sketch on paper? for instance I design in my head and then produce a drawing for representation, so the time spent drawing it is my maximum billable hourly closer to $200/hr. so you could skip #2 and use 1 and 3 as means for determining value.
Maybe you’ve all already seen this….
^ thats awesome!
$1,000,000
Brudgers ! ! ! !
free
I charge $75 per hour for environmental and product renderings. I work in photoshop and sketchup and do not have a minimum time requirement. A realistic rendering of a room or exhibit booth is about $800, but the value of not purchasing or printing items that end up not working is much more valuable. An overhead rendering of a furnished apartment would be about $300. Creating a rendering for a fashion designer is about $75/look. I'm a designer by trade, but have moved into 3D rendering to accommodate clients for whom I create visual merchandising guidelines. Many of them also want 3D shop renderings, or breakouts of fixtures to better illustrate the finished product.
When I was in the design/build market on houses, I asked owners and contractors to develop houzz and pinterest photo catalogues of the products and rooms they're liking. With a large enough base set, my design services included a couple hourish long meetings bouncing my working drawings off of these photos and working towards a design consideration.
Many times, especially with owners and not much with contractors, they couldn't wrap their heads around what they wanted. For this, I had 3 basic currated examples for each space (say a kitchen) and a slew of questions that if they couldn't answer, I'd then say would be an additional service.
Basically, I charged for the "I'll take your wife shopping and we'll come back with a couple options for each thing for you to veto. Give me your budget beforehand and I'll keep her in check." I know this comes off as chauvinist at best, but as a marketing tool, it sold. It would usually take me the good part of a weekend each round of "shopping" and I'd charge $750 each day. My goal would be to come home with some key items everyone just loved, and then design the room around that. Part of my $750 was justified into "incorporating your wife's design decisions above and beyond the base contractor grade items" and part of it was hidden in the "we just bought a $3000 stove and $600 kitchen sink".
Eventually we'd get around to a sketchup model as part of the design contract (basic services) that would include the elements, but I rarely ever did renderings. If they wanted a more realistic sketchup model, I'd tell them the time it took to make the base model, and give them my hourly rate to do the upgrades. Most of the time they balked and made a decision based on the photos of products and the sketchup model after that.
WWKD. what would kanye do. Then just do that. He sells white t-shirts for $500. be more like kanye