got a burning question? perhaps we have the answer!
How much does a logo design cost?
At Swish Design, the way we charge for logo design is as follows:
- $400 deposit gets you a selection of ~5 logos based on the brief you provide
- From this initial selection, you provide direction/feedback regarding your favourite concepts and we action your feedback. The time we spend from this stage on actioning feedback and taking the logo to completion is charged at $100/hr. This stage can take anywhere from 0 to infinity hours … but usually takes between 2 and 4 hours
So a logo design with Swish Design usually costs between $400 and $800 (ex GST). If you would like to proceed with a logo design, please contact us here
Whether you’re looking for a simple solution to raise your online presence or you want all the shiny bells and whistles, Swish Design offers web design services to suit all budgets. But before you decide how much cash you’re willing to splash, you shouldn’t underestimate the power of the web as a business resource.
Available to the public 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, your website is your hardest working employee and your single most important marketing tool. Today’s web savvy customer expects you to have a website and many won’t engage your services until they’ve checked you out online. If your site is sloppy and unprofessional, they’ll assume your business is too. So, like your logo, it’s worth that extra investment. At Swish Design, the vast majority of websites we do fall into one of two categories. For the rundown on these along with some ballpark costings, click here.
What’s the difference between a logo, corporate identity and branding?
It’s a tough question, so we’ll start with the easy bit. Your logo is the main visual element that ensures your business is recognised out there in the marketplace. A striking logo has the power to put your business name firmly in people’s minds. When they see it, they instantly make the link between the logo and your organisation.
Which leads nicely to branding. When someone first sees your logo it invokes thoughts and feelings that they immediately associate with your organisation/brand. So it’s important that your logo (branding) effectively communicates the core values of your organisation (brand). Here at Swish, our logo was designed to communicate our core values, ‘friendly, great service, great design’. But effective branding goes way beyond your logo design. It’s in the way you answer the phone, how you dress for work, and it’s in your corporate identity too.
More than just stationery, corporate identity is the application of consistent design elements to all material associated with your organisation. This consistency assists in building customer recognition and strengthening your brand. There’d be no point in branding ourselves ‘friendly and approachable’ and then using an angry red in all our collateral. Your corporate identity also incorporates many design elements, including, but not limited to, your logo. In addition to the Swish Design logo, we also apply our company colours and ‘Swish Girl’ across all our marketing material. Check out the graphic design page to find out more about our full suite of design services.
Our talented team of graphic designers are highly skilled at taking the ideas and content supplied by our clients and turning them into a great looking piece of design. Sometimes though, people come to us with no clear idea of what they want to achieve. That’s no problem, but it does mean we need to allocate significantly more time to devise the conceptual basis of the design first before we start any design work. This can easily double the hours estimated for a job.
So, if budget is a concern, take some time to think about what you want to achieve, then all we’ll need to charge you for is the design process and everyone’s happy. If you're not sure how to put together a solid brief for our design team, we have a free resource here called "How to Save Money on Graphic Design"
When Swish creates a website for you, there are some simple measures we take to ensure your site can be easily catalogued by the search engines. However, SEO is a highly specialised service that requires a significant amount of time and ongoing assessment. So, if you want your website optimised for search, we’ll need to quote for that separately. Before you decide what’s best for you and your budget, take a look at our SEO fact sheet for tips on optimising your site yourself.
Why should I pay $100 an hour when I can get a friend to do it for $30?
The industry standard for graphic design starts at around $130 per hour, but because we love working with small businesses and not-for-profits, we aim to provide quality design at a more affordable price. When you engage our services you don't just get quality design performed by industry professionals with years of experience, you also get fantastic service and maximum efficiency.
So, while your friend charges $30 per hour and it may take them four hours over the course of three weeks to fit your job in, we may take just one hour, and turn the job around in a day or two. In fact, many design projects started (and not finished) by friends end up being handed over to us to get the job done!
You estimated two hours to produce a flyer but it ended up taking four. How does this happen?
When we provide an estimate we always take extra care to ensure the workload does not escalate beyond what we have quoted for by requesting all details up front. This includes all text and imagery associated with the job, enabling us to produce a first draft quickly and efficiently.
In instances when all the required information cannot be supplied up front but the design is required urgently, we may not be able to provide an accurate estimate for our time. For example, it may mean that you need us to source suitable images, or re-typeset the design to include content that was not supplied for the first draft. All of which requires additional time.
So, if you want a job to proceed in the most efficient and cost effective manner, make sure you provide us with everything related to the job up front. And bear in mind that any concept work also increases the time spent on a job. To assist you in understanding the design process and what is involved, we have produced this free resource: called "How to Save Money on Graphic Design"
I am interstate or in the country so can't meet with you in person - is this a problem?
We have clients from all over Australia, many of whom we have never met in person! We have excellent briefing forms that allow us to get all the information we need from our clients about their jobs and this means that we can correspond quite effectively via email or phone. So while we do enjoy putting a face to a name, it's definitely not a problem if we never to get to meet with you in person!
Unfortunately we do not have the necessary time or equipment resources to offer work experience.
Still got a burning question that’s left unanswered?
Post your questions here and we will have an answer for you within a day!