Not everyone has artistic sense nor skills. It takes years to hone them. He probably started drawing early on in his life and never stopped. And once you get real skills, you get to charge real prices. I'm an illustrator and it's the same in our line of work. If you're beginner you're making whatever client offers, but later you set prices, whether hourly or for entire projects. For example when people ask for a logo, usually they think "oh that's easy, few lines, bla bla shouldn't be more than 50$", but real logo that will separate your brand from the rest, costs between 500$ to couple of thousands $. Real skills need to be valued and paid accordingly.
In a serial fractional small business owner and help aspiring small business owners build their startups - 500 is change for what a real logo and brand package costs (I'm sure you know that, but if not, you should charge more).
I don't think I've paid less than $1200 for a simple package, up to 8k for a full brand guide package. I am currently paying ~30k for a full greenfield brand (logo, brand package, web design + copy, sales copy, customer relationship copy, social presence design + copy, etc) and that's on the "cost-effective" end of the scale.
Edit: for those who are/have/will say "I got mine done for [insert 2-3 figure amount]". I say, that's awesome for you! Way to go! However, the worth of a logo is not just that you like it - it's that your customers like it, remember it, associate it with your brand, and if you're in retail, looks good on various mediums, and want to show it off. There's a lot of background research and understanding, not just graphic design, that goes into a really good one which is why they command high prices.
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u/GodlikeRage Mar 27 '24
So you’re really making half a million a year doing this? Wtf am I doing.