Q. Describe the most common types of jobs you do for your clients.
A. My projects vary from brochures, posters, price sheets, product sheets, multi-page catalogs, ads, store displays...anything you may see in print.
Q. Why does your work stand out from others who do what you do?
A. Through the years I have acquired an advanced repertoire of design elements, and developed a keen attention to detail, which adds value to any project. My experience has taught me to value the correct usage of line-breaks, white space, ligatures, kerning, and other design and typographic elements. I always edit for grammar and spelling. Detailed pencil comps are a standard procedure in my design projects.
Q. Tell us about a recent job you did that you are particularly proud of.
A. A pro bono flyer cost my client only the price of one stock photograph and a few incidentals, and it looks like a million bucks, thanks to tapping the resources of a gifted writer friend.
Q. Do you do any sort of continuing education to stay up on the latest developments in your field?
A. I keep track of the latest developments in software, along with current trends in design.
Q. If you have a complicated pricing system for your service, please give all the details here.
A. As a production artist, the rate of $20/hour would include any proofing (typos, grammar, redundancy, spelling, style, pre-flight) and problem solving (finding the best way to present the meat-and-potatoes data).
As a creative, my rate of $45/hour would include layout options, setting and maintaining style, color studies, photography and graphics research.
The billed hours would be rounded down. The rates are negotiable. Material would be extra, such as DVDs, CDs, stock photography, fonts; and I would require pre-approval of these expenses.
Additionally, we can set a project cap. We can estimate total hours of a given project (which would include 3 revisions), then based on my hourly rates establish the cap. I hate to over-charge, so if my actual hours were under my estimate, I would only charge for those hours actually worked. After 3 revisions, the cap would have to be evaluated.
Gas mileage and time spent on the first two face-to-face meetings per project would not be billed.
Q. What is your greatest strength?
A. Attention to detail, strong grammatical skills, manipulating type as art. These strengths raise me way above rest of the pack.
