In this economy many have found their marketing budgets have been cut. Some ways to keep your project costs as low as possible are:

• Be organized (in short, time=money. The less time it takes me to organize your input, sort through images and correct copy, the lower the total job price will be). Providing all materials at one time and with clear direction is a great way to cut down on job costs. Disorganization leads to more rounds of revisions (and often complete changes or overhauls of the creative direction).
• Provide all content in final form (copy has been proofed and run by any necessary committees, final images have been chosen, etc.)
• Use the creative brief. This is my project outline and the more thought you put into the project before we get started, the better. This also leads to higher quality work that is on target.
• Meet me in the middle. The time spent traveling to meetings at your office can be cut in half by meeting me at a midway location. Coffee shops are a great place to review materials (and grab a nice treat).
• Plan accordingly for deadlines. If a project is needed in a hurry, there are extra fees involved to expedite the job. A good rule of thumb for any piece you need commercially printed is to immediately allot two weeks of your timeline for printing. From there you can quickly see how much time you have remaining for concepting and design, as well as revisions.
• Consider a budget printer. I can provide a printing estimate through a budget printer for noticeable savings if you are willing to select your paper stock from a limited offering list. This is a great option for business cards, direct mailers and brochures (although many other products are available). Other constraints are as follows: online proof only, no custom sizes or die cuts, CMYK printing only and two weeks are required for printing and delivery.

For projects that must be completed in a short time, I do charge an expedite fee. This fee is what allows your project to be fast-tracked. As you can imagine, by accelerating your project's timeline, other client projects have to be shifted from the schedule, but still need to be completed by their original deadline. This puts me in a position where I must work outside of normal business hours to complete all projects on time. As a result, I charge an additional fee.

Every project is different, therefore expedite fees are determined by me once the project workload has been assessed and a deadline has been requested. To avoid expedite fees, here's a rough set of normal work completion timelines (once all project materials and briefs have been provided. This covers design time only, printing is not included. Please add another 2 weeks to your total project timeline for commercial printing.):

Logo - 4 weeks
Poster - 2 weeks
Flyer - 1 week
Brochure - 2 weeks
Annual Report - 4 weeks
Package Design - 3 weeks

On occasion I do accept Pro Bono work, but with some trade offs. Because this work comes with no monetary compensation, I do require some other forms of compensation, such as:

• Extended deadlines
• Creative freedom
• Fewer rounds of revisions
• Written credit on the final piece (company logo & web site url)
• Samples of any printed pieces
• Referrals to other potential clients
• Networking opportunities (for ex. if a Board of Directors is involved, I'd like to present my work in person, provide business cards and deliver a brief pitch about my experience and services)

While I do offer web design as a service, the coding needs to be completed by an experienced web developer. I have a few developers I work with on a regular basis, but I am open to working with your developer. I always like to meet with them to see what their capabilities are, and to make sure I'm designing something they are competent to execute. More importantly, I want to ensure that we're working within your budget. It would be terrible to provide a developer with a wonderful design that he/she can't execute within your total budget. If you don't have a preferred developer I am happy to make some recommendations. Please see the resources page for a list of vendors.

A colleague of mine explains this very well, so I will borrow his analogy. In short, asking this question is like walking up to a real estate agent and asking, "How much for a house?" Without knowing the answers to many questions (for ex. which state you'd like to buy a house, which neighborhood, what size, the number of bathrooms, what amenities, etc.) the agent can only give you a very broad ballpark answer. ("Well, a house can cost anywhere from $30,000–$6.8 million. Give or take.")

In the same way, web sites can be as big or small as you like, with as many (or as few) bells and whistles. All of these decisions impact price, so in order to give a more refined estimate we'll need to discuss your overall budget, goals, site plan, site content and site function objectives. Then we'll need to take that information to a developer to get their estimate on the time to take my design and bring it to life. Also, if copywriting or photography is needed, those will also be added to the estimate.

I hope this example illustrates this process and why a web site estimate requires much time and thought. Information to consider before requesting an estimate are:

1. How many pages will the site have? How will they be organized (site map)?
2. How will the site function? (provides information to consumers only, or functions as a retail shopping site?)
3. What features are needed? (special log in section for a group of users? database capabilities? shopping cart? content managment system so you can make updates on your own? flash and animation?)
4. What's your timeline? (It's wise to allot 3-4 months of time from inception to completion)
5. Will you provide all of the copy and photographs in final format? Or will you need to hire other parties to prepare this information?
6. Do you need to buy a web domain name and hosting service?
7. What are some other web sites that are similar in look/style/feel or function? Be ready to show these as examples.

The name plays on my stature. A finch is a small bird, and I'm a small person. When I was growing up that was my grandmother's nickname for me ("little bird").