He and I were close.
At that age, when you kept track of such titles, I would have called him my best friend. And the rituals that went along with his arrangement were all followed. Great debates about what we knew about sports, and what we didn’t about girls.
So how do you value a friendship when you are asked to price a job?
This is a no easy task.
He and I spent our childhoods together. We lived a block apart, and were inseparable.
Then his Father passed away during High School. It was the fall I think. And we began to drift. It was just that he was much older than me now.
We stayed in touch. But it was never the same. It never can be. We grow on and up and towards other things. Those things that creep into our worlds and compete with sports and girls.
He contacted me last month and asked if I would do some design work for a record label he was starting. I agreed. This would be interesting work for a friend. Expressive work.
I offered to do the work for free. I think I feared the prospect of not only pricing a project, but pricing a friendship.
For me, working in freelance, the hardest part is the money. Not the earning of it. Not the spending of it. Not the lack of it. But the inevitable estimations of worth that one wrestles with.
Designers are naturally disadvantaged here. We design because we love. We enjoy what we do. Sometimes we tend to forget it is work, and not another creative adventure. And when you begin to calculate those other things in a job, it gets far more complicated.
Thankfully, he told me to charge him.
But there was more to think about.
There is something I haven’t told you about him yet. And I haven’t told you because it had never come up between us. Ever. It was a ten-ton elephant we simply ignored. And I always valued that.
He is very very wealthy. An entire paragraph of ‘very’ would not be enough to describe it.
So I found myself in a difficult position. While I would never find this as an opportunity to over-charge, I certainly had a chance to collect on my full rate. But then there was our friendship. The whole thing exhausted me as I fought over how to cost the job. I finally settled on a price with a small discount.
Days later, it seemed like a silly exercise. Because of our past, this job will have a legacy value far beyond its cost. It won’t be the money either of us will remember. It will be the work.
My mind should be here.
If I can’t find the way to express his music then will I feel truly thankless.
Art and commerce have an uneasy balance in all of our lives. Costs and figures and negotiating have a way of blurring the focus we should have towards the work. It is why pro bono work can be so fun. It is why creative directors have so many other things to do during their day besides create.
The stresses. The paperwork. The bad dogs, sick kids, missed busses and fights with our significant other can all factor into a job. Every job brings with it a new set of challenges. Some of which will not come from the work.
Just like there is a cost of doing business, there is a cost of creating. I am still learning how to put a price on that.
Thanks for being transparent. It's good to know there are others who struggle with this pricing issue as well. I think part of the problem we are having is that when design strikes out on "its own" (whether freelance or as a small studio free of a larger agency), clients have a difficult time understanding the value of design. My electrician doesn't stress when he quotes me a price for electrical work on my home, nor does my dentist. Why? There is an accepted cultural value that has been accrued in the work they do. Design really has no such value on it's own...yet.
On Dec.26.2005 at 06:36 AM