Step 1. Admitting the truth
There are so many podcasts and youtube videos out there telling you how much you should charge, we are not even going to mention the twitter financial standard of living that always seems to be like we all live in New York because everyone is setting a minimum price you should charge but first I had to be sincere with myself and admit that I was not there yet.
It’s difficult to call a price for a service when you know deep down that you are not at that level in anyway, when you see the work of the people you look upto and you see the attention to detail, you get to understand why they charge so high and why you shake and stutter during negotiations with clients who have been at the negotiating table countless times and can easily see through your bluff, this painful truth helped me understand my level in the design space and the next step was how to level up. This is not imposter syndrome, it’s just the plain truth.
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It’s difficult to call a price for a service when you know deep down that you are not at that level in anyway".
Step 2. You have to stop being someone who just makes “Nice Logos”
My first idea was to shift from being just a logo designer to becoming a brand identity designer, this means I wanted to solve problems for companies and create their identity to help them communicate properly with their target audience/customers/users to help them make profit.
“How do I become a brand identity designer?” is a long story that would need another article but to summarize it you have to prioritize solving problems before making designs by reading books and case studies to see how other people have approached problems for companies using design to have an idea of what brand identity entails.
Approaching projects with the ideology of solving a problem for your clients rather than making some thing nice for likes and “This is fire” from other designers will help you get the desire to want to learn more ways to approach design projects and create meaningful impact for businesses.
Does this mean you should drop all logo projects you have and start “branding” yourself as something you have no clue of? No! but instead you could start doing what I did by learning more on brand identity and practicing on some projects you might have at hand, it also means you might have to over deliver on some of the small projects you have currently, is this fair? I doubt, did it work for me? Absolutely. So, my dear friend start thinking of how you can solve problems.
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Upskilling is perhaps the workout routine that every designer needs but just like working out, it’s very difficult".
Step 3. Learning and practicing with a purpose
Upskilling is perhaps the workout routine that every designer needs but just like working out, it’s very difficult because how do you upskill? with the endless barrage of information hitting you and the level of work you see going on around you, hunger choking you like Johnny Sins and let us not forget the constant battle with imposter syndrome.
Here’s what I did, I read different books and I watched several videos on YouTube (only the Futur and some other channels I can’t remember😂) and tried to figure out the major areas clients who have approached me needed help in the most outside just logos and started learning how to provide these deliverables examples include logo animations, Illustrations, Color and Typography systems.
How did I practice these things I learnt? Personal Projects but with a twist, I approached some small startups and some founders to find out the problems they were facing with their brand identity and helped them offer some deliverables in some cases, in one particular instance I did a complete overhaul of the company’s design system for less to nothing.
However, I was the one who approached the companies I chose because I wanted to use them to practice, so the money was secondary and here was the outcome, I had functional projects to add to my portfolio that new clients could see working in real life, I handpicked the companies I would work with and was given the freedom and creativity to do what I wanted and it attracted the class of clients I wanted.
That being said I no longer do any project for less than my base price and won’t do anything for free at this stage but back then as a desperate designer, I saw it as a necessary evil.
