While I agree that great designs take time and therefore cost more, we have to remember that there is a limit to what the client will pay for. There will always be those few clients who are willing to pay top dollar for high quality, original work. There are also those few designers out there who can command any price for their original work. Industry-wide, however, these are not the norm and the price of a work will always settle around an average market price, independant of the time put into it. So more time doesn’t translate into more money earned unless you are a top designer.

You bring up an interesting dilemma, too, that faces a lot of designers. You can search for new creations and be original in each of your works, but this can take longer and that extra time can’t be passed on to the client since they likely are not willing to pay for it. Or you can do similar, but distinct, works from the past which saves time and increases your earnings per hour. You have to ask yourself is that extra time I spend on it worth the time I could be using to earn money on another project or, in other words, is originality worth sacrificing my income?

One last thing… in the second part of this series, I mention the break-even rate which takes into account your expenses when determining your fees. Though software, computers, etc are not mentioned specifically, their costs can be factored in here as well.