You, the designer, write a number down on a piece of paper. You contemplate it carefully, like a lover taking the plunge, but decide to sleep on it. In the morning, you pray for a decision, tape it to the wall and stare at it.

In design school you likely learned letterforms, composition, color, conceptual thinking, and the dreaded “crit.” But unless you took an advanced design course with Petrula Vrontikis at Art Center, or have bent her ear personally, you may have gleaned little or nothing about coming up with this oft-dreaded number: the project estimate. Perhaps you purchased a Graphic Artists’ Guild pricing guide years ago, but then how realistic are the recommended fees they list?

For those who attended the latest Shop Talk with Vrontikis on Tuesday night, the consesus appears to be “not very.” As it happens, regional differences can skew the numbers on a given project by thousands of dollars. A design office in Humboldt (do they have design offices in Humboldt?) probably won’t be charging the same price as those in Manhattan. Vrontikis, head of the Vrontikis Design Office in West Los Angeles, has pondered this discrepancy for some time, and recently conducted an informal survey of large and small design firms to share with those attending her lecture. As it happens, results suggested that the size of the design firm doing the estimating, as well as their years of experience in the field, was indicative of how much they ended up charging for any given project. Still, numbers can vary widely, especially with web design projects.

“Many years ago it used to be that the design community in Los Angeles was run by about seven or so white men with beards who all charged roughly the same thing,” Vrontikis said, followed by a pause, with a few titters from the audience. “Their studio structure, design process, and years of of experience were the comparable, so clients were forced to made decisions based on looking at a portfolio or on reputation or other factors. Now it’s near to impossible for clients to compare studios and the estimates they provide.” She asked how many one-person firms are attending her lecture, and about half of the group raised their hands.

No matter the size or experience of an office, said Vrontikis, a 20-year veteran, the primary factor in determining project pricing is the client’s budget—and the best way to encourage them to talk about it is to link the design work to the client’s success. “I can make the most of your money, whatever your budget,” she advised us to tell potential clients, with an optional caveat on pricing minimums. Whatever number is decided upon, she enouraged attendees not to arbitrarily lower a price without reducing deliverables. In addition, Vrontikis does not recommend that graphic designers ever agree to do work on spec. “It rarely pays off, since you are not entering into a long-term contract with a client,” she said. “It’s also harder for someone to truly value your creative expertise if they have gotten it for free. It’s like sleeping with someone on the first date.”

David Mayes, of Typecraft Wood & Jones printers in Pasadena, agreed that many of the same issues plague his industry. “It was interesting that the idea of relative pricing—getting a $3,000 price and a $20,000 price from two different designers for the same project—is similar to the discrepancy that designers have when they seek printing prices.”

An essential question Vrontikis advises asking a client before committing your proposal to paper is: “Are you obtaining competitive bids?” Vrontikis said not to be shy about asking who the other bids are from, because graphic designers are now competing with a creative talent pool which is no longer clearly delineated. In other words, your competition may be offering a lower bid because he or she is straying from what they do best: print designers might decide to design a website, and vice versa. Even illustrators and photographers are sometimes known to try their hand at graphic design when work slows down. “It used to be that I recognized most of the names of other designers, but that’s not the case anymore. Often times I have to look them up online just to get an idea about who they will be getting a quote from. This definitely factors in to the quote I submit. But more importantly, it tells me how best to justify my fees, because I know how my work, service, and expertise compares to the others being considered.”

Vrontikis said another important question to ask a potential client is not only how they found you, but about who they have dealt with in the past, and if this firm is part of the bidding this time around. “It is good information for you to know why a firm was not chosen again” Also, it helps to know if your future client places a value on good design. “The gold standard,” she concluded, “is to really find out about what your client wants by asking them what they really value in a design office.” And if anyone knows their clients, it’s Vrontikis, who just keeps winning design awards. But she’s not selfish, she’s shared her secret: “Get to know your client; get the job in on time; and be a professional.”

Terry Stone of Adams Morioka, who developed the idea for AIGA’s Shop Talk lecture series, said the topic of designer fees finally got discussed out in the open. “I’ve been involved in AIGA since 1986 and I don’t remember a formal discussion of pricing like this ever having ever taken place.”

Hallelujah. It’s about time.

Amanda Wray has a web design studio in Monrovia, California.

Learn how to partner with your clients on June 15 at BusinessMatters 1, the first of AIGA/LA’s upcoming program series. Read more about BusinessMatters here.