Because it’s new, we get a lot of questions on how the “REW Agency” works and how it is different from traditional services at REW.
This thread is to discuss / answer your questions on the Agency.
First off, the easy part. From a tracking / billing perspective, the Agency works exactly the same way. We track by the hour, track all hours for communication and work performed until you’re happy with the final product.
We can provide estimates that are ROM (rough order of magnitude) just like other professional services, however there is an important difference. In agency, it’s almost all creative / design. And because of that, “how long it will take to get you EXACTLY what you want” is much harder to estimate than “how long will it take to hook up 3 IDX fields” which is far more finite and exact in nature. It’s kind of like trying to guess a person’s personality in advance.
That being said: We’re pretty good at giving you a range, and also we’ll ask for a budget number up front and do our best to help keep people in budget by reminding them that they should
A: Listen to us as we’re the experts (you pay us to make it awesome)
B: If they do take our advice, things will go much faster and easier (And be much cheaper)
I would say that for most elements they fall into these categories of ROM
Easy customer / loves anything good: 10-20 hours for almost anything (logo, business cards, post cards, just listed flyers, brand guides etc)
A bit of back and forth : 15-30 hours (this customer might want a colour change or as to see 1-2 variations but isn’t blowing up every design and saying start over.
Kind of picky 20-40 hours. Often they need to have things quite specific and have a decent amount of feedback.
Quite picky 25-75 hours. This customer wants their whole team to give feedback, they want to be involved and have a lot to say. They almost never approve anything without changes and ask for a lot of revisions.
Things they are a designer: 75 hours+ PER ELEMENT These are the clients who think they are designers (and they are not) the projects generally take way too long, cost WAY too much and no one is happy. We are not happy, the client is not happy etc. To be honest, we don’t want these kinds of projects, because if you really were a designer, you would design it yourself right? It’s important to know yourself and if this is you, we’re probably not a fit.
I’m going to post some examples so you can get a sense of the work we do, how much it might cost etc. If you have questions let me know.
Some print examples:
Here are a few examples of print items (first drafts) we’re working on for @Carly. (The grey border is not part of the design, I just added it for contrast on the forums)
And of course there as the original brand work:
It came out clean and simple, but the reality is, to come to these concepts behind the scenes we ended up going through several versions.
And it’s not just about going through all the various type treatments etc
The concept itself needed to be created, which meant colour swatches, story boards, and lots of other things that you just don’t see in the final product because they never make it past whomever is the creative director on the project.
Carly’s brand could have easily started from one of these logos / story boards:
Pretty nice right? Lot’s of people would have said yes to this.
Or how about this one?
Some might have jumped on that immediately!
And then there is this one:
I actually have lots more boards, but the point is: Are you starting to see why it might be hard to estimate? One customer might LOVE the first one and it would cost them very little to have an amazing brand.
Myself (this is my wife’s brand, and also one of the case studies for REW’s new agency) I went through many versions until it was perfect. It cost quite a bit because I had the budget and I wanted to keep going until my vision was clear.
The reality is, any one of these would have been amazing and is great work. It just comes down to how particular we as customers want to be, and that will dictate your time, effort and cost.
Sometimes I have the team donate a logo (like when we’re helping out a customer or friend) it’s one shot, you pick one variations of what we do, and we can do that in less than 5 hours kind of thing.
Here’s one we through together like that: I just said hey, pick one, it will make your site a lot better than what it has.
I have to run to the office now, but I hope that gets you started in understanding cost and process at the REW Agency, I will post more later this evening and of course answer any questions you have.
thanks for considering using REW’s Agency to create your next amazing brand and marketing materials.