Business Plan & Startup Cost

How Much Should I Charge?

One main area that was completely new to me was the 'Taking car of business' side of things. Being unemployed students none of us really new how to manage finances or how much it would cost setting up a studio and living off of graphic design. Harry found this website where it would estimate how much you should be charging per project based on how much time you spend on it, how much you enjoy it, what you would get out of it ect. The estimates I gave were possibly a little too optimistic considering the early stage we were at but was still interesting to see what kind of money could potentially be made. Researching into this side of the design studio business made me realise it needed as much attention as the designing side and would have to take this into account during our working days. Being generally organised with money, costing and making sure you get paid for your hard work was a main features in the interviews I read with current graphic design studios. 

 

For the time being we will make use of the facilities available to us at the college while we are still students here. We currently have access to a wide range of resources that are already being paid for so it wouldn't be necessary to spend money on excess resources and space. For our studio space we will be working in uni and from home, using the internet to keep up with what each other are working on when not together. 

Current studio space:

We want our studio to be a relaxed environment as this is the way we are most used to working. To keep costs down we will be working from home (Will's room) where we can play music and get on with work.

Future (ideal) studio space: 

Startup Costs

For staring up after we have finished our degrees we thought we would ease into it. While we are all really enthusiastic about the studio we want to be sensible and see where we are individually before making detailed plans. The costs we considered were the resources/equipment and studio rent. 

Not moving to London but staying in Leeds or going to Manchester kept the costs of rent down and we had a brief look and found some spaces that cost around £200-300 per month. 

Other costs:

Mac(2): £1,800  

Furniture: £600

Utilities: £90

Printer: £1,400

Camera (+ Stands, Lighting): £900

Scanner: £150

Total: £4,940