Why Does Design Cost Money?

Everything costs money, but why does design cost so much? I hear this question quite a bit and have met few designers able to answer it with any amount of confidence. So, here is my attempt to defend the cost of design, specifically graphic design and website design.

1. Good design is complex. Design doesn’t always look complex to be complex but any designer worth anything has taken a long time trying different variations, colors, fonts, lines, etc. It seems like anyone should be able to design, especially given the amount of free software that comes with any computer these days, but there is more than meets the eye. When you hire somebody they are making something that will last and can be used in any medium. A graphic designer is making sure that the design is in the right format, can be edited easily later and is clear at any size. Do it yourself designs suffer from being in the wrong formats and formats that
2. Good design is sublte. Really, any of the rest of these fall under the first point, but good design focuses on tiny things that add a professional look. There are tons of blog posts out there highlighting the subtleties in good design, so I won’t take the time here. Good design adds tiny lines, shadows, gradients, contours, etc. that would not have been there otherwise. They add up to a very good design and a very professional look.
3. Good design is proportional. Anyone can make a word into a different font, but making that font say a brand specifically means finding the right colors and proportions. Once again, it is more complex than finding the first font on your computer and letting that brand your company. It is about making it look unique and spell out as much about your company as possible.
4. Good design is more than your project. This is not easily understood by most clients but you are usually paying a good designer for more than your project. Graphic Designers and website designers spend time looking at other designs and new designs and new fonts and current trends and trends that are ready to die and color schemes and other creative ideas. It is important that your designer knows a little bit about what is going on in design currently. If certain fonts become favorites of every designer (most overused fonts), then it is good for your designer to know what those are and avoid them or find great substitute fonts. If certain colors are getting overused or certain symbols are getting used and overused, a good designer will be aware of that and steer you into more unique waters. It is important that your designer is spending time aside from their own projects because they then bring all of those things to your design(s), but it means paying for that time too.
5. Good design costs your designer money. The Adobe software is between $1,700-$2,500 and a designer then needs a computer that can run that software (between $1,000-$3,000). That means your designer has already sunk thousands of dollars into the right setup to for designing and paying $150 for a logo is hardly a drop in the bucket towards covering those costs. Not to mention the money they may have spent on classes, specialty fonts, stock photos, etc.

Hopefully this list helps a little. If you’re a designer, are there other things that make design cost money?