How to Use a Design Proposal to Land Higher Paying Graphic Design Clients
Vol. 029
How to Use a Succinct Design Proposal to Confidently Present Your Business and Land The Higher-Budget Projects You Deserve.
Position yourself as an expert from the start with a succinct, well designed creative proposal that will help you land higher paying projects and clients.
A quick bite:
Learning how to best convey your creative value to a prospective client can be quite difficult. Though, when you clearly convey your value, you’ll be more likely to land clients who trust you, who align with you, and who pay the big bucks! Below is a breakdown of the Vicarel Studios design proposal process (a proposal that’s landed us numerous 5-figure projects) as well as a link for you to purchase our exact proposal if you’d like!
Continue reading below…
This proposal helped me land my first $30,000 project!
Our first digital product is up for grabs!
If you’re looking for something to help your business seem more professional, meriting higher payments, take a look at our editable design proposal that we use at Vicarel Studios!
With almost a decade of freelancing under my belt, I’ve learned, refined and ditched various processes to help grow Vicarel Studios as a graphic design and branding studio. To scale and accommodate larger projects and opportunities, we’ve done everything from adopting particular aps, programs and practices to having standard document templates and processes.
One of the biggest changes has been sending out more formal design proposals to secure higher paying graphic design projects.
Landing fun, high-paying clients who value the work you create is difficult. It took me too long to land my first $1,000 project, and maybe even longer to land my first $10,000 project. With time, a combination of practice, experience, skillset, networking, consistency and persistence, client experience, business practices, so much more led to landing higher paying graphic design and creative work.
There isn’t necessarily one thing that one can do in order to land higher paying clients. Though, one thing one should focus on to land higher paying clients and projects is presenting your value and your services clearly, professionally and uniquely. This can be done with a design proposal.
A design proposal can be presented and distributed in many ways. I’m not here to tell you that “we’re doing it best”. Frankly, I’m sure that I’m not; however, I can tell you that these proposals have helped me confidently present Vicarel Studios’ work and services and have landed us numerous 5-figure projects.
Below is a breakdown of how I set up creative design proposals for all sorts of projects. We use the same template for logo design and branding, graphic design, murals, packaging design, and any other creative projects that come our way. As I mentioned, if you’re interested in a low-investment, editable design proposal template to use for your business, it’s available here for purchase!
What is a design proposal?
I’m so glad you asked, internet. A design proposal introduces you (or your studio/business), highlights a “problem” (why your prospective client contacted you), speculates a solution (and how your services provide that solution), provides a scope of work and budget (possibly a timeline as well), highlights your unique selling proposition (USP), showcases some of your relevant services, validates you and your work, shows relevant work samples, and has a call to action.
But, when does one send out a graphic design proposal — or, any proposal, for that matter? Essentially, when a prospective client reaches out to Vicarel Studios and asks “Hey! Our business XYZ specializes in XYZ, and we’re looking to create a cohesive visual identity to represent our business.” (haha — for the record, it’s never this direct and easy.) I start by saying something to the effect of “Great! This project sounds right up our alley! Let’s start by filling out this form (I insert a link to a project intake form on the Vicarel Studios website) and we can then have a more informed conversation from there.”
Once I receive the project inquiry form, I’m able to assess a few things: how serious they are, if this project has the potential to be a good fit, sometimes an estimated budget range, and if hopping on a call would be worth our time.
Assuming a call happens and goes well, it oftentimes wraps with me stating “We’ll be sending you a proposal and estimate for this project soon!”
So, what goes in our creative design proposals to help us secure higher paying graphic design clients?
Introduction
You’ll want your prospect to understand what the proposal is for immediately upon opening the document. The intro is an opportunity to immediately highlight what you hope to do for this project and possibly a tagline/bit of copy that highlights what your business does. You’ll want this to be something captivating and relatable to that specific prospect.
For example, if we were to be submitting a design proposal for a graphic design and packaging design project for the liquor industry, we might open with a beautiful lifestyle image and succinct copy that explains what the graphic design and packaging project is or could be: “Crafting a brand experience that’s worth drinking.” For a tagline, maybe something like this: “Vicarel Studios offers innovative graphic design, branding and packaging design for eclectic brands.”
The challenge
Simply, state the “problem” you’re trying to solve with your graphic design and packaging design.
Your client’s “problem” may have been stated directly or indirectly. This is an opportunity for you to convey the value you can bring to the table. The challenge might be something like “We want our product to be the coolest new craft beer in the Denver area catered to millennials and young professionals alike.” It’s your job to solve that problem with graphic design and branding work.
The solution / Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Here you can explain (at a high level) how you will solve this problem. In talking about the high level or conceptual solution, you can highlight your USP. Your USP is your point of difference or what makes you stand out from the crowd. In the case of Vicarel Studios I will highlight how we start by thinking like brand strategists, we compose like graphic designers, and we then execute like fine artists: we are a hybrid creative studio that brings a unique design process, aesthetic and solution to our graphic design, murals and creative projects.
Scope of Work (SOW)
In this section, you highlight what you will do to provide that solution (list your services) and any other relevant details or descriptions.
When we send out proposals at Vicarel Studios, we like to link out to a Google Sheet that clearly breaks down the scope of work. Herein, we define the graphic design or other creative services, the process for each service, and the associated investment with each service. Pricing out these services has taken years to figure out, and still evolves weekly. I always send proposals with my highest level/top tier design offerings, enabling us the opportunity to negotiate down. If the prospect can’t afford the services at this high level we can then talk about what they have to invest and adjust the scope of work (revisions, deliverables, etc.) accordingly.
I believe that the breakdown, presentation and discussion of the SOW is the most difficult and variable portion of the proposal process.
About
Here is a great opportunity to succinctly explain the background of your business: what you do, how long you’ve been doing it, and who you do it for. Don’t be afraid to talk yourself up a bit — if you’ve won some awards, talk about your awards. If you have a few high profile clients don’t be afraid to mention them.
You’ll want your client to have a good understanding as to why you’re the most viable candidate for this project/position. Re-express how your USP would bring your prospect immense value. You’ll want them to almost feel like they MUST go with you.
For example, I will frequently highlight why I started Vicarel Studios, I will reiterate how our graphic design and branding process and execution is different, and I will elaborate a bit on our brand ethos.
Core Capabilities (Additional Creative Services)
If your prospect is looking to hire you for graphic design and packaging work, this is your opportunity to think through how you could bring more to the table. Is there anything that you feel your prospect is overlooking? This is a great opportunity to not only upsell, but to further convey your value.
Because Vicarel Studios approaches a traditional business model (graphic design studio) from a slightly different angle, I select different services to present as “core capabilities” based on the prospective project, scope and my perception of their needs. This enables the prospect to see other relevant creative services (painting murals, for instance) and when we reconnect they may note “Oh, I didn’t realize you also paint murals, we’d love to have a mural painted in our office as well!” This enables you to get more involved in your prospect’s business and hopefully land more work and get paid more!
Validation / Proof:
Prove your worth! Whether this done by showing past client logos or with testimonials, this is your opportunity to show that you’ve worked with clients in the past, and they’re happy with the creative work you’ve done.
Here, we just pop in a series of past client logos. If I’m being honest, having brands like NBC, Twitter and Lululemon under our belt definitely help convey that we’re serious and we will bring true value to the table. If I didn’t have such client experience I would likely go back to previous clients to get some testimonials.
Case Studies
Show relevant work! When showing relevant case studies you’ll want to consider industry specific relevance as well as project specific relevance.
In the instance of the craft beer project made up above, I would showcase the Great Divide packaging design project, the New Belgium Brewing bottle design project (both industry specific), and probably the So Delicious Oatmilk project (project specific, because that too was packaging). I suggest showing 2–4 case studies. With just 1, you don’t show enough reference, with more than 4, it might drag on. We personally choose to showcase the projects with 1 hero image and then have a small description of the work done and a link to the case study on our website.
Call To Action (CTA)
Simply, wrap things up with a call to action: “let’s work together”, “want to get started — let’s chat!”, or something similar. End with your logo/branding, some contact info, and that’s it!
The process we implemented above is definitely not bulletproof. It is, however, working in the right direction. It’s far better than an informal email, and this template has locked in numerous 5-figure projects for Vicarel Studios.
I intend to allow this proposal process to evolve and change just as much of the Vicarel Studios business has and still does. I would encourage you to do the same, whether that’s with your own proposal or the Vicarel Studios design proposal template. Of course, make the necessary adjustments to the branding, colors, etc. to make it yours!
I hope this info and template help you land new, big, high paying and fun projects!
As always, hit me with any questions.
