Hello designers! I’m new on here and was hoping to get some advice from you experienced, talented graphic designers.
I’ve been a graphic designer for 17 years and have designed just about everything. But, now I have a client asking me to design a die cut card as an insert for a product they are sending out, something I’ve not done before. My questions are these:
What is a good ballpark amount that I should charge for a die cut card design?
Does anyone know where I might find good tutorials for how to design a die cut item?
Adding a dieline to your artwork isn’t tricky. It’s a matter of drawing a vector line on the artwork indicating where the printer should make the cut. Typically, you’d add this line to a separate layer named dieline. You’d also make the dieline a contrasting spot color named dieline — not because it will print, of course, but rather to separate it from everything else so that it won’t print and can be used by the printer to make the die.
Die cuts can be simple straight lines or shapes, or more complex and require custom-made dies. Printers will charge more depending on how complicated and time-consuming making the die turns out to be. Not all printers specialize in this sort of thing, which is also a consideration.
As for what you charge, if it’s a simple matter of drawing a line where the cut should be made, as I mentioned, it shouldn’t add anything to what you’d charge beyond what you’d normally charge.
On the other hand, some die-cuts can be complicated and require time-consuming planning. For example, figuring out exactly how a piece of card stock should fold up into a custom presentation folder with all the various cuts needed for it to fold up right involves figuring out everything. Something this complicated might also require creating mock-ups by hand to make sure that all the cuts, folds, and glue spots are exactly right. For all that extra work, you’d, of course, need to charge more.
Soo many questions to ask here.
First, we don’t discuss price. Depends on where you are in the world and what the traffic will bear.
I waited for B’s post first. His post assumes you are just doing the file and not doing the printing/die cutting. if you are doing that, you will have to find out what your die-charge will be on top of the printing and proofing etc.
the other questions, since I’m in a weird corner of the print universe, how many are you printing? and how are they being printing ?and do you mean custom die-line or perhaps a prefab the printer has on hand (and why is my caps key suddenly not working…)
there are a number of ways to get something ‘die cut’ but if you really mean a custom-made metal die, and cutting via stamping, you may want to dig a bit to find out what their printer (or yours) has for die-making parameters and costs for complexity. and to find out if the die charge is worth it for the number of pieces you will be making.
I’m gonna go shake the cookie crumbs outta my keyboard now
edit, oh look, one side is working again…