I’ve got a new project involving updates to a coloring book, and I’m uncertain about how to estimate part of it. They want several new pages added.
To create the new pages, I’ll need to drive to a local location, take some reference photos and then create the pages by sketching and Illustrator.
The photographs will only be for reference for the artwork, so that I can draw it accurately. So should I include time getting the photographs in the estimate? Or should I treat it as non-billable expense?
Any time you spend on a project is billable.
Photos for illustrative reference are done all the time. Either by our hired illustrators, our sales rep on site, the end client or a photographer we hire. All of those cost money.
They are considered “Research.”
Even the drive time to get to a site to take specific photos is billable.
I might clarify that reference photos that are billable are those you have to take to get site-specific/time specific/content specific imagery. If you need a photo of a human hand in order to draw a human hand, then no. That type of thing is easy to find and you would already be expected to have that sort of thing available in your illustrator’s morgue file.
I could see not rolling the cost of a lunch you might have during that trip into the bill, but anything/everything that contributes to the end-product is billable.
