Go to any of the job sites. Search under graphic arts or media designers. The typical advertised salary. You will see that the average for around the country. The paid salary of a full time graphics designer is right around $40,000 per year. THis is for a person that has 5 years experience in graphic development work. I do not make this up. The information is readily available from a number of sources. Monster, Hot jobs, etc. Salaries have especially dropped in the web graphic development fields since the dot com crash. I am not quoteing Freelance rates as their rates are not consistant enough nor widely available enough to get a reliable statistic. I am quoting staff designer salaries as paid buy companies for full time employment. As the items you produce are not done under special contract for a particular client. The compensation calculations are consistant with a company effort at producing a standard product for resale. Very similar to say viewpoint that makes gereric models for the general geaphics community. Viewpoint retains full time developers to crank these products out. It is the average salary of this type of developer that I reference. The average salary for staff artists for advertising, and media houses across the nation is right at $40,000. This is the reality. But you do not have to believe me, go do the research. Here in the south east. Typically your grapics peofessional with 2 to 5 years experience is paid $30,000.