An acquaintance of mine saw some of my work and asked if I would design a logo for her business card. I would like to, sounds fun, but I have absolutely no clue as to what I should charge for something like that. Does anyone have any advice?

I would base it on the hourly rate for the minimum wage; for a friend, though, I wouldn't charge anything. How good a friend is your acquaintance?

She's actually our pet sitter. So, I didnt really have any intention of charging her much, we may forgo money all together and she might provide X amount of pet sitting visits for use of the logo. A minimum wage scale sounds just right. We should be able to figure something out with that in mind. Should I also consider material costs, purchased models or stuff like that?

If you have to buy something specially for her then you could charge that at cost, but if it can be used for other peope or yourself, then just absorb the cost. it's what I do for my wife's painting group; they have posters ans such for their exhibitions.

Thanks for the info A_Sunbeam. Let me ask you this, what about ownership rites for the image itself? Would she take control of the image and final logo or does she gain just the rite to use the image? How does that work?

That would depend on your agreement with her. If the logo is of her design then the rights to that belongs to her and you get a fee paid to you for the work. You cannot sell that logo to anyone else. Generally for logo I would say the person or company who commissioned the work owns the copyright. If it is a image you made and she wants to use that as a logo, then you can sell her the complete copyright of the image or just the right to use it on a business card and no where else. And for that you also have to explain to her that you can use that logo / image for any purpose you deem fit as it belongs to you.

It depends on the person it's for, as far as I'm concerned. If it's a friend then I'd just give them the logo (or if it's a charity - e.g. logos I created for our local corps of the Salvation Army).

In the old days I would get a printing block made for the letterpress machine - if I'd charged the customer for the block then I would consider it their property.

Ok, that clears some things up. Thanks A_Sunbeam and rajib. The logo design is based on her ideas so it sounds like she would take the copyright. Quite a bit to digest :)