professional graphics?

[stuff]

A friend of mine has asked me to help out his web design company because his websites are plain, using boring fonts and basically no graphics. It's my mission to make the sites look professional. For an example, I designed the graphic on the top of this website for my friend.

Today he asked how much I want to get paid, as he is a business so he will be charging clients etc.

So my question is, how do I know how much I should be getting paid? Do you normally do a per hour charge or per graphic charge or something else?

Previously all my work has been purely for play, so I haven't had to consider it before.
-stuff

[jinny]

Charge by the hour, always sign a contract also

[SidekickWD]

Yes yes and yes to what jinny said. Friend or not (and sometimes especially if they are a friend) do a contract.

I charge by the hour also. Sometime clients, many that I have had anyway, don't like the sound of that though. So I will try to figure out how long I think it will take me to perform the task at hand and add in any other factors that may take up time and then give my client an 'estimate' cost for the project.

Good luck! Have fun!