Graphic design proposal: How-to guide

A graphic design proposal is the first step towards a successful business relationship for graphic designers with their clients. It’s an essential document for freelance graphic designers, graphic design companies, and creative agencies to promote their graphic design services to potential clients. Graphic design services include creating impactful marketing and branding collateral and designing logos and websites.

In this guide, we will discuss a graphic design proposal, its essential elements, and some smart tips to draft it efficiently.

What are the core elements of a graphic design proposal?

Understanding the key components of a graphic design proposal is important to convince potential clients to choose your services. Please note that a graphic design proposal may include legal and regulatory considerations. Please consult an attorney for the proper assistance to ensure your graphic design proposal complies with local and state regulations.

Let's examine each component in detail.

Cover page 

A cover page introduces your graphic design proposal to your potential clients. 

The first page of your proposal should include a cover page with your company's name and logo, your client's name, and contact details. It's also a good idea to include visually appealing design images from previous projects to capture the client's attention.

Executive summary

The executive summary offers a concise overview of the entire proposal. It’s designed to grab the reader's interest while ensuring a clear understanding of the proposal. This section should demonstrate to your clients that you comprehend their graphic design needs. Briefly discuss their business challenges and the solutions you would offer through your graphic design services. It's advisable to keep this section short and precise.

About us

In this section, introduce your company and services to your clients by providing the required details, such as:

• Mission and vision statement: An organization's mission and vision statements are brief, inspiring messages that convey its purpose and beliefs. They communicate your organization's goals effectively and help the client understand your business.
• Details of the brand: Share the unique details about your brand, including the company values, expertise, and strengths that make it unique and differentiate it from the rest.
• Testimonials: Adding testimonials from previous clients can strengthen your brand's credibility.

Team members

As a graphic designer, showcasing your skills to prospective clients is vital. One great way to do this is by creating a page to introduce your team members. This helps the client assess your team and make informed decisions. In this section, you may provide information about:

• Details of the team members: The team members who would oversee the project, such as head of marketing, art director, creative lead, principal designer, project manager, team lead, and others. 
• Short bio of the team members: You may include details about their design expertise, work history, and background. 

Scope of work

In this section, provide a clear and complete description of the graphic design project deliverables to ensure clarity in the design process and avoid scope creep. It also makes monitoring the progress easier for the prospective client.

• Stages of work: You may divide the task into manageable stages, specifying the precise design services involved, such as logo design or website layout creation. 
• Execution: The above gives the customer a structured overview of what to expect and how you’ll execute the graphic design project. 
• Alignment: Ensure that the initial vision aligns with the final outcome. 
• Provision: Keep a provision for any unexpected delays during the project.

The approach

This section outlines your approach to delivering top-quality services to the client. Mention the benefits you provide to your clients, like quick turnaround time, competitive rates, and best-quality visuals. 

An example of the approach process can be: 

1. Audit: Auditing the web design of the existing website to identify the gaps and scope of improvement.
2. Research: Researching the current market trends of creative designs for client’s industry.
3. Brainstorm: Discussing the design requirements with the client.
4. Rough sketch: Sketching rough graphics/visuals as instructed by the client.
5. Strategy: Giving your unique strategies to benefit the client's business.
6. Approval: Sending the designs for client approval.
7. Updates: Updating the necessary changes to the designs.
8. Final design: Once the designs are complete with the final changes, they’re sent to the clients in the format discussed initially.

Project and timeline 

It's a good practice to break your project into tasks and provide a timeline for completion. This approach keeps the prospective client informed about each milestone and maintains work transparency; thus, everyone remains on the same page.

Deliverables

Define the deliverables that you propose to cater to the potential client. Agreeing upon deliverables with the client company during planning sets expectations and helps allocating the right resources.

Pricing

In this section, provide pricing tables and mention every service along with its price. List the value of each of these stages in monetary terms, such as your hourly or monthly engagement rates. The services may include:

• Designing or documentation
• Construction
• Styling
• Refining

Terms and conditions

In this section mention the important clauses such as rules, regulations, payment terms, warranties, special rights, liabilities, and termination that are important to commence this project and protect the interests of both parties. This outlines the legalities of the agreement between a design professional and their client.

Signatures

At the end of the project proposal, the graphic design service provider and the client company sign the proposal to formalize the agreement.

Tips to create an effective graphic design proposal

Here are a few tips for creating a successful client proposal:

1. Conduct research

To create an effective design proposal, extensively research the client's company, competitors, and past projects.

2. Understand the client's problem

Understanding the client's vision and project requirements is crucial to creating successful graphic design proposals. Tailor your proposal to align with their objectives by truly comprehending their needs and demonstrating your genuine interest in their project.

3. Focus on benefits

To promote your business, highlight your unique advantages and innovative approach to benefit the client's brand identity. Emphasize tangible results that address their core objectives and engage their target audience.

4. Provide solution-driven action

A well-written graphic design proposal should provide a meticulous solution to your clients, free from any grammatical errors or format inconsistencies.

5. Ensure a user-friendly approach

A proposal for graphic design must be presented in an easy-to-understand and accessible manner.

6. Add past work and client testimonials

When impressing a client, display a selection of visuals from past projects to demonstrate your skills and style. This allows clients to envision your work and see the potential success of their projects. Adding client testimonials can also offer credibility to your brand.

7. Leverage templates

You may use LegalZoom’s graphic design proposal template to ease the process of drafting the proposal from scratch. Our graphic design proposal template speeds up the proposal creation. The Templates are easily customizable and bring consistency to your proposals

Use LegalZoom’s graphic design proposal template 

LegalZoom provides professional, carefully designed, and customizable templates that can help you create accurate templates and gain your client's trust. Use the sample graphic design proposal template provided on this page and answer questions to fill in your information.

By subscribing to one of the pricing plans, you can customize your graphic design proposal template with a rich editor and tailor it to your client’s vision and requirements. You can edit the information already present or add new details by dragging and dropping text, tables, images, etc. The same plan also provides access to LegalZoom's eSignature service to sign and get signatures on your graphic design proposal. 

Download your graphic design service proposal as a .pdf and save it on your device to print it and use as required. 

Frequently asked questions

What is a graphic design proposal?

A graphic design proposal is a crucial document that clearly outlines the range of services a design agency provides. It should be crisp, professional, and appealing. 

Who needs graphic design services?

Businesses may have different graphic design service requirements. Common use cases when a business reaches out to a freelance graphic designer or a graphic design company are to:

• Create or revamp their websites
• Design marketing collateral
• Design logo  

How do you write a graphic design proposal?

To write a great graphic design proposal, understand your client's needs, research their organization and competitors, structure your proposal effectively, and explain your solutions clearly. Consider using LegalZoom's graphic design proposal template to help draft your proposal.

Who creates a graphic design proposal?

When creating a graphic design proposal for a design project, freelancers do this independently to present to potential clients. If you're a writer or editor working in a graphic design company, you might need the legal team’s guidance to write the proposal. When creating the proposal alone, use a graphic design proposal template to get an idea on the elements to cover and further build on it based on your requirement.