Drawar

It completely depends on the designer, how complicated you want your theme, the detail of the design, all that stuff.

Back when I still did client work I worked on dozens of blogs, and normally I'd start around $2k for a blog design from scratch. That's just me though, I'm sure you'll find designers who charge half as much and twice as much :)

Oh another thing I want to pop in is that you get what you pay for when contracting design to someone. The best designers are usually expensive, and it goes down from there. Figure out a budget, do your homework and go to the CSS gallery sites and find people you like, then shoot out emails and talk to them, learn about their work. It's the only way to really come away from the project thinking that it was completely worth the time, money, and effort.

I'd start around $2k for a blog design from scratch.

Wha?? I think I just soiled myself... I had no idea a quality design (which Mike is famous for IMHO) would cost so much...

Mike, what kind of bloggers are willing to pay that much money? Is there a market for that kind of work?

(to clarify: I meant are there bloggers willing to pay that much, I'd fully expect to pay at least that much or far more for a start-up or business of any kind)

@carmodyarc: from what I know, Mike use to do a lot of corporate blog designing, so that would justify the 2k+ price tag.

Most corporate blogs and sites have a lot of specific and unique things for various sections of the site/blog and not just standard blog design elements.

If you want something custom and not cookie cutter, you will need to pay a decent amount but as Mike said, your mileage may very on price based on who you work with and the quality of work they provide.

Some design companies charge $550 and up for corporate branding... logo for web, print, tv, etc...

Oh it was rarely for personal blogs, and if it was, the price was dropped a bit lower. I did the old GigaOM design, Socialite Life, Search Engine Land, so although they were blogs they were still pulling in some megabucks in ad revenue each month so they were obviously a business and not just a personal site. I think it helps to step back and not just think about designing a blog as "doing a theme" and then shipping it over, which (unfortunately) is what the majority of people are now doing. It's all about who the client is, how much they value their site, how much you value your own work, and having self-confidence in quoting people the amount you feel you should be making.

What kind of site are you looking for? One with heavy graphics? A simple site that can be done mostly in CSS?

I have photoshop and CSS experience but I wouldn't say I am designer. I am pretty good at taking themes and ripping them apart to make what I want though.

hey all thanks for the input.

yeah i'm definitely going for a simple sort of look. i certainly don't have $2000 to spend. :)

The site I'm talking about is http://www.james5.org - a social justice blog. i think it could be mostly done in CSS. I like the feel of http://www.openswitch.org's designs.

i shall go check out the css galleries and see if I can find someone to work with.

I'm afraid Mike's right: someone who'll produce a strong design that expresses your site's identity will almost certainly cost a fair chunk of money. These skills take a lot of time and effort to acquire, and are currently in demand. In the end, you'll tend to get what you pay for.

There are a lot of excellent templates out there that can be personalised without too much effort, so it might be worth finding someone who'll tweak one for you for a much lower price. People have done a lot of nice things with themes like Sandbox and Tarski.

If you're looking for CSS based I'd go with Sandbox.

If you like what you see on openswitch.org, I'm pretty sure that the site owner, Ben, does some design work.

yeah i'm definitely going for a simple sort of look. i certainly don't have $2000 to spend. :)"

Remember that the 'simple look' doesn't mean cheaper. You don't pay per design element - the simplest designs can also cost as much.

Sorry for being pernickety. ;)

There's also a bunch of sites that sell unique templates. You can browse there and see if there's something you like.

Sitepoint
DigitalPoint
Webmaster Talk

etc.

thanks again for the extra info. maybe i'll have to save some more moolah before i can afford something that's worth it.

i checked in with Ben, but he's not doing design anymore unfortunately. I would have loved him to design my blog for me. If anyone knows of any similar designers let me know.

Well, I do WP theme design. Depending on what you're looking for, I may be able to help.

I don't know anything about this designer but she might be newer than most and she popped p in my blog log somehow.

I don't know what kind of stie you have though. She is also running some kind of promotional contest.
http://randaclay.com/