The Calligrapher's Business Handbook: Pricing and Policies for Lettering Artists

The Calligrapher’s Business Handbook is a guide to best business practices and pricing strategies for calligraphers and lettering artists. Whether you’re starting out in creative freelancing, transitioning from a different profession, or running a lettering business that just needs a boost, you will welcome the invaluable ideas in this handbook. Award-winning graphic designer, renowned calligrapher, and bestselling author of Modern Calligraphy, Molly Suber Thorpe shares her hard-earned insights to answer your most pressing business questions. Molly has packed these pages with advice you won’t find anywhere else, covering a range of topics for freelance calligraphers and hand lettering artists: How professional calligraphers charge for their services Whether to charge flat rates or hourly rates When – and how – to offer discounts or freebies How to charge for commercial work, such as logo designs How to get the most bang for your advertising budget What goes into a fair project contract How to navigate copyright licensing and know your rights!

Molly Suber Thorpe is the award-winning graphic designer, calligrapher and teacher behind Plurabelle Studio. She is also the bestselling author of Modern Calligraphy: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started in Script Calligraphy (St. Martin's Press, 2013). Shortly after its release, Modern Calligraphy was named an Amazon "Favorite Craft Book" and has since sold more than 60,000 copies worldwide. It has been translated into Chinese and Spanish with a release in the U.K. pending. Molly specializes in hand-lettered logo designs, calligraphy for publications, custom wedding stationery, and spot lettering for print and web. She is credited as a driving force behind the modern calligraphy movement, one of the first artists to use the whimsical, unorthodox pointed pen styles and bold color palettes so popular today. Her book's success led Molly to develop calligraphy workshops, which she teaches as time permits. Molly and her work have been featured in such publications as The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Martha Stewart Weddings, Los Angeles Times, Country Living, UPPERCASE, Bound & Lettered, Design*Sponge, and Style Me Pretty Weddings. Her extensive client list includes Google Cultural Institute, Martha Stewart Weddings, Michael Kors, Fendi, J. Jill, Victorio & Lucchino, Alfred Coffee, Vogue Footwear, and Neenah Paper. In 2016 Molly launched Calligrafile.com, a free database of resources and products for calligraphers, hand lettering artists, type enthusiasts, and creative freelancers. A unique resource, Calligrafile has quickly become an invaluable site for amateur and pro lettering artists alike. Today Molly lives in Athens, Greece, with her partner, fashion photographer Ektor Angelomatis, and their incorrigible Bengal cat, Mr. Marlowe.