DI: We’re not getting rich off of it, but it pays our rent and more— we’re talking between $1,000 and $2,000 a month.

MB: We eat all the production costs and the time spent producing the posters, so it probably pays for itself and rent. But it’s fun because we have a little toy we can send people. A lot of people come to us and expect us to do for them what we do for ourselves.

ST: Do you compete with other people who do posters?

MB: Sure. The poster scene is kind of incestuous. We all know each other, and we’ve got our own little Yahoo! group, so everyone knows what posters are coming up. If there are a few of us who want to do a poster for the same band, then it just boils down to who makes the first contact.

TOP: Copycats logo for a CD/DVD manufacturer. BOTTOM: Propesed poster for American Eagel Outfitters highlighting the relationship between individuals and their jeans. DESIGN: Richard Boynton, Wink.

DI: I think there is definite competition among poster artists. What about competition for you guys—I mean are you bidding against any big firms?

RB: I think there’s been a couple of times we’ve bid against some heavyweights and kind of felt like, “Oh shit, we’re screwed.”

ST: And when we’ve gotten the job, we feel like maybe we may have bid too low. There have been a couple of times when we’ve been given jobs because a design firm has dropped the ball. Then we’re given the project to start over and see what we can do with it.

RB: There have definitely been times when we’ve heard who the other firms were that bid against us on jobs. And we’re like, “[The client] is soooo dumb. [The other design firm] could totally kick our ass.” So, we feel that the client is actually quite insane for having chosen us, because I would have chosen the other guys.

DI: Say someone cold-calls and says, “Hey I’m Chuck, and new in town. How much would it cost for an identity?” How do you figure out what to charge if you don’t know anything about them? How do you give them an estimate?

RB: We’d start by asking a lot of questions. Like where do you see your product being sold? Do you have people who are lined up to sell them already? A lot of those questions will enable us to …

ST: Get an idea as to what they probably have for a budget, what their expectations are.

RB: Have they got distribution already? Do they just need packaging? In that case, they would probably have a little more money than someone who says, “This is just an idea I had.” I think we bid primarily on perceived value, and less on calculating our time.

ST: That’s basically how we bid every job. I mean, we know what they’re paying for, but they may not. The only things designers can really bill for are ideas and time. And most designers—if they’ve ever sat down and added up the hours worked on a project—would go, “Oh my God, I could be making more at McDonald’s!”

ST: What advice would you give to young designers?

MB: Starting their own business? Don’t do it! There are enough of us trying to make it.

DI: At least don’t go into posters. I can’t tell you how many emails we get from people just coming out of school asking us how we do what we do. One, I’m not going to tell you. And two, you’re never going to succeed at it, because nobody ever has. People are always shocked at how shitty our setup is. They’ll walk in and say, “Oh, it’s just the two of you.” Do you ever get bothered by people coming by and finding out it’s just you two?