Costing, pricing, profit toolkit
A collection of tools and tutorials to help grow a sustainable creative business.
Why pricing matters and where you operate in the design ecosystem.
Understanding where you are in your career helps identify the tools you need.
A selection of tools and tactics to help you cost, price and be profitable.
A curated collection of resources on costing, pricing and profit.
The authors
Carol Mackay
Carol is a graphic designer and co-founder, along with Greg Branson, of Mackay Branson design. MBd employed a myriad of designers, serviced long-term clients and delivering sustained profits for over 30 years.
Carol used that practical experience to co-found Design Business Council: Australia’s only business advisory focused on the business of design. And the only one led by practitioners who have had skin in the game: who know the Australian design industry from the inside.
Design Business Council was founded to help creatives manage their business better.
Designers are surrounded by creative inspiration but are often bereft of business knowledge. That’s a problem because research shows designers who are confident in their business decision-making skills find it easier to grasp opportunities, identify the good prospects from the bad and to manage more effectively; more efficiently and more sustainably.
Outside of work, Carol actively and intentionally advocates for the design community.
She has mentored through AGDA, Womentor and The Aunties, and sits on the board of Never Not Creative, a non-profit dedicated to improving the mental well being of creatives.
Greg Branson
Greg’s passion is the research and development of methods that improve design management and the role of design in business.
His longevity is in his ability to change and adapt. Greg’s career as a traditionally-trained photographer; became an academic, teaching photography to design students; co-founded and ran Mackay Branson design until, recognising an area that he loved – design management – was not an area traditionally covered in design education, he co-founded the Design Business Council.
Since then he has worked alongside hundreds and Australian creatives helping them manage their business better.
Greg has sat on the AGDA Victoria and National councils, on a number of University and TAFE Advisory Boards and helped rewrite the VCE Visual Communication curriculum.
Outside of DBC, he is a passionate analogue photographer who spends an inordinate amount of time in his darkroom. You can follow his work on instagram
Always happy to chat, he can be contacted on email or follow him on LinkedIn.