[symptic]

That's as much as you make in one day. If he's as picky of an artist as I am, he spends several days on a design. Then there's the fact his skill set is highly specialized, thus providing the luxury of a higher price per project.

When you care enough about your new startup looking as good as it can be, a few thousand to have new icons made to make your site more usable and unique or your app more visible is worth the effort--or in this case, the capital.

A good designer is well worth his price. it's just a shame there is an overabundance of bad designers; they're each worth nothing more than 5 headaches, a poor end product, and a delayed project. But hey, you saved $500 in the process.