3 Things You Don’t Want to Leave Off Your Contract
We’re a litigious society. Some people get sued more than I eat breakfast. The psychiatric profession industry alone currently has more than 28,000 active suits against it. So this post is not without purpose, and the main point is that you need a contract.
Contracts are essential. They don’t have to be big or confusing or full of legal jargon or anything like that. But they do have to be agreed upon and they have to define the responsibilities of both parties. And they should be signed by both parties.
Now, there are cut/paste contracts floating around online. They’re free to use but I would recommend writing your own or getting a lawyer to prepare a standard one for you.
Regardless, contract writers and lawyers, not being designers, aren’t always aware of how the design process can wreak havoc on one’s time and money. This post is about three little elements that every design-based contract should have that could save you and your clients a lot of headaches.
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Don’t Blame it on the Client, You’re the Professional
There are two things I’ve discovered that waste more time than anything in freelance work.
- Doing crappy work
- Starting before you know what the client really wants, leading to crappy work
We all know what doing crappy work is so no need to elucidate here. It goes in the trash.
As to starting a project before you clarify milestones with the client, same things applies. While you may make them the most incredible logo or website ever, if it’s not what they wanted it’s still crap to them. It goes in the trash too.
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Design Tales from the Dark Side - The Client Who Wanted Cool
SEATTLE, October 2006 - It was a dark and stormy night when the phone rang. I pulled the cigarette from my teeth and reached for the phone.
Actually, no. I don’t smoke. And besides it was a perfectly mild mid-afternoon when my email inbox said “PING!” I opened the message, read it and dollar signs appeared in both of my eyes. Someone, we’ll call him “Jake”, wanted a new logo and I was just the man for it.
And thus begun one of my toughest and most time-consuming cases ever. The job was simple: design a logo for this gentleman’s SEO company. That’s about all I knew when I accepted the project and by the end, I didn’t know much more than that.
Aloofness is a hard client to pleaseI gave the gent the ordinary rundown on how I work, then did my preliminary interview. It didn’t go well, what with him seeming secretive and uncaring throughout. It was awkward from the outset. I wasn’t feeling any love and the hairs on my neck were standing on end. But the dollar signs were still in my eyes flashing, and I can be a slave.
The interview was nearing an end. One last question and we’d call it a night afternoon. The last question is the doozy that I throw at all my clients now. But this particular time, I should have trusted my instincts and let it go. Instead, the last question went down like this:
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