We’ll always do our best to fulfil your needs and meet your expectations, but it’s important to have things written down so that we both know what’s what, who should do what and when, and what will happen if something goes wrong. In this contract you won’t find any complicated legal terms or long passages of unreadable text. We’ve no desire to trick you into agreeing to something that you might later regret. What we do want is what’s best for both parties, now and in the future.
So in short;
You are hiring us (MJS Media) located at 1-3 Robertson St, Hastings, East Sussex, TN34 1HN to design and develop a web site for the price outlined in this document. By going ahead with this project and paying your first invoice you agree to these terms and conditions
Of course it’s a little more complicated, but we’ll get to that.
What do both parties agree to do?
You:
You have the authority to enter into this contract on behalf of yourself, your company or your organisation. You’ll provide us with the assets and information we require to complete the project. We will advise you on what these are depending on the goals of the project. You’ll do this in a timely manner and provide it in the formats we need. You’ll review our work, provide feedback and approval in a timely manner too. You will have 7 days to review and approve each step. At the end of this time, if no answer has been given, the work will be considered approved, and we will continue with the project.
You also agree to stick to the payment schedule set out in this proposal.
Us: We have the experience and ability to do everything we’ve agreed with you and we’ll do it all in a professional and timely manner. We’ll endeavour to meet every deadline that’s set and on top of that we’ll maintain the confidentiality of everything you give us.
Getting down to the nitty gritty
Domain Names
Choosing a domain name is your responsibility. If you would like us to register it for you we can and we will add this price to the invoice. We will ensure the domain is renewed each year and invoice you accordingly. If you wish to cancel the domain name you should provide us with at least 4 weeks notice.
Design
We create look-and-feel designs and flexible layouts that adapt to the capabilities of many devices and screen sizes. Our discovery phase will include a comprehensive mockup period. As we develop the website we create responsive designs iteratively and use predominantly HTML and CSS so we won’t waste time mocking up every template as a static visual for each individual device. We may use visuals to indicate a creative direction (colour, texture and typography.) We call that ‘look and feel.’
You’ll have plenty of opportunities to review our work and provide feedback.
If, at any stage, you’re not happy with the direction our work is taking, you’ll pay us in full for everything we’ve produced until that point and cancel this contract.
Text content
You are responsible for providing all text content. We are not responsible to checking this for spelling or grammar.
Graphics and photographs
You should supply graphic files in an editable, vector digital format. If this is not possible please provide images at the highest quality available. We can not be responsible for the look of your images if they are provided as low quality files. You should supply photographs in a high resolution digital format. If you choose to buy stock photographs, we can suggest stock libraries.
Browser testing
Browser testing no longer means attempting to make a website look the same in browsers of different capabilities or on devices with different size screens. It does mean ensuring that a person’s experience of a design should be appropriate to the capabilities of a browser or device.
We test our work in current versions of major desktop browsers such as Chrome and Safari. We won’t test in other older browsers unless we agreed separately. If you need an enhanced design for an older browser, we can provide a separate estimate for that.
Mobile browser testing
Testing using popular smaller screen devices is essential in ensuring that a person’s experience of a design is appropriate to the capabilities of the device they’re using. We test our designs in:
iOS: Safari and Google Chrome
Android: Google Chrome
We won’t test in Opera Mini/Mobile, specific Android devices, or other mobile browsers unless we agreed separately. If you need us to test using these, we can provide a separate estimate.
Search engine optimisation (SEO)
All of our sites are built with SEO in mind and are readable by Google.
Your website design fee doesn’t include ongoing SEO but the web pages that we develop are accessible to search engines and we can advise on ways to help improve your SEO.
Changes and revisions
We don’t want to limit your ability to change your mind. The price at the beginning of this contract is based on the time and expertise required to accomplish everything you’ve told us you want to achieve, but we’re happy to be flexible. If you want to change your mind or add anything new, that won’t be a problem as we’ll provide a separate estimate for those additional works.
Copyrights
First, you guarantee that all elements of text, images or other artwork you provide are either owned by your good selves, or that you’ve permission to use them.
Then, when your final payment has cleared, copyright will be automatically assigned as follows:
You’ll own the visual elements that we create for this project. You own all elements of text, images and data you provided, unless someone else owns them.
Legal stuff
We’ll carry out our work in accordance with good industry practice and at the standard expected from a suitably qualified person with relevant experience.
If any provision of this contract shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from this contract and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.
Please note that these terms and conditions are valid at the time of the proposal and may be subject to change. Any modifications or updates to these terms will be communicated to you in writing and will become effective upon your agreement.
Phew.
Intellectual property rights
Just to be clear, “Intellectual property rights” means all patents, rights to inventions, copyright (including rights in software) and related rights, trademarks, service marks, get up and trade names, internet domain names, rights to goodwill or to sue for passing off, rights in designs, database rights, rights in confidential information (including know-how) and any other intellectual property rights, in each case whether registered or unregistered and including all applications (or rights to apply) for, and renewals or extensions of, such rights and all similar or equivalent rights or forms of protection which subsist or shall subsist now or in the future in any part of the world.
Blimey.
First, you guarantee that all elements of text, images or other artwork you provide are either owned by your good selves, or that you’ve permission to use them. When you provide text, images or other artwork to us, you agree to protect us from any claim by a third party that we’re using their intellectual property.
We guarantee that all elements of the work we deliver to you are either owned by us or we’ve obtained permission to provide them to you. When we provide text, images or other artwork to you, we agree to protect you from any claim by a third party that you’re using their intellectual property. Provided you’ve paid for the work and that this contract hasn’t been terminated, we’ll assign all intellectual property rights to you as follows:
You’ll own the website we design for you plus the visual elements that we create for it. We’ll give you source files and finished files and you should keep them somewhere safe as we’re not required to keep a copy. You own all intellectual property rights of text, images, site specification and data you provided, unless someone else owns them.
We’ll own any intellectual property rights we’ve developed prior to, or developed separately from this project and not paid for by you. We’ll own the unique combination of these elements that constitutes a complete design and we’ll license its use to you, exclusively and in perpetuity for this project only, unless we agree otherwise.
Displaying our work
We love to show off our work, so we reserve the right to display all aspects of our creative work, including sketches, work-in-progress designs and the completed project on our portfolio and in articles on websites, in magazine articles and in books. We will also place a small link at the bottom of the website so that if your clients love the design they can get in touch with us
Payment schedule
We’re sure you understand how important it is as a small business that you pay the invoices that we send you promptly. As we’re also sure you’ll want to stay friends, you agree to stick tight to the Payment schedule set out in our proposal.
We issue invoices electronically. Our payment terms are 7 days from the date of invoice by BACS. All proposals are quoted in UK Pounds and payments will be made at the equivalent conversion rate at the date the transfer is made. No further work will be completed while invoices are outstanding.
You agree to pay all charges associated with international transfers of funds. The appropriate bank account details will be printed on our electronic invoice. We reserve the right to charge interest on all overdue debts at the rate of 13% per month or part of a month.
Website Guarantee and Changes
Website Guarantee:
Websites built by MJS Media come with a 12-month guarantee if using our hosting or 6 month on your own hosting for technical bugs. This guarantee covers any technical issues that may arise during the first period after the website’s launch. Please note that this guarantee does not include text, visual, or feature changes.
Changes and Revisions:
Any changes or revisions required once the website has been launched and that are outside the scope of the original project agreement will be subject to additional charges. These changes will be billed at our normal hourly rate. We will provide a separate estimate for any additional work requested beyond the original project scope.
Website Launch
Once the final stage of the project has been completed we will prepare your site for launch. You may have some of your own hosting, in which case we will transfer the site to your hosting.
If you require hosting for your website we will invoice monthly from the date of launch.
But where’s all the horrible small print?
Just like a parking ticket, you can’t transfer this contract to anyone else without our permission. This contract stays in place and need not be renewed. If for some reason one part of this contract becomes invalid or unenforceable, the remaining parts of it remain in place.
Although the language is simple, the intentions are serious, and this contract is a legal document under exclusive jurisdiction of English courts.
