BanjoCat Creative

The Who & What

Summary:

We’ll always do our best to fulfill your needs and meet your expectations, but it’s important to have things stated clearly up front 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, by hiring us to work with you on your Web related project, both parties (that’d be YOU and US – Ken and Erin Douglass) agree to the following terms.

What do both parties agree to?

You: You have the authority to enter into this contract on behalf of yourself, your company or your organization. You’ll give us the assets and information we tell you we need to complete the project. You’ll do this when we ask and provide it in the formats we ask for. You’ll review our work, provide feedback and approval in a timely manner too. Deadlines work two ways, so you’ll also be bound by dates we set together. You also agree to stick to the payment schedule set out at the end of this contract.

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 endeavor to meet every deadline that’s set and on top of that we’ll maintain the confidentiality of everything you give us.

Design

We create designs that adapt to the capabilities of many devices and screen sizes. We create them iteratively and use predominantly WordPress, HTML, CSS and JavaScript so we won’t waste time mocking up every template as a static visual. We may use visuals to indicate a creative direction (color, texture and typography.) We call that ‘atmosphere.’

You’ll have plenty of opportunities to review our work and provide feedback. We’ll either share a screenshot or the development site with you and we’ll have regular, possibly daily contact by either phone, Text, or Slack.

If -at any stage- you change your mind about what you want delivered or aren’t happy with the direction our work is taking, you’ll pay us in full for the time we’ve spent working until that point and may terminate this contract.

Text Content

Unless agreed separately, we’re not responsible for inputting text or images into your content management system or creating every page on your website. We provide professional copywriting and editing services, so if you’d like us to create new content or input content for you, we’ll provide a separate estimate.

Graphics and Photographs

You should supply graphic files in an editable, vector (PSD), JPG or PNG digital format. You should supply photographs in a high resolution digital format. If you choose to buy stock photographs, we can suggest stock libraries. If you’d like us to search for photographs for you, we can provide a separate estimate. If licensing is required for use of these assets, you are responsible for obtaining and paying for such licensing.

WordPress, HTML, CSS and JavaScript

We deliver pages i.e. the website developed from a preselected WordPress Theme, custom HTML markup, PHP & CSS stylesheets for styling and clean JavaScript for behaviors.

(Desktop) 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 user experience with the design should be appropriate to the capabilities of a browser or device.

We test our work in current versions of major desktop browsers including those made by Apple (Safari), Google (Chrome), Microsoft (IE), and Mozilla Firefox. We won’t test in other older browsers unless specifically agreed to separately. If you need an enhanced design for an older browser, we can provide a separate estimate for that if we are able to accomodate the request.

Mobile Browser Testing

Testing using popular smaller screen devices is essential in ensuring that a person’s user experience with the 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 to separately. If you need us to test on these devices, we can provide a separate estimate if we are able to accomodate the request.

Technical Support

We’re not a website hosting company so we don’t offer support for website hosting, email or other services related to hosting. You may already have professional hosting and you might even manage that hosting in-house; if you do, great. If you don’t, we will recommend one of our preferred hosting providers. We can set up your site on a server, plus any statistics software such as Google Analytics and will provide a separate estimate for that. Then, the updates to, and management of that server will be up to you.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

We don’t guarantee improvements to your website’s search engine ranking, but the pages that we develop are accessible to search engines, i.e. “search engine friendly”.

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 number of weeks that we estimate we’ll need 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 weeks.

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. That said, we can’t guarantee that our work will be error-free and so we can’t be liable to you or any third-party for damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental, consequential or special damages, even if you’ve advised us of them.

Your liability to us will also be limited to the amount of fees payable under this contract and you won’t be liable to us or any third-party for damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental, consequential or special damages, even if we’ve advised you of them.

Finally, 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.

Phew. Had to be said 🙂

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, 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.

Phew. Again.

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.

Payment Terms

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 too want to stay friends, you agree to stick tight to the following payment terms.

Payment can be made (for the time being) with cash, check or money order.

To start the project we require one third of the total down, one third due upon approval of design, and the remaining balance due after the successful launch of your new website! We issue invoices electronically (that’d be via email). Payments are due 10 days from the date of invoice.

If a payment is due before the next phase of development has begun e.g. the initial down payment we cannot continue work until payment is received (and the check clears).

We reserve the right to charge interest on all overdue debts at the rate of 5% per month or part of a month.

But where’s all the horrible small print?

Just like a parking ticket, neither of us can transfer this contract to anyone else without the other’s permission.

We both agree that we’ll adhere to all relevant laws and regulations in relation to our activities under this contract and not cause the other to breach any relevant laws or regulations.

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 the State of Idaho and the U.S. courts.

Oh and don’t forget those men with big dogs.