Terms

About our terms of service

These terms have been written to protect both you (the client, you) and us (Filament Design, us, the design agency) during the design process.

 

Accepting a quote

Your project will not be booked until there is agreement of the scope of the project, our terms have been accepted, and the initial invoice has been paid.

 

Acceptance of these terms can be made by a) paying the initial invoice, and b) stating acceptance of the quote in an email reply.

 

Scope of Project – Quote and Proposal

The scope of the project will be outlined in a quote/proposal document prepared especially for your project. Please read your quote document carefully, as this is the easiest and cheapest point to make changes to the scope of the project.

 

Once you have accepted the quote, an invoice will be prepared for you.

 

Payment

We ask that you make a 50% deposit prior to work commencing. The deposit is non-refundable. It covers initial exploration work and project planning, as well as conceptual work.

 

The remaining 50% balance shall become due prior to delivery of final goods to you. “Final goods” here is taken to mean the end deliverable of the project as agreed to in the scope of the quote. It does allow for final client review and minor changes that are considered within scope. It does NOT include large, out-of-scope changes or multiple reviews.

 

Our preferred payment methods include internet-banking (transfer) and paypal (credit card). Details will be provided to you on the invoice.

 

Failure to pay any invoice on time will result in interest begin applied to your account in the amount of 5% per month, for up to 3 months. After 3 months we will assume that you do not intend to pay your invoice and this may result in project deliverables being withheld, websites being de-activated, and your account being sent to a collections service.

 

Alternative payment terms may be negotiated (i.e. a payment plan), and these will be recorded at the end of this document.

 

Roles

You, the client: you agree to be responsible for paying all invoices associated with this project, providing content and media to us, maintaining a clear line of communication with us, reviewing the project in a timely manner, and other associated tasks specific to your project.

 

Us, the design agency: we agree to be responsible for undertaking your project, for quoting and scoping your project as accurately as we are able to, to complete the work to a high-standard, to work to the scope set out in the quote/proposal document, to adhere to industry-standard best practices, and to maintain a clear line of communication with you.

 

Out-of-scope changes

We are all human and out-of-scope changes happen. These are changes or requests that were not foreseen and have not been accounted for in the original quote. Please read your quote document carefully before giving the project the “green light” as out-of-scope requests will incur additional fees. You will be notified of any out-of-scope requests that will incur these additional fees, and a new invoice will be prepared for you. The out-of-scope changes will not take place until the new invoice has been settled.

 

Note that out-of-scope changes will almost always alter the due date for the project.

 

Reviews and client feedback

At certain stages of the project, there will be opportunities for you to review the work we have done and provide feedback to us. We will aim to give you clear instructions on what aspect of the project you need to review, and how to make notes on any changes required. Please note that any delays in the review turnaround time can push out the deadline of the project. If you require more review opportunities than have been included in the quote/proposal document, these may be added for additional fees.

 

Testing

With web design work especially, the project will need to be tested by real people who have not previously been involved in the project. This is called alpha testing, and occurs before the public launch of a website.

 

Depending on the nature of your web design project: You may be asked to find suitable candidates to alpha-test the website. If this is the case, we will provide links and instructions to the candidates so they can conduct their tests. Then we will determine if any changes need to be made before the site is launched publicly.

 

Once the site is freshly launched, it can be considered to be in beta-test stage (although not all sites are complex enough to require this stage). During beta testing, the public can view the website and use the functionality. Any feedback may be collected from users to assist us in refining the website. Changes from beta testing will be out of the scope of the initial project, and require a new quote.

 

Acceptance of Final Work

We love to know that you are happy with the project we have created for you, so please email or call to let us know that you have accepted the final work.

 

If we have not heard back from you in 30 days from the date the work was sent to you we will consider the job completed and accepted.

 

If you do find something incorrect in the final work, then you give us the first right to fix it for you. We want to put things right!

 

Copyright and Ownership

Copyright for any final artwork becomes the property of you the client once the final invoice has been settled, with the following exception:

  • We reserve the right to display your project in our portfolio and use samples of your project to promote the services of Filament Design.
  • Any non-final artwork, or code, design or other item that we create for your project remains the property of Filament Design.
  • All preparatory materials and tools remain the property of Filament Design. This includes concept sketches, code experiments, and any creative works prepared in the process of a project that are ultimately rejected by the client.
  • Any given project may include third-party or open-source artwork, photography, designs, code, or software (for example). The copyright of these items remains with the original authors.
  • Any artwork or materials that you, the client, provide to Filament Design to work with on your project remain your property.

 

Credit

Filament Design will place a small, discreet link at the bottom of all website projects. This text will link back to the Filament Design website.

 

Printed work and graphic design work (files-only projects) do not generally have a credit.

 

Portfolio

Filament Design will reserve the right to publish material related to this project on our website and in other marketing material, such as social media. We will link back to your project so you get an in-link. As part of this we love to have your voice as part of the project, so written testimonials are always welcome.

 

Confidentiality

Unless instructed by you we will not divulge confidential details about your project to any third-parties. Your contact details and login credentials are safe with us.

 

Delays

We try our best to minimise the likelihood of delays occurring by quoting estimated deadlines in a reasonable manner.

 

You can help to avoid delays to the project by ensuring you are clear about your role in the project from the start. This may include providing us with materials or information to enable the project to commence or continue. When in doubt, please ask.

 

If a delay does occur, or looks likely to occur, we will do our best to work with you to ensure the project gets completed to our usual high standards in good time. We will not be held responsible for any delay that is caused by circumstances outside of our control, such as failure by the client to get information or materials to us in a timely manner, natural disasters, emergencies, internet outages etc. Any delay caused by the client may require us to rebook/reschedule other projects while waiting.

 

Cancellation

A project will be considered cancelled if either a) you write/email us stating that you wish to stop the project, or b) no communication or payment is received from you in 180 days. Either of these events will be counted as the “stop date”.

 

We charge a cancellation fee. This is the fee that you, the client, must pay if you wish to halt the project at any time after the payment of the first invoice (the deposit, which is non-refundable) and before the payment of the final invoice (the balance).

 

Our cancellation fee is designed to protect both parties – ensuring we are covered for our time spent and resources used, and that you are engaged and on-board with the project.

 

This fee is equal to [the value of the entire project] less [any deposit paid] plus [any expenses incurred in the production of the project up to the stop date]. Please contact Filament Design for the exact figure and we will generate an invoice for you.

 

Liability

Filament Design is not responsible or liable for any damages caused due to the client engaging our services. The client agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the designer and/or developer from any and all claims, demands, losses, causes of action, damage, lawsuits, judgments, including lawyers’ fees and costs, but only to the extent caused by, arising out of, the work supplied by the design agency.

 

Third-party suppliers

If your project requires the services of one or more third-parties (such as a printer, sign-writer, illustrator, photographer, laser-cutter etc) then this should be brought up early in the project so we can ensure we all know who is going to pass the deliverables to the third-party, what format the deliverables should be in, who is responsible for paying the third-party’s invoice, and how much lead-time they require to book the job in.

 

Filament Design is happy to work with your local printer, or we can recommend one for you.

 

Working with other designers or agencies

Upon engaging Filament Design (by paying the deposit) you agree to use Filament Design as your primary design and web agency for the duration of the project.

 

We are happy to work with your in-house designer to create the end-deliverable you require. We are used to working in a team environment and we are good people to get along with. Let us know if you have an in-house designer and we can discuss how to manage the project. Filament Design reserves the right to refuse to work with any third-party that has not been agreed to at the quote/proposal stage of the project.

 

If (for instance) you have been working with another designer previously and wish to have them do the visual design work for a website and then for Filament Design to build it in code so it becomes a functioning website, then that can be negotiated. If your designer has never designed for the web then please note this may take longer or require more reviews to be scheduled in.

 

Hosting and domain login details

At any time you may request your hosting and domain account logins. We actively encourage our clients to take ownership of this information. We do not provide website hosting or domain name registration services, although we can recommend preferred providers to you.

 

Web Security

We use current industry-standard web security measures in building our websites. These measures should protect your site from standard web security threats. However, no guarantee is made that your site will withstand a targeted onslaught, or be resilient to new kinds of threat as they occur. If you believe your website requires additional customised security measures please discuss that with us.

 

Website maintenance

A standard website-maintenance recommendation will be included in any quote/proposal document for a web design project.

 

Website uptime

We aim to ensure that your website remains live once it is launched publicly. However, we can make no guarantee that your website project will remain live and functional after the launch date due to there being issues out of our control, such as failure to pay your hosting and domain registration fees on time, ISP outages, server outages, or failure to pay your final invoice on time. Note that we are not a website hosting company.

 

Printing

If your project has a printed component, we will supply professional print-ready PDF files. We are happy to liaise with your printer, deliver files to them, and organise delivery of final printed items to you. If you do not have a printer, we are happy to recommend a preferred printer to you.