Pulp To Pixels

Whether it’s fear of dri­ving off a poten­tial client, fear of com­pli­cated legal mat­ters, or the trust you place in a client for var­i­ous rea­sons, skip­ping the con­tract is the sin­gle biggest mis­take you can make.

As embar­rass­ing as it is to admit, I made the mis­take of work­ing with­out a con­tract on a large project. At the time I con­sid­ered the client a good friend, so a sim­ple ver­bal agree­ment was struck.

I worked more than a year design­ing, doc­u­ment­ing, and get­ting approval for hun­dreds of lay­outs, illus­tra­tions, tech­ni­cal specs, and time lines. Con­tract proofs were issued and approval obtained for all deliv­er­ables prior to pro­duc­tion. From my per­spec­tive I had metic­u­lously laid the ground­work for a breeze through pro­duc­tion and pre­press. It was smooth sailing.

In hind sight, where a con­tract would have come in handy was in deal­ing with the inter­nal pol­i­tics between the Client part­ners. And as much as I would like to think it was none of my con­cern, it did become my prob­lem. Had there been a con­tract with all Client part­ners I would have proof of what work was agreed upon, and what everyone’s respon­si­bil­i­ties were, when the project turned into scrap­ing a years worth of work to redesign 75% of the project on-​​the-​​fly.

In a sit­u­a­tion such as this, wherein the client goes AWOL, I am not sure a con­tract would have served any pur­pose to deter the behav­ior, which to me is the biggest ben­e­fit of a con­tract. In court, how­ever, it would have been a life saver.

Have Con­tract, Will Design

Never ever, ever start a project with­out a con­tract. It doesn’t mat­ter if you are best friends with client or have done projects in the past or even if it is pro-​​bono, cre­ate a con­tract. Period.

Each and every project will have prob­lems along the road to com­ple­tion and just because you are buddy, buddy with the client will not ele­vate time delays or pay­ment short­falls. We hear “no con­tract” sto­ries all the time. They usu­ally start like this: “My friend ask me to design a logo for him and I didn’t think we needed a con­tract. Now, after I did ten rounds of revi­sions he isn’t happy and doesn’t want to pay the invoice. I have emails that doc­u­ment the process but we never signed a legal doc­u­ment, can I sue him for payment?”

Con­tracts serve two roles in our world as design­ers. The first one, is we have proof that some­one hired us to com­plete a task design a brochure, logo, web­site, etc. The sec­ond pur­pose of a con­tract is pro­vid­ing details of what will be com­pleted, by when and by whom. This is what the judge will look at if you need to bring legal action. With a nice detailed con­tract, you and your client should have no doubt as to when a project is com­pleted. Out­line all of your deliv­er­ables and the tim­ing of each. And with respect to the tim­ing aspect out­line any depen­den­cies that will impact your abil­ity to deliver on a spec­i­fied date.

Also, you need to spec­ify what will hap­pen if the project is can­celed, or put on hold. We have found that the best prac­tice of billing a client for a can­celed or sus­pended project is by hours spent on the job. Ide­ally, you have priced the project based on man-​​hours and you are keep­ing track of those hours dur­ing the course of the project. That way you can have a sound rea­son for the amount due at any giv­ing time. Plus, in the con­tract you can state projects put on hold for more than 30 days or can­celed projects will be billed based on the amount of hours incurred.

With this infor­ma­tion in one doc­u­ment that both par­ties read and sign, you will always have some­thing to pro­tect you when pay­ment comes due. Now, con­tracts are never going to be bul­let­proof, we are in the United States after all. But, if you fol­low what you state in the con­tract and cre­ate any needed scope change doc­u­ments you will have a great chance of prov­ing to a judge that you were work­ing in good faith.

Back to our friend who has the emails, can he sue? Yes. Will he win, with­out a signed piece of paper show­ing what will be com­plete when, highly doubt­ful. The con­tract is your golden ticket, so get it in writ­ing before you spend any of your valu­able time designing.

Pub­lished: May 3^rd, 2009

via Design­ers Tool­box: Design Life.

About the author

Jeff is an Art Direc­tor by trade in Dal­las, TX. Hav­ing worked with many great clients through­out the years he enjoys shar­ing with other design­ers and design enthu­si­asts what he’s learned along the way. He became a designer as the split of web design from graphic design occurred and is now fas­ci­nated as the two dis­ci­plines are on the cusp of com­ing full cir­cle, merg­ing to cre­ate a new media savvy breed of designer.

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