Terms of Business Agreement
© 2023 Shaun Martin - Sleek Design
Updated: 12th of October 2023.
When requesting work from us you are agreeing to the terms on this page. These terms
are accessable on this website and via all our email signatures. Please be aware of these terms and
review them at the beginning of each new project.
The words 'we', 'us' and 'our' refer to Shaun and Jules Martin of Sleek Design. The words
'you' and 'your' refers to any individuals or entities engaged in business with us. 'Artwork' refers
to any work performed by us.
New client up to 50% up-front deposit
We invoice all new clients an upfront deposit of up to 50% of the estimated price of the first project. This applies to the first project only and to all new clients without prejudice.
Pricing
Prices (whether hourly rates or quotations) that are agreed upon via email correspondence constitute a binding written pricing agreement between you and us. If no quotation or pricing agreement has been specified, then you agree to be charged at our standard hourly rate of $80 an hour +GST.
Payments
All invoices are to be paid within 14 days. In the case of large, ongoing or delayed projects invoices for work already undertaken may be sent even if the project is not yet fully completed.
Copyright of final artworks
Ownership of copyright for finalised artworks is transferred to you upon full receipt of payment of all related invoices, otherwise copyright is retained by us.
Copyright of unused artworks
If draft designs or concepts that we have originated are not chosen by you to be used as final artwork these remain our intellectual property and we retain the copyright on these, as such they should not be used by you or given to any outside parties. We retain the right to use adapted versions of these unused designs and concepts for other clients. Transfer of copyrights to you applies only to finalised and paid for artworks.
Claiming authorship
We can publicly claim authorship of our work and display the designs in a public portfolio. If certain projects should not be displayed for a certain period following their completion please inform us of this beforehand.
Originality
We agree to produce unique and original designs for you. We will not reuse or repurpose your finalised artworks for a different client. Should a specific project benefit from the use of a purchased layout template we will ask your permission before using it.
Use of stock images
We may use stock materials as elements within a design. We will purchase stock licences in your behalf and reference their stock providers and serial numbers on a related invoice. We will inform you if the purchase of stock materials may exceed 20% of the estimated cost of the project. You must determine and adhere to stock licencing conditions as specified by the relevant stock providers which can readily be found on their respective websites. We take no responsibility for any breach of stock licencing requirements.
Proofing
While every effort is made to avoid errors in artwork we take no responsibility for any errors in artwork that has gone to production. You are responsible for ensuring that all artwork has been proof-read and checked for any errors before production. You are responsible to receive a physical proof from your chosen printer/manufacturer and to proof-read/check it before authorising the production to go ahead. You also agree that it is the printer/manufacturers responsibility to do technical prepress/preproduction checks of the artwork to identify and address any technical problems with the artwork before production occurs. If we are asked by a client to send artwork directly to a printer/manufacturer we will not take any responsibility for any possible errors and will consider the artwork as approved for production by you. You agree not to pursue any compensation from us in regards to errors of any kind.
Backups and source files
We locally backup all digital artwork produced for a period of 5 years and we will provide any source files of finalised artworks at your request under the condition you have no outstanding invoices overdue by more than 4 weeks. However, we make no guarantees of our abilities to backup or provide any files, so it is your responsibility to request the source files of any finalised artwork you wish to keep a copy of. Should you request all of your finalised artwork source files you will be charged our standard hourly rate for time spent preparing the transfer of these files.
Repurposing artwork
You may provide finalised artwork only to a third-party designer for reuse or repurposing under the condition that it is used only for the same specific brand, service or product for which the artwork was originally created. If you wish to repurpose artwork across to a different brand or entity you agree that such work can only be carried out by us. The reason for this is that you are paying us for finalised artwork only, we charge a higher rate for designs that are intended to be used as reusable templates. If you require artwork to be used as a reusable template we must be informed of this before the project begins.
Revisions
We may inform you if we determine that requests for revisions have become excessive, should this occur you agree to complete the project with a final set of revisions, alternatively, we can supply you with the working files and invoice you for hours spent, you agree to pay such an invoice.
No selling of artwork
You agree not to sell or licence any artwork to any third-parties unless this has been expressly specified in a signed written contract between us and you.
If you have any questions not covered in the above agreement please contact us.
Kind regards,
Shaun and Jules Martin of Sleek Design.