Terms & conditions.

What do both parties agree to?

You: You have the authority to enter into the contract on behalf of yourself, your company or your organization. You'll provide the assets and information we will need to complete the project within a reasonable time to not disrupt productivity. 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 agreed upon.

Us / We (Steve Gibbs Media): 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 maintain the confidentiality of everything you've given us.

Design

We create look-and-feel designs and flexible layouts that adapt to the capabilities of many devices and screen sizes. We create designs iteratively and use predominantly HTML and CSS 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 Dropbox, Google Drive, Github, or a development site with you and we'll have regular, possibly daily contact. If, at any stage, you change your mind about what you want to be delivered and are not happy with the direction the work is taking, you'll pay in full for the time we've spent working with you until that point and terminate the contract.

Text content

Generally, bio text, descriptions and marketing text should be provided by you. We do provide professional copywriting and editing services also, so if you'd like us to create new content or input content for you, we can provide a separate estimate for that.

Graphics and photographs

You should supply all the graphic files and images you think could be useful. Even the colors from your letterhead can help us in the design process. You should supply photographs in a high-resolution digital format. If you choose to buy stock photographs or are interested in custom photography work in the South Idaho area, we can provide a separate estimate for that.

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 actually means ensuring that a person's experience of a design is appropriate to the capabilities of a browser or device.

We test all work in all current versions of major desktop browsers. We won't test in older unsupported dinosaur browsers unless we agreed separately. If you need an enhanced design for an older browser, we can provide a separate estimate for that — but really, why would you?

Mobile browser testing

Mobile browser 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 all modern iOS and Android scenarios.

Technical support

You may already have professional hosting and you might even manage that hosting in-house; if you do, great. If you don't, we can set up an account for you at one of our preferred hosting providers. Currently, GreenGeeks VPS or Cloud hosting is our favorite.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

We can't guarantee improvements to your website's overall search engine ranking, but the websites we develop are 100% optimized for search engines. If you're hiring us for an SEO-specific task, you will receive an addendum to this stating projections and improvement milestones.

Changes and revisions

We don't want to limit your ability to change your mind. Seeing the website come together usually helps our clients refine their ideas as they go. Just keep in mind: changing the scope of a job can change the cost/time estimate. We'll always come to an agreement before any costs change. No surprises.

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 all 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.

Your liability to us will also be limited to the amount of fees payable under the 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.

Finally, if any provision of the contract shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from the contract and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions. Phew.

Intellectual property rights

"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.

First, you guarantee that all elements of text, images or other artwork you provide are either owned by your good selves, or that you have 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.

Second, 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 the 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 (but we do anyway).
• 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 work

Although we don't generally show off our clients' sites, we do reserve the right to display all aspects of our creative work, including sketches, work-in-progress designs and the completed project on our own portfolio(s) and in articles on websites, in magazine articles and even in good ol' books (the paper kind!).

Payment schedule

We're sure you understand how important it is as a small business that you pay the invoices that our invoicing system sends you promptly.

We issue invoices electronically through a project management system that allows you to track all work requests and invoicing. Our payment terms are 14 days from date. We accept direct bank deposit (setup required in advance), PayPal, and Stripe payments through the invoicing system. All proposals are quoted in US dollars and payments will be made at the equivalent conversion rate at the date the transfer is made. You agree to pay all charges associated with international transfers of funds. All appropriate details will be printed on our electronic invoice and always accessible through the project manager system. We reserve the right to charge interest on all overdue debts at the rate of 3% per month.

But where's all the horrible small print?

Just like a parking ticket, neither of us can transfer any 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 the contract and not cause the other to breach any relevant laws or regulations.

The contract stays in place and need not be renewed. If for some reason one part of our contract becomes invalid or unenforceable, the remaining parts of it remain in place.