After slavering the whole day away on a contract for clients to sign on the dotted line, thank goodness I’m not a lawyer or I never studied law. I could imagine myself going mad reading all those law books and becoming a Jim Carrey instead of a Morgan Freeman in court. Okie, maybe using actors wasn’t a good idea but you get the idea.
The whole day I was Googling for designer contracts to have a guide of writing my own legal document for clients. As you know, because it’s a legal document you need to have it formal and there isn’t much allowed freedom like creating a creative brief or writing a client proposal.
The best website I found at first was a graphic design contracts and agreements and forms that had quite a large compilation of resources. Like a huge directory, I needed to sift through each interesting link to see what really provided me value and which was a dead link.
From the list provided, I found these websites the most informative and helpful – though I’m wondering if all of it were from the directory again.
- How To Write a Contract for a Desktop Publishing or Graphic Design Business
- Freelance Design Contract Components: Project Details
- How to Write Effective Business Contracts
- Create a watertight Web site design contract
- Rooster Graphics International Agreement Sample
Just imagine that I was sitting in my chair the whole day reading about what these websites had to say about creating my own legal contract. I’d definetely like all of you reading to read it as well because then you’d understand the most needed stuff in a contract, I even learned a few things like indemnity.
However, I’ll try my best to give you a run down of what is really needed in a contract and if you dare, don’t just create any ordinary legal contract. I know I wouldn’t if I could.
Most important things to contain in a legal contract:
- Project summary. (service provided, changes allowed..)
- Material from client. (what material)
- Estimated project timeline. (a rough estimation)
- Evetns that might affect delivery. (I said things like holidays or earthquakes)
- Estimated cost of the project.
- Deposit amount and due date.
- Payment terms (timeline for payments)
- Cancellation fee. (this is a cool one everyone should have especially Malaysians)
- Owner of copyright and source code.
- Permission to use work promotionally (great for people starting out)
- Additional clauses. (this is where it’s really legal – indemnities, court fees..yada yada)
Anything missing? Of course there is something missing. If you didn’t have this in the contract, there’s no point calling it a legal paper. You’ll need to have the last part of Acceptance of Agreement or Contract and the dotted lines for signatures by you, the client and a date.
Maybe you could have an official chop as well if you think that’ll make the contract look more legal. :P
After all, a legal document should be written or prepared or advised at least by an authorized lawyer. I’d use one if he were free or at least a friend I know who deals with website contracts, but sadly I don’t know any.
Anyone know of any they’d like to introduce to me?