Designwest Terms
We work well with our clients because our relationships are based on honesty and trust, but as with a lot of things in life, our work needs guidance in the form of terms and conditions. Here are ours straight from Designwest Towers, drafted by the king himself of course, but still in fairly straight-forward English that hopefully is clear and concise.
We would ask that you do – Please do read them – it is always important for you know what we charge for and why we charge it, why certain copyright files are not released by us and also what charges you might incur for late payment, additional work or copyright releases.
If you have any questions please call us – email us – drop in or send an arrow or pigeon …
Terms & Conditions
The following Terms and Conditions of Service apply to all products and services provided by designwest based in Kiltimagh, Mayo, Ireland and in the event of any dispute these terms and conditions are governed by the laws of Ireland.
All work is carried out by our team at Designwest on the understanding that the client has agreed to our terms and conditions.
Copyright for any and all creative is retained by Designwest or its team – on all design work including words, pictures, ideas, visuals and illustrations unless specifically released in writing and only after all costs have been settled do you – our client – own the rights for usage of any of the above stated.
If a choice of creative designs is presented and one is chosen for your project, do note that only that solution is deemed to be given by us as fulfilling the contract and for usage on that date or any date thereafter. All other designs remain the property of Designwest, unless specifically agreed in writing.
Project Acceptance
At the time of proposal, Designwest will provide the customer with a written estimate or quotation by email.
Do please note that These Terms and Conditions can be read at any time on our website and a link to these will be provided in our quotations. A copy of the proposed estimate or quotation is to be signed off preferably by email or posted by the customer to indicate acceptanceof the proposed works.
Alternatively, you the client may send an official purchase order in reply to the estimate or quotation which binds you the client to accept our terms and conditions, or as stated earlier an email acknowledging acceptance of the quotation will also suffice.
For the avoidance of doubt, the Terms & Conditions as stated here for Designwest are what govern the job, not any conditions on the customer’s purchase order. Please do note that fact
Design Charges
Charges for design services as per originally briefed by the client – pre-estimation stage – to be provided by Designwest will always be set out in the written estimate or quotation that is provided to you – our client. At the time of the customer’s signed acceptance of this estimate or quotation, indicating acceptance of the Terms & Conditions, a non-refundable payment of 50% of the quoted fee will become immediately due and this is mandatory for any job unless stated otherwise by the person in charge of the job at hand.
Unless agreed otherwise with the Client, all design services require an advance payment of a minimum of fifty (50) percent of the project quotation total before the work commences or is supplied to the Client for review – the payment of the 50% invoice also acts as a mechanic for ensuring that the job becomes a ‘live’ job and will then be planned into the studio schedule for commencement. The remaining fifty (50) percent of the project quotation total will be due upon completion of the work prior to upload to the server or release of high resolution materials.
Source Files
Designwest will always supply proofs and PDF files as appropriate for printing, or other graphic files as detailed in the job scope or requested and agreed at estimation stage. Please do note that charges for design work do not cover the release of our copyright design source files, including but not restricted to indd, psd, AI, png, fla or other source files or raw code or any web related files. Note that if the Client requires these files for transfer to an in-house or other designer, they will be subject to a separate quotation or ‘buy-out’ charge as obviously this means a loss of revenue to our studio.
Charges for Other Services
Charges for any additional services requested during the project that are over and above the estimated time or out of scope as per originally briefed, will become fully payable (100% of the quoted amount) at the time of estimate or quotation acceptance. Any extra work that forms as a result of scope creep will be agreed by both parties during the project and must be paid for in full by the client before any artwork files are released.
Payment
The customer will be provided with an Invoice prior to final publication. At this time the remainder of the amount due will become payable to Designwest and you will be required to signify approval by email to your contact person at Designwest.
Any invoice queries must be submitted by email within 14 days of the invoice date.
Accounts which remain outstanding for 30 days after the date of invoice, will incur late payment interest charge at the AIB Base Rate plus 10% on the outstanding amount from the date due until the date of payment.
Payments may be made by online transfer, credit card (Visa, Mastercard) or Debit Card.
Payments made by cheque must be previously agreed and may be subject to an administration charge. Cheques should not be sent in regular mail unless sent recorded delivery.
Publication and/or release of work done by Designwest on behalf of the client, may not take place before cleared funds have been received. Returned cheques will incur an additional fee of €50 per returned cheque. Designwest reserves the right to consider an account to be in default in the event of a returned cheque.
Default
An account shall be considered default if it remains unpaid for 30 days from the date of invoice, or following a returned cheque. Designwest shall be entitled to remove any and all of Designwest’s Design ‘s and/or the customer’s material from any and all computer systems, until the amount due has been fully paid. This includes any and all unpaid monies due for services, including, but not limited to, hosting, domain registration, search engine submission, design and maintenance, sub-contractors, printers, photographers and libraries.
Removal of such materials does not relieve the customer of its obligation to pay the due amount for works previously agreed and progressed. Customers whose accounts become default must agree to pay all Designwest’s reasonable legal and accounting expenses and third party collection agency fees in the enforcement of the debt and these Terms and Conditions.
Copyrights and Trademarks
Please note that by supplying text, images and other data to Designwest for inclusion in the customer’s website or other medium, the customer declares that it holds the appropriate copyright and/or trademark permissions. The ownership of such materials will remain with the customer, or rightful copyright or trademark owner and not that of Designwest.
Designwest and/or its suppliers unless otherwise agreed in writing. A licence for use of the copyright material is granted to the customer solely for the project defined in the scope or request and not for any other purpose.
The customer may request in writing from Designwest, the necessary permission to use materials (for which Designwest holds the copyright) in forms other than for which it was originally supplied, and Designwest may, at its discretion, grant this and may charge for the additional usage. Such permission must be obtained in writing before any of the aforesaid artwork, images, text, or other data is used. Any software, code, plugin or other third party material used in a web or digital project remains the property of the creator and any ongoing licence fees or fees for upgrades are the responsibility of the client, not Designwest.
By supplying images, text, or any other data to Designwest, the customer grants the team at Designwest permission to use this material freely in the pursuit of any creative design. Should Designwest, or the customer supply an image, text, audio clip or any other file for use in a website, multimedia presentation, print item, exhibition, advertisement or any other medium believing it to be copyright and royalty free, which subsequently emerges to have such copyright or royalty usage limitations, the customer will agree to allow Designwest to remove and/or replace the file on the website. The customer agrees to fully indemnify and hold Designwest free from harm in any and all claims resulting from the customer in not having obtained all the required copyright, and/or any other necessary permissions.
Alterations
The customer agrees that any changes required over and above the estimated work, or in addition to the agreed scope, or where the client makes changes to the supplied copy or changes required to be carried out after acceptance of the draft design, will be liable to a separate charge.
The customer also agrees that Designwest holds no responsibility for any amendments made by any third party, before or after a design is published.
Licensing
Any design, copywriting, drawing, idea or code created for the customer by the team at Designwest, or any of its contractors, is licensed for use by the client on a one-time only basis and may not be modified, re-used, or re-distributed in any way or form without the express written consent of Designwest and any of its relevant sub-contractors in the case of a website this rule is exempt once all fee’s have been fully paid.
All design work – where there is a risk that another party make a claim, should be registered by the client with the appropriate authorities prior to publishing or first use or searches and legal advice sought as to its use.
Designwest will not be held responsible for any and all damages resulting from such claims.
Designwest is not responsible for any loss, or consequential loss, non-delivery of products or services, of whatever cause. The customer agrees not to hold Designwest responsible for any such loss or damage.
Any claim against Designwest shall be limited to the relevant fee(s) paid by the customer.
Data Formats
The client agrees to Designwest definition of acceptable means of supplying data to the company.
Text is to be supplied to Designwest in electronic format as standard text (.txt), MS Word (.docx) or via e-mail / FTP or shared folder.
Images which are supplied in an electronic format are to be provided in a format as prescribed by Designwest via e-mail / FTP. Images must be of a quality suitable for use without any subsequent image processing, and Designwest will not be held responsible for any image quality which the client later deems to be unacceptable.
Designwest cannot be held responsible for the quality of any images which the client wishes to be scanned from printed materials.
Additional expenses may be incurred for any necessary action, including, but not limited to, photography and art direction, photography searches, media conversion, digital image processing, or data entry services, colour correction and alteration of images
Design Project Duration
Any indication given by any of the team at Designwest of a design project’s duration is to be considered by the customer to be an estimation. Designwest cannot be held responsible for any project over-runs, whatever the cause. Estimated project duration should be deemed to be from the date that cleared funds are received by Designwest for the initial payment or by date confirmed in writing by Designwest.
Rights of Access for Website Construction
The client agrees to allow the staff or contractors of Designwest all necessary access to computer systems and other locations, as required, in order to complete a website project and until all due funds are cleared, including the necessary read/write permissions, usernames and passwords.
The customer also agrees to allow Designwest access to any computer systems, usernames and passwords required to remove data and/or sites for failure to comply with these Terms and Conditions.
The customer agrees to supply Designwest with all necessary materials, electronic, or otherwise, required to create and complete the project, and to supply them in a timely manner.
Design Project Completion
Designwest considers the design project complete upon receipt of the customer’s signed Approval form or sign-off email. Other services such as printing, display panel production, video or any filmwork, website uploading, publishing etc either contracted on the client’s behalf constitute a separate project and can be treated as a separate charge.
Website design only
The team at Designwest require that a template is approved by the customer before coding of a website commences. Once the template(s)or theme for the web site are approved by the customer, coding will commence; any changes to navigation items, colours, structure or content that require changes to the template will incur an additional charge.
Once website design is complete, Designwest will provide the customer with the opportunity to review the resulting work. Designwest will make one set of minor changes at no extra cost within 14 days of the start of the review period or unless otherwise agreed by the Director – Declan Foley. Minor changes include small textual changes and small adjustments to placement of items on the page. It does not include changes to images, colour schemes or any navigation features. Any minor changes can be notified to Designwest by e-mail. Designwest will consider that the client has accepted the original draft, if no notification of changes is received in writing from the customer, within 14 days of the start of the review period.
Hosting websites
Designwest offers a limited hosting services through an out-sourced virtual server. Designwest does not guarantee continuous service and will accept no liability for loss of service, whatever the cause.
Designwest may request that clients change the type of hosting account used if that account is deemed by Designwest to be unacceptable because of poor service, lack of bandwidth or in any other way insufficient to support the website. Fees for hosting on Designwest virtual server are due at the commencement of any period of service and are non-refundable.
Fees due to third party hosting organisations are the responsibility of the client and Designwest are not liable for their payment, nor for the renewal of domain names, which are the sole responsibility of the customer / domain owner unless they have been registered directly by Designwest.
Domain Registration
Designwest cannot guarantee the availability of any domain name. Where Designwest is to register a domain name on behalf of a client it will endeavour to do so but the client should not assume a successful registration unless this has been confirmed by the team at Designwest.
Search Engine Submission
Due to the infinite number of considerations that search engines use when determining a site’s ranking which is ever changing, Designwest cannot guarantee any particular placement on Google search engine rankings or any associated search engines. Acceptance by any search engine cannot be guaranteed and when a site is accepted the time it takes to appear in search results varies from one search engine to another and Designwest can NOT be held responsible for the timing of any websites appearance in search engines. Rankings will also vary as new sites are added. Designwest recommend that customers use a professional SEO company and are happy to provide details of such companies, but accept no responsibility for their services. Designwest are also happy to provide advice as to how a website can be better ranked but again we accept no responsibility for their services and/or the ranking placement of a website in any major search engine.
Design Credits
The customer agrees to allow Designwest to place a small credit on printed material exhibition displays, advertisements and/or a link to Designwest’s own website on the customer’s website. This will usually be in the form of a small logo or line of text placed towards the bottom of the page.The customer also agrees to allow Designwest to place websites and other designs, along with a link to the client’s site on Designwest’s own website for demonstration purposes and to use any designs in its own publicity and portfolios.
Rights of Refusal
Designwest will not include in its designs, any text, images or other data which it deems to be immoral, offensive, obscene or illegal. All advertising material must conform to all standards laid down by all relevant advertising standards authorities. Designwest also reserves the right to refuse to include submitted material without giving reason. In the situation where any images and/or data that Designwest does include in all good faith, and subsequently discovers is in contravention to such Terms and Conditions, the customer is obliged to allow Designwest to remove the contravention without hindrance, or penalty. Designwest is to be held in no way responsible for any such data being included.
Cancellation
Cancellation of orders may be made initially by telephone contact, or e-mail, however, following this, Designwest will need formal notification in writing to the company’s postal address. The client will then be invoiced for all work completed over and above the non-refundable deposit that will have been made at the time of first ordering. The balance of monies due must be paid within 30 days. Please note: any cancellation which is not formally confirmed in writing and received by Designwest within 14 days of such instruction being issued, will be liable for the full quoted cost of the project.
Disclaimer
Designwest makes no warranties of any kind, express or implied, for any and all products and/or services that it supplies. Designwest will not be held responsible for any and all damages resulting from products and/or services it supplies. Designwest is not responsible for any loss, or consequential loss of data, or non-delivery of products or services, of whatever cause. While we take reasonable steps to investigate the materials we recommend, we accept no responsibility for the performance or quality of materials or any consequential loss arising from their failure. The customer agrees not to hold Designwest responsible for any such loss or damage. Any claim against Designwest shall be limited to the relevant fee(s) paid by the customer. Designwest reserves the right to use the services of sub-contractors, agents and suppliers and any work, content, services and usage is bound by their Terms and Conditions. Designwest will not knowingly perform any actions to contravene these and the client also agrees to be so bound. Designwest and its clients agree to comply with Printers Terms and Conditions which include disclaimers for non-completion on time and the flexibility to supply quantities within 10% of the total ordered. Designwest recommend that if an exact quantity is required, then 10% extra is added to the quantity and extra time made available should the job be delayed.
General
These Terms and Conditions supersede any previous Terms and Conditions distributed in any form. Designwest reserves the right to change any rates and any of the Terms and Conditions at any time and without prior notice.
Acceptance of Terms and Conditions and Quotation
The placement of an order for design and/or any other services offered by Designwest by email, verbally or in writing, is deemed to be acceptance of these terms and conditions.
An estimate validated by the customer’s signature on the estimate or quotation form, or by email, constitutes acceptance of the estimate or quotation and agreement to comply fully with all the Terms and Conditions and forms a Contract for Business between the signatory and Designwest