Freelance Web Designers in Vancouver, and Freelance Graphic Designers have to wear many hats in order to operate a successful and lucrative business. Sales, negotiations, designing, developing, and contracts (including legal terms of service agreements) have to be taken care of by you and you only in most cases.
It is challenging enough to both design creatively, and develop and program logically. That requires using both hemispheres of the human mind and finding the perfect balance to create the end product that your client requires. You have to be an artist, a geek, a sales person, an accountant, and a business person.
“Design isn’t just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
– Steve Jobs
In a perfect world, you would be left to perform the work you are hired to do as a freelance web designer or graphic designer, then carry on with your life and move onto the next advertising and marketing project.
“When things run smooth, it’s already more than enough.”
– Martin L. Gore
Web design studios and freelance web designers should always take the time to educate themselves with respects to letters of agreement, project proposals, terms & conditions, invoicing, past due reminders, collection letters, and project contracts.
Now, I realize this is not the most ideal way you would like to spend your time, and I’m sure you would rather be experimenting with new Adobe Photoshop brushes, Adobe Illustrator vector bezier curves, or discovering new CSS tricks to enhance your next WordPress web design project, but it is a necessary evil. Taking a day to learn and prepare the correct documents for your design and development business will save you major headaches, grief, and pain down the road when you do come across a deadbeat (or just insane) client.
In order to make this easier for freelance web designers, web developers, and graphic designers, there is a link below to a very good resource regarding web design and graphic design law.
More importantly, you can also download a legal starter package of free documents and contract templates for web designers and graphic designers to edit and use for your business!
All the best to my fellow designers and developers, and steer clear of those tire kickers (you know what I’m talking about) 😉
Here are 2 links to web design law and legal documents templates:
…And Justice for All
