Terms of Business

Overview

We will always do our best to fulfill your needs and meet your goals, but it is best to have a few simple things written down so that we both know what is what, who should do what and what happens if things go wrong.
In this contract you won't find complicated legal terms or large passages of unreadable text. We have no desire to trick you into signing something that you might later regret. We do want what's best for the safety of both parties, now and in the future.

In Short

You (the customer) are hiring us (Deep Blue Sky Digital Limited) located at 9 Green Park Station, Bath to design, develop and host a web site as outlined in our previous correspondence.

What do both parties agree to do?

As our customer, you have the power and ability to enter into this contract on behalf of your company or organization. You agree to provide us with everything that we need to complete the project including text, images and other information as and when we need it and in the format that we ask for. You agree to review our work, provide feedback and sign-off approval in a timely manner too. Deadlines work two ways and you will also be bound by any dates that we set together. You also agree to stick to the payment schedule set out at the end of this contract.

We have the experience and ability to perform the services you need from us and we will carry them out in a professional and timely manner. Along the way we will endeavor to meet all the deadlines set but we can't be responsible for a missed launch date or a deadline if you have been late in supplying materials or have not approved or signed off our work on-time at any stage. On top of this we will also maintain the confidentiality of any information that you give us.

Design

We will create designs for the look-and-feel, layout and functionality of your web site. This contract includes one main design plus the opportunity for you to make up to two rounds of revisions. If you're not happy with the designs at this stage, you will pay us in full for all of the work that we have produced until that point and you may either cancel this contract or continue to commission us to make further design revisions at the daily rate set out in our original estimate.

Markup - XHTML/CSS layout templates

If the project includes XHTML or HTML markup and CSS templates, we will develop these using valid XHTML 1.0 Strict markup and CSS2.1 + 3 for styling. We will test all our markup and CSS in current versions of all major browsers including those made by Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla and Opera. We will also test to ensure that pages will display visually in a ‘similar', albeit not necessarily an identical way, in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 for Windows as this browser is now past it's sell-by date.

We will not test these templates in old or abandoned browsers, for example Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or 5.5 for Windows or Mac, previous versions of Apple's Safari, Mozilla Firefox or Opera unless otherwise specified. If you need to show the same or similar visual design to visitors using these older browsers, we will charge you at the daily rate set out in our original estimate for any necessary additional code and its testing.

Text Content

We may have written a best-seller but we're not responsible for writing or inputting any text copy unless we specified it in the original estimate. We'll be happy to help though, and in addition to the estimate we will charge you at £75 per hour for copy writing or content input.

Photographs

You will supply us photographs either in digital or printed format. If you choose to buy stock photographs we can suggest vendors of stock photography. Any time we spend searching for appropriate photographs will be charged at £75 per hour.

Changes and Revisions

We know from plenty of experience that fixed-price contracts are rarely beneficial to you, as they often limit you to your first idea about how something should look, or how it might work. We don't want to limit either your options or your opportunities to change your mind.
The estimate/quotation prices at the beginning of this document are based on the number of days that we estimate we'll need to accomplish everything that you have told us you want to achieve. If you do want to change your mind, add extra pages or templates or even add new functionality, that won't be a problem. You will be charged our standard hourly rate of £75 per hour. Along the way we might ask you to put requests in writing so we can keep track of changes.

Technical Support

Among other things, we are a website hosting company and so we do offer and include technical support for website hosting or other services relating to website hosting.
Although in most cases we can help, we don’t include support for your email, local network, internet connection, other software, in-house databases or IT infrastructure. If you do require help with anything beyond the design, development and hosting of your site, we'll be very happy to help and will charge you £75 per hour.

Legal Stuff

We can't guarantee that the functions contained in any web page templates or in a completed web site will always 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 arising out of the operation of or inability to operate this web site and any other web pages, even if you have advised us of the possibilities of such damages.
If any provision of this agreement shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from this agreement and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.

Copyrights

You guarantee to us that any elements of text, graphics, photos, designs, trademarks, or other artwork that you provide us for inclusion in the web site are either owned by your good selves, or that you have permission to use them. When we receive your final payment, copyright is automatically assigned as follows:

• You own the graphics and other visual elements that we create for you for this project. We will give you a copy of all files and you should store them really safely as we are not required to keep them or provide any native source files that we used in making them.
• You also own text content, photographs and other data you provided, unless someone else owns them. We own the XHTML markup, CSS and other code and we license it to you for use on only this project.
• We love to show off our work and share what we have learned with other people, so we also reserve the right to display and link to your completed project as part of our portfolio and to write about the project on web sites, in magazine articles and in books about web design.
• All data within the database remains your property, however you automatically grant us license to use the data for the purpose of hosting & operating the web site.

Payments

We are sure you understand how important it is as a small business that you pay the invoices that we send you promptly. As we're also sure you'll want to stay friends, you agree to stick tight to the following payment schedule.

Payment Schedule

1. 33% deposit of total setup price payable before we start work
2. 33% part-payment of total setup price payable on project completion, before the web site is launched (or the original completion date if the project has been held up by the customer)
3. Remaining 34% is invoiced on 14 days credit at the date of launch.

Monthly service fees commence from the date of launch. Your first service invoice will be from the date of launch to the end of that month, subsequent bills will be invoiced on the 15th of the month for the following month period and are payable within 14 days.

Payment schedule – Project Delays

If the project is delayed by actions of the customer (for example: failure to provide materials or sign-off designs in a timely fashion according to the agreed schedule) we will invoice the second payment in the payment schedule on the agreed completion date. At this time we will also start to charge a monthly project management retainer, at the value of the monthly service fees that will enable us to continue to keep your project in our schedules until you enable us to finish the project.