This policy represents your web design agreement with Swamp Rabbit Media, in addition to all emails exchanged between us and yourselves. Please retain your emails for future reference in the unlikely event of any dispute. This policy is in addition to our Hosting Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

From time to time, we may have to revise the policies on our web design terms and conditions. Any changes or updates to these policies are normally minor and do not affect the overall agreement between both parties. However, please always make sure you do check back on this page regularly for updates.

Web Design Agreement – Introduction

This policy is presented by Swamp Rabbit Media, a US-based web design and hosting provider.

When you register to have a website designed by Swamp Rabbit Media, you are agreeing to these Terms and Conditions as outlined on this page. You should read this agreement carefully as it will form a legally binding contract between us and you. Your acceptance of this agreement and contract begins when you confirm your instructions to proceed with the web design project (or related services) as shown in emails or letters between us and yourselves, or when payment (be it a deposit or full payment) for our contracted services, has been made by yourselves.

We have tried to keep the Web Design Terms of Service brief, easy to understand, and as straightforward as possible. If you have any questions, however, please do contact us.

We will always do our best to fulfill your needs and meet your goals, but sometimes 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 stuff goes 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 may not understand. We do want what’s best for the safety of both parties, now and in the future. In short, you (the Client) will be asking us (Swamp Rabbit Media), hereinafter referred to as the Company, to design and build a website for you. This will have been discussed via email, written, or verbal communications, for an estimated price also laid out without those emails, or clearly explained at the time of your inquiry and acceptances.

What do both parties agree to?

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 in the proposal that you will have been sent. 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 personal information that you give us.

Confidentiality:

The Client and Swamp Rabbit Media may disclose confidential information between themselves regarding any work under this agreement, in order to facilitate and complete the web design project. Such information will be identified during the course of any email, written, or verbal communication between both parties, and shall be safely retained and not disclosed to any other third parties by either the Company or the Client.

Description of The Work:

A separate proposal will be sent to the Client via email which will outline the work that is to be undertaken by the Company.

Estimates:

Estimates provided by Swamp Rabbit Media are guaranteed for the scope of work outlined in the estimate provided the project is completed and paid in full within 180 days. Changes in project scope will impact the final price of the service. Should projects require more than 180 days due to a lack of participation on your part, Swamp Rabbit Media reserves the right to rewrite the estimate.

Deposits:

Swamp Rabbit Media requires an advance deposit of 50% of the amount quoted for the completion of the project. Should the project timeline exceed 90 days from the date that you accept our proposal and every 90 days thereafter, 50% of the remaining invoice will be required.. All deposits are non-refundable.

Payment Schedules:

We are confident that you understand that any invoices sent to you should be paid promptly, and our terms of payment are due on the presentation of each invoice you will receive. Late or delayed payments may incur a Late Fee Charge, and may also compromise the time limits on designing the website. If you are hosting the site on another server (that is not hosted with Swamp Rabbit Media), then payment must be made in full before any files will be released or uploaded to your servers. This is non-negotiable.

Design:

We will create a design for the look and feel, layout, and functionality of your website. 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 design 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 or hourly rate set out in our original proposal. The site will be designed to work primarily across the following browsers (in order) Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Microsoft® Internet Explorer. However, we cannot guarantee complete compatibility across every major browser as these are constantly being updated by their respective vendors and other browsers such as AOL. Sites are normally tested however in all 4 main browsers, and usually will work with no complications. We do test all the markup and CSS in these browsers using the latest versions. We cannot guarantee compatibility with old or redundant browser software.

Content Management Systems:

If you are requesting a CMS (otherwise known as a Content Management System – popular choices are WordPress, Joomla, Zen Cart for e-commerce), then you will require a database and the relevant hosting facilities to use this. Any associated or additional fees, such as installation, setup, or themes that may be chargeable, will be owed by you, and billable by us.

Textual Content:

We will be happy to write the textual content for your website and encourage you to take advantage of this service. This will have been included in our proposal. Should you choose instead to provide copy for your website, you are solely responsible for the quality, uniqueness, and legal right to use all textual copy that you provide.

Photographs and Images:

Any images or photographs that you may supply us with must be in a digital format, usually no smaller than 1024×768 pixels, with a suitable resolution that will allow them to be resized and used on a webpage display. Any images that we can obtain, or design, may have been included in the proposal price. However, if you need more images that cannot be obtained through us, then we can suggest vendors of stock photography, and we do use stock photography suppliers, where we can obtain images on your behalf at reasonable prices. Any time that we may spend in addition to what we have already set out in our proposal may be chargeable at an agreed rate beforehand with you. You have agreed that any images that may be provided by you are either royalty-free or that you have obtained the necessary permissions to use those images on a website. Please do not ask us to use images that you know are copyrighted as we will not do this.

Changes and Revisions:

We know from experience that sometimes customers do not know what kind of website they actually may want. Often it is through a question and answer form that we have sent to you, and then subsequent emails, written or verbal communication, that we have offered up a particular design or idea to our clients. The estimate that we provided in your proposal will have been based on the design proposal we provided and information that we have been given by you at the time the estimate was provided.

While we do not wish to limit your options, or the opportunities to change your mind, significant changes in the scope of the project, extensive design revisions, or project timelines exceeding 180 days may result in additional fees. 

If you wish to add additional pages, new functionality, different images, or even a new layout, that won’t be a problem. You will however have to pay us for the work that we have completed up to that point, and then you will switch over to an agreed hourly rate on the revisions and changes thereafter. During this time we may ask that the requests and changes be sent in writing, just so that we can keep track of the changes to avoid confusion later on. Any changes and revisions are normally carried out quite promptly, but we do have to state that major changes, even minor revisions, or additions can take up to 21 days.

Technical Support:

You may already have website hosting in place, but if not, we do provide hosting solutions for any customers who wish to use them. If you are hosting the website elsewhere, we cannot guarantee that the site may be fully compatible with all hosting providers, especially any contact forms, Content Management Systems, database-driven websites, etc. If the website is to be hosted elsewhere, then you must have already paid the full amount that we have agreed with you, and we may charge you a setup/installation fee for us to set up the site on another server of your choosing. We do not offer any technical support for any other website hosting company that you may choose (if you elect not to host the design with us). However, if you do require some help, then please do ask, and we will be happy to give you an estimate as to hosting the site with us.

Legal Bits:

We cannot guarantee that the functions contained within any web page (or part of your website design), will always be error-free, and therefore we will not be liable in any way whatsoever to you for any third-party 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 is unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from this agreement and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.

The Copyright:

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

• You will own the text files, images, graphics, and any visual elements, or sound bytes, that you may have sent to us to use in connection with this web design project (unless someone else owns them).
• We maintain copies of all the files used in connection with your web design project and if you require a disc copy of all the files used in connection with your project (this may not include all the source files), then we will ask you to pay a small fee to cover the disc creation, package, and handling of such a copy to yourselves. Copies of the website files are maintained by us for a reasonable time (usually at least one year), and if you are hosting with us, then files are maintained both locally and on servers.
• We own the copyright (or any specific vendors that may have supplied some files in connection with your web design project own the copyright) to the markup, CSS files, other code that may have been used by us for you, or certain images that we may have supplied to or for you. These files have only been licensed to you in connection with this web design project and will be licensed solely to the domain name on which the website files reside.

At the bottom of the website page(s) after payment has been completed, usually, it will say Copyright and the name of your business or company. We do however reserve the right as the Designer to put a link showing that the site has been designed by us or is hosted by us, and this link will be small, unobtrusive, and will open a new window, thereby not hindering or distracting from your website.

As the design company, we also reserve the right (because it is good to tell or show other people what we may have done), to display and link to your completed project as part of our portfolio, and to write about the project on other websites, in magazine or ezine articles, books, written or digital publications of any design and source.

The small print:

You cannot transfer this contract to anyone else without our consent or permission. This contract remains in force and need not be renewed. If for any reason, one part of this contract becomes invalid, or unenforceable, the remaining parts of the contract remain in place. Although we have tried to keep this contract language simple, the intentions are serious, and the contract is a legal document under the exclusive jurisdiction of United States Law and Courts.

Failure to enforce these Terms and Conditions and related Policies in every instance does not amount to a waiver of Swamp Rabbit Media’s rights.

Changes to the web design agreement

Swamp Rabbit Media reserves the right to add, delete, or modify any provision of these ‘Web Design Terms and Agreement’ at any time without notice.

Failure to receive notification of a change does not make those changes invalid.

Questions Regarding This Web Design Terms of Service Statement

If you have questions about this Web Design Terms of Service Statement, please contact our Policy Administrator via e-mail at info@swamprabbitmedia.com.