In case you're curious, these are the terms that are discussed in my contract. These are also some of the most often-asked questions about my design projects.

Project Management Details

Most project communication takes place via email, with occasional short phone calls. If you'd like more in-depth phone conversations or consultations in the course of your project, upgraded phone consultations are available at a price of $50 per half hour call.

If you have an ongoing project, over the course of several months, we should also schedule a 20-minute call to review the state of the project at the beginning of each month.

Timing Details

If you put your project "on hold" for a period of longer than one month, I reserve the right to charge you for the remainder of the project at that time. I'm happy to complete your project when you are ready.

I must receive the completed "Define Your Difference" Branding Worksheet before beginning work on any project. This worksheet is critical to developing an effective brand, and I cannot get started without that piece.

If your project is on a strict deadline, you must adhere to the turn-around times specified at the beginning of the project. For example, if you need to have a logo within 3 weeks, you need to get back to me with your feedback within 24 hours of receiving a round of designs. If you delay this, then the project will either need to be rushed, resulting in additional fees, or the project deadline will need to be extended.

If your project requires that you give me copy or input, and that is delayed, then the project will either need to be rushed, resulting in additional fees, or the project deadline will need to be extended.

If your project requires that I work during the evenings or weekends in order to meet a deadline, a rush fee will be charged. The rush fee varies according to the extent of the rush and the stress placed on me and my schedule, and will be discussed with you before implementation.

And remember, when we're done with many projects, there's still work to be done. For printed projects, be sure to allow enough time in your schedule for printing. Printing digitally takes between a week and two weeks if we send it out to a low-priced vendor. If you print locally, you can get your final printed pieces quickly, but it often costs more. I can tell you the ideal amount of print production time for most projects at the beginning of your project.

If you're purchasing a new domain name and setting up a new host, the process for the domain name information to "propagate" takes at least 24-48 hours. Be sure to allow enough time before you need your website or email service to be "live" for that to happen.

Design Rights

I price my work according to the level of rights that I'm assigning to you for the final design. I typically assign one of four levels of rights:

• Full usage rights: This allows you company to use the completed design forever, in its' current state. This does not allow you to modify the design or use it as a basis for other designs, though. I typically assign this level of rights to most printed pieces.
• Modification rights: This type of rights assignment allows you to make modifications to the finished piece. Modification rights are typically granted to website designs and materials that are expressly designed for you as templates.
• Unlimited rights: This type of rights assignment allows you to do anything that you choose with the design. You can use it in any future design, modify it, use it as a template for future designs, etc. But, I only typically assign these extensive designs to logos or Visual Vocabulary element designs.
• Portfolio rights: The right to include your designs in my online and printed portfolio. I reserve this right for all of the designs that I create.

Your rights will be listed in your contract, on the first page.

Copyright Details

I don't copyright your final designed pieces for you. If you would like to trademark or copyright your finished pieces, I'd be happy to give you more information on that process. In fact, I highly recommend that you copyright your logo (at the very least) and also explore the trademark process with a lawyer.

Contract Details

Before beginning work, I will write up a contract for your work. The purpose of this contract is twofold. First, it sets up our working relationship and makes that "official". Secondly, it sets up your rights in the final project and assigns you the appropriate amount of ownership in your designs.

My contract is an industry-standard contract that has been reviewed and updated by a lawyer. If you have questions or would like to review the terms, I'd be happy to go over them with you on the phone.

Payment Details

Most of my projects are priced on a project-fee basis. Shorter projects, such as website maintenance or project changes, are priced on an hourly basis. My hourly rate is $125/hour.

For all projects, I require a 50% deposit at the beginning of the project.

I accept credit cards — both Visa and Mastercard. I also accept bank-account funded PayPal payments, and checks.

Checks should be made out to elf design, inc. My payment address for checks is: elf design, inc.
951-2 Old County Road, #171
Belmont, CA 94002

For large projects (over $5000), I am happy to create a payment plan which automatically charges your credit card for a set amount each month.

Technical Details

Print work

All of my print project fees include preparing the final files for print. I deliver most printed files in their native design formats — typically Adobe Illustrator CS or Adobe InDesign CS. If you'd like your files prepared in a different format, please let me know at the beginning of the project. An additional fee may apply for designing in other programs.

I'm happy to recommend printers in the cost of my project. But, if you'd like my expertise in guiding a project through the process of being printed, I also manage printed projects. Print management includes compiling print quotes for you, presenting those to you for your sign-off, sending the files to the printer, and interacting with the printer throughout the production of your printed materials. My hourly rate for printer management is $125/hour, and it typically takes between half an hour to an hour to manage a project through printing.

Web work

Website design includes final uploading (FTP) of the website files to your website host, or sending your files to your designated agent to upload for you.

If you need help setting up your domain name, email, website, name forwarding, etc., then I can assist you with those projects — at my hourly rate of $125/hour.

If you don't yet have a website host, I'm happy to recommend a host and walk you through the process of setting it up. I'm also happy to walk you through the process of purchasing a domain name. I do not perform these purchases for my clients, though. You need to be the registered owner of these services, because if something were to happen to me, and I owned your domain name, there would be nothing that you could do to re-claim your ownership.

Setting up Outlook

I am not a computer specialist, and cannot help you set up Outlook for your new domain name. I suggest you contact a computer networking or repair consultant. For clients in the Bay Area, I'm happy to recommend some computer consultants who can help.

Website Self-Maintenance Training

If you would like to maintain your website yourself, you're welcome to do that. I code all of my websites in such a way that you should be able to use most types of website design software to make edits. I recommend using either Dream Weaver, or Adobe Contribute. Dream Weaver is a more technical program with a greater learning curve, but it also has more coding capabilities. Contribute is as easy to use as Word, but mostly allows for text edits and simple modifications.

I offer training and setup coaching for Contribute, and would be happy to discuss pricing with you. I'm also happy to recommend books and training resources for Contribute or Dream Weaver.

Get Your Text Proofread

I am not a proofreader, and am not responsible for grammatical and punctuation errors in your materials. I highly recommend that you have a proofreader review your materials — especially in the case of printed materials. I have several proofreaders that I can refer you to.

Approvals

By signing off on a final project, you're approving all of the content — the text, the graphic layouts, etc. I do make every professional effort to make sure the design is flawless, but I'm only human! And, I'm definitely not a professional proofreader. So, make sure that you review everything in fine detail.

Client Responsibilities

Here's a basic checklist of some of the components we may need from you during the course of your projects:

For most types of projects:

• Information about your company, so that we have a complete picture of the scope of your business, that will result in the best designs possible. We understand that some of this information may be sensitive, but remember, we're a part of your team. We're happy to sign nondisclosure documentation, and there is a nondisclosure clause in all of our contracts.
• Your logo in a high-resolution format, such as EPS, TIF, Photoshop, or Adobe Illustrator.
• The text for your project, also known as "copy", in Microsoft Word format. All of your copy should be finalized and copy edited, with no additional revisions needed.
• Headshots of the company owners or principals. We recommend having these taken professionally, to enhance your company image. You should also have them professionally retouched and color balanced. Please send these to us in a high-resolution format such as TIF or JPG. If the files are larger than 6 MB, please mail the files to us on a CD.
• Photos of your company's products in a high-resolution format such as TIF or JPG.
• Any other images—photography, illustrations, maps, etc. that you might use or want to use throughout your materials.
• Samples of your other marketing materials so that we can create consistency with your other marketing efforts. Please mail any pieces that you have had professionally printed to us at: 951-2 Old County Road, Suite 171, Belmont, CA 94002

For website projects, you'll need to provide:

• Domain name registration
• Website host registration
• Newsletter service sign-up
• Sign up for other specialized services

If you need assistance in creating or putting together any of these materials, we can refer you to a consultant or service company to meet your needs.

Stock Photo Searching

Many marketing and design projects benefit greatly from having photos included. But, finding just the right photo — or photos — can be a time-consuming process, and is difficult to estimate.

I include up to 1 hour of photo searching time in most of my design estimates where photos may be appropriate — flyer designs, packaging designs, website designs, etc. I try to not use all of the initial hour in the first round of photo searching to leave a bit of time to find additional photos if revisions are required, but, in particularly tricky searches, that's not always possible. If additional searching above and beyond the hour is required, there are two options:

• You can run with the photo searching yourself. I'll suggest a few sites to look at, based on your photo budget and the content of the photo that we're looking for. I'll also chat with you a bit about what we're looking for in your photo — from subject matter to orientation or size.
• I'm happy to do additional photo searching at my hourly rate. I'm happy to estimate the required amount of time to propose additional photos.

And, with stock photography, it's sometimes necessary to go with a photo that's 90% perfect. If spot-on photos are very important to you, it might be best to consider custom, professional photography.

Stock Photo Pricing

Stock photography comes with a pretty wide range of price tags.

First of all, there's two major types of stock photography available on the market today: Rights-managed and Royalty-free.

Rights-managed photos are priced based on the intended use of the photo. Stock photo companies take into account the type of design the photo will be used in, the size of the photo, the length of time the photo will be used for, and your industry, and compute a priced based on the value that they think the photo could have for your company. But, they don't typically price these photos in such a way that they're affordable for small businesses. Usage rights for rights managed photos for print work can run $800 and more. And, when you purchase a rights-managed photo, you're only buying the rights for a specific use. That means you can use it in one designed piece. If you use a photo in your postcard, you'd have to re-purchase additional rights to use the same photo on your website or on a flyer.

Royalty-free photos are licensed to a business to use in any marketing piece. They can be priced anywhere from $5 (for a low resolution, amateur-taken photo — but just because they're taken by amateurs doesn't mean that they're low quality) to $80 (for a high-resolution, professional stock photo at half-page size) to $300 (for an ultra-high, extra large stock photo for poster or trade show booth use). And, for the price that you pay, you can use a royalty-free photo in multiple applications. You can build brand consistency across all of your marketing materials by using the same photo in several pieces.

For this reason, I recommend that small businesses purchase the more reasonably-priced, flexible Royalty-free photos.

And, we should talk about your budget for photos — I do typically try to search for low-priced photos in consideration of my clients' budgets, but if you have more money available, searching with the higher-priced stock photo providers can make many more photographic options to the table.