What to Include in Freelance Graphic Designer Contract

When you're making your mark as a freelance graphic designer London, you're solely responsible for your business and quality of services delivered to your clients. Delivering as per client's requirements is important, no doubt, but having engaging designs alone won't help you to make a successful career in freelancing. Building a client base, marketing yourself, and protecting yourself are crucial pieces of this puzzle. However, nothing is more important than legally securing terms and payments by drafting a thorough design contract.

Working without a legal work contract comes with a fair share of risk of you getting short-ended by your client irrespective of how professional they may seem to you. No graphic designer will want to see his dozens of hours go waste when he doesn't get timely payment or no payment at all for amount of graphic design work done by him. Given below are some useful things that should be included in your graphic design contract.

1. Project details

This may seem obvious, but the fact is that it's so simple that it is often overlooked. Though you and your client might have a detailed discussion regarding details of the project, you should see to it that you have these details in writing. Your role and deliverable should be clear to you.

Establish the overall framework of the project assigned to you so that you can deny if more is asked from you later on. In other words, you should clearly have assigned responsibilities and work requirements in written so that both you and your client cannot expect more than what has been agreed upon between both parties.

2. Timeline and Deadlines

No freelance graphic designer wants to work for 60 hours in a week. Include clauses that limit your working hours by week and timings when your client can contact you during the day. Is your client willing to pay you for extra working hours?

In this section, you should also clearly state all points of mutual agreement. Though many designers loathe the idea of deadline constraints, it will help to keep a professional freelance branding designer London productive and your client can also expect when assigned work will be submitted to him.

3. Client's Responsibilities

Mention clearly all the responsibilities of your client and every thing that he's expected to deliver to you in order to complete the project. It's important to delineate the chain of command so that you are not caught in the middle of a disagreement as the designer.

4. Details of payments

This is probably the most important point to be mentioned in your contract. After all, everything boils down to money and you are working hard to earn it. You should detail exactly when you expect payment and in what method. General best practices are that designers receive at least 40-50% of total amount in advance before they begin working on the project. Remaining balance is paid after the project has been submitted. This is a part of mutual understanding between you and your client.

Award winning freelance graphic designer based in Kingston, London. With 13 years experience in branding, web design, social media graphics, print graphics, presentations, wallpaper designs, paper sculpture design, and packaging. Get in touch!