Last updated: October 2017
This website is operated by Caro Creative (Laurence Caro, Sole Trader). Throughout the site, the terms “we”, “us” and “our” refer to Caro Creative. Caro Creative offers this website, including all information, tools and services available from this site to you, the user, conditioned upon your acceptance of all terms, conditions, policies and notices stated here.
We will always do our best to fulfil your needs and meet your goals, but sometimes it’s best to have a few things written down so that we both know what’s what, who should do what and what happens if stuff goes wrong. On this page you won’t find complicated legal terms or long 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 are hiring Caro Creative located in Banbury, Oxfordshire to design, develop, optimise or host a website for the estimated total price as outlined in a quotation. Of course, it’s a little more complicated, but we’ll get to that.
What do both parties agree to do?
As a customer, you have the power and ability to enter into this contract on behalf of your company or organisation. You agree to provide us with everything that we’ll need to complete the project – including text, images and other information – as and when we need it and in the format we ask for. You agree to review our work, provide feedback and approval in a timely manner too. Deadlines work two ways and you’ll 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 endeavour 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’ll also maintain the confidentiality of any information that you give us.
Getting down to the nitty gritty
Design
If we are designing your website we’ll create designs for the look-and-feel, layout and functionality of your website. This contract includes two main designs 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 our standard design rates.
HTML and CSS layout templates
If the project includes HTML markup and CSS templates, we’ll develop these using valid HTML and CSS code. The landscape of web browsers and devices changes regularly and our approach is to look forward, not back. With that in mind we will test all our markup and CSS in current versions of all major desktop browsers to ensure that we make the most from them. Users of older or less capable browsers or devices will experience a design that is appropriate to the capabilities of their software.
We do not cater for people using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and cannot predict the behaviour of that browser.
We will also test that these templates perform well on Apple’s iPad and iPhones. We will not test old or abandoned browsers, for example Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or 5.5 for Windows or Mac, previous versions of Apple’s Safari, Mozilla Firefox or Opera unless otherwise specified. If you need us to consider these older browsers, we will charge you at our standard old browser rate for any necessary additional design work, development and testing.
Text content
We may have written a lot of blog posts but we’re not responsible for writing or inputting any text copy for your website unless we specified it in the original estimate. We’ll be happy to help though, and have some good contacts for copy writing.
Photographs
You will need to supply us photographs in digital format. If you choose to buy stock photographs we can suggest vendors of stock photography. You will need to spend time searching for appropriate photographs for your website.
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 amount of work 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. However, you will be charged accordingly and these additional costs will need to be agreed to before the extra work commences. This additional work may affect deadlines and they will be moved accordingly if required. We’ll be up front about all of this if and when it happens to make sure we’re all on the same page before proceeding. We may also ask you to put requests in writing so we can keep track of changes. If the nature or functions of the project change significantly throughout the process, we reserve the right to deem the current project cancelled. At this point you will pay us in full for all the work we have done and may commission us to complete the new project based on the new requirements. This will require a new quote and contract.
Technical support
You may already have professional website hosting, you might even manage that hosting in-house; if that’s the case, great. If you don’t manage your own website hosting, or your current hosting environment does not support the solution we are providing, we can set up an account for you at one of our preferred, third-party hosting providers. We use WP Engine and Heart Internet as our preferred hosting provider. We do not offer technical support for emails and only provide website hosting.
Legal stuff
We can’t guarantee that the functions contained in any web page templates or in a completed website 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 website 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.
Phew!
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 website are either owned by your good selves, or that you have permission to use them.
When we receive final payment, copyright is automatically assigned as follows:
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.
NB: If you are unable to supply all of the right content at this stage, it does not mean we have not done our job. Once the site has been tested and is ready to go live, either with your content or placeholder images and dummy text, we will issue the final invoice. Once the final invoice is paid we will hand over the keys and show you how to put your own content in once it’s ready. If the final invoice is not paid within the terms we have given you, we are under no obligation to keep the site on our testing server or continue with the project in anyway.
But where’s all the horrible small print?
Just like a parking ticket, you can’t transfer this contract to anyone else without our permission. This contract stays in place and need not be renewed. If for some reason one part of this contract becomes invalid or unenforceable, the remaining parts of it remain in place. Although the language is simple, the intentions are serious and this contract is a legal document under exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England.
