Please read these Terms and Conditions. They exist to provide clarification for us both in the unlikely event of dispute. All commissions will be undertaken on the basis of these terms having been read and agreed. When you contract with us to produce work for you, you acknowledge that as the basis for the contract between us, these Terms and Conditions take precedent over any other terms and conditions, express or implied. If you need to discuss any aspect, please contact us.

1. Contracts: you agree to either send a confirmation email or purchase order to [email protected] before we start work: this shall constitute a contract. It should indicate the nature of the work to be undertaken, the budget and any deadline.

2. Creative brief: if you choose not to provide a written, detailed brief for the work to be undertaken but rely instead on a verbal or vague briefing, you accept that this brief by its very nature may contain ambiguities which may be reflected in the resulting creative work: you accept responsibility for this ambiguity and for any additional costs incurred in rewriting the written work or redesigning or relaying pages accordingly. If you change the brief after work has commenced, you will inform us as soon as possible and adjust the budget to reflect the increased time spent on a job.

3. Services provided: We will provide you with creative work in a professional manner by the deadline agreed. All quotations include up to two proof stages where errors and literals can be corrected. More revisions are possible on request but may incur additional fees. A two-week time limit is typically set for completing revisions. The content of the work will be kept confidential and not made known to anyone other than the client without prior written permission. All information pertaining to the commissioned project is covered by the terms of the General Data Protection Regulation.

4. Errors and literals: We make every effort to ensure that our work is free of spelling mistakes, other literals and errors. Early drafts may sometimes contain such errors, and our practice is to ensure that these are removed before a final draft is submitted to you. The responsibility for checking for spelling mistakes, literals and errors is yours, and you indemnify us against any costs incurred as a result of the appearance of such errors in the final published form of any collateral in which you use the work concerned, whether or not these errors appeared in any draft of the written work supplied by us.

5. Fees: These will be agreed to in advance. Any additional costs that were not foreseen in our quote will be communicated to you before they are incurred. Other costs incurred will be agreed in advance.

6. Terms of payment: We will send you a final invoice for the job (minus any deposit) sometime after the date on which we actually commence work on the project. Payment will be due within 21 days of the invoice date, unless we have expressly agreed otherwise in writing. Please make an electronic funds payment directly into the account indicated on the invoice. Although this electronic method is preferred, payment by cheque to the payee shown on the invoice is an alternative. The existence of an ‘end of following month’ payment practice in your company’s handling of accounts payable will in no way alter your obligation to make payment on the due date shown on our invoice. If your company operates such a payment policy, please discuss this with us before contracting.

7. Deposit: We usually request a deposit of 33% of the fee upfront, and the work will not begin until we receive this payment. If you have already paid a deposit and decide to cancel before we’ve started work, then you’ll forfeit 50% of the deposit. If you cancel after work has started, then you will forfeit your whole deposit and we will invoice for any time spent and work completed, over and above the value of your deposit. 

8. Late payments: If payment is not received by us on the due date, we reserve the right to charge ‘statutory interest’ – this is 8% plus the Bank of England base rate. In accordance with the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, a fixed sum for the cost of recovering a late payment (on top of claiming interest) may also be due.

9. Financial stability: You should only commission work if you know you / your company is financially secure, and not about to enter liquidation or appoint a receiver or administrator.

10. Copyright: Copyright means all matters which are the subject of protection under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, as may be amended by subsequent legislation, and includes all creative work prepared by us for clients. The copyright and intellectual property rights for any work commissioned by any agency or client will be retained by us until they are automatically transferred to the agency or client upon payment of our invoice in full.

11. Collaboration: When you contract with us to produce creative work for you, you acknowledge that we may, occasionally, engage the services of other competent professionals to help us deliver all or part of the work which you require. In such a case, we undertake to review and amend the work before it is presented to you, and to ensure that the work is of the quality and professionalism you would expect had we produced it in its entirety ourselves.

12. Liability: We will not be liable to you for any loss of profits, consequential, economic or indirect loss arising in any way in connection with the performance (or non performance) of the obligations related to any commission. In addition, you will indemnify us against any loss incurred as a result of civil claims or proceedings brought against us based upon any advertising and other work prepared for the client and approved by the client before publication.

13. UK law: This agreement is subject to the Laws of the UK, and the parties agree to submit to the jurisdiction of the courts in respect of any dispute or difference arising under the agreement.

14. Quanta Insights: Newsletter that includes the latest research in the science and technology sector. Subscribers receive this monthly newsletter via email and 3 free ebooks by David Bradshaw; they can unsubscribe at any time.

15. Quarterly draw: In each quarter (either January, April, July or October) we pick a new subscriber of Quanta Insights (i.e., a subscriber who has joined after the previous draw) at random. After contacting the winner by email, we will inspect and provide advice based on the text of a webpage of the winner’s choice for free.