Avoiding The Never Ending Website Design Project

Is designing a website a technical matter or an artistic one? You might answer technical, but many designers consider it an artistic one. There isn’t anything wrong with this per se, but many "artists" can take their sweet time finishing the project. You need to recognize as much as put together an agreement that prevents this from happening.



Let’s start with a basic premise. It is critical that you sign a written website design agreement with the designer you hire. Why? Well, it comes down to copyright law. If you don’t take this step, your designer will actually own the design instead of you. This means he or she can reuse it as necessary regardless of whether you give permission. A written agreement can circumvent this problem. Frankly, you are a fool if you don’t have one.



Then there is the never ending design project. There are many excellent and professional designers available on the web. Then there is Murphy’s Law. It states [in this case] that you will hire the one person who tells you the site will be done in 45 days. 10 months later, it still isn’t and you are going nuts. The only solution is to go to court to go after them for breach of contract. This is a bad move since most designers are not exactly big earners.



A better approach is to have the designer sign an agreement that contains milestones. Milestones are simply certain dates when the designer must have something done. If the items are done and you approve them, the designer gets paid. If not, the amount they get paid is reduced by a set amount for every day thereafter they are late. This will keep a designer focused and on track in the vast majority of cases, which is exactly what you want.



The web is often the land of perceived informality. That’s fine, but protect yourself when it comes to monetary transactions such as having a site built. A written contract is the way to do it.



Richard A. Chapo provides website contract negotiation and creation services via his site at SanDiegoBusinessLawFirm.com.