Terms & Conditions
The following Terms and Conditions of Service apply to all products and services provided by Amateur.
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All work is carried out by Amateur on the understanding that the client has agreed to our terms and conditions.
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Copyright is retained by Amateur on all design work including words, pictures, ideas, visuals and illustrations unless specifically released in writing and after all costs have been settled.
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If a choice of designs is presented and one is chosen for your project, only that solution is deemed to be given by us as fulfilling the contract. All other designs remain the property of Amateur, unless specifically agreed in writing.
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Project Acceptance
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At the time of proposal, Amateur will provide the customer with a written estimate or quotation by email or the client's preferred communication platform. These Terms and Conditions can be read at any time on the Amateur website.
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A return email/message sent by the customer acknowledging acceptance of the quotation shall bind the client to accept our terms and conditions.
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For the avoidance of doubt, the Amateur Terms & Conditions are what govern the job, not any conditions on the customer’s purchase order.
Design Charges
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Charges for the services to be provided by Amateur will be set out in the written estimate or quotation that is provided to the customer. At the time of the customer’s acceptance of this estimate or quotation, indicating acceptance of the Terms & Conditions, a non-refundable payment of 50% of the quoted fee will become immediately due.
Unless agreed otherwise with the Client, all services require an advance payment of a minimum of fifty (50) percent of the project quotation total before the work commences or is supplied to the Client for review. The remaining fifty (50) percent of the project quotation total will be due upon completion of the work prior to release of materials.
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Charges for Other Services
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Charges for any additional services requested during the project that are over and above the estimated time or out of scope, will become payable (50% of the quoted amount) at the time of estimate or quotation acceptance, the remaining shall be paid after the work is completed and the material released.
Payment
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The customer will be provided with an Email/Message for confirmation of final work and the remaining amount due, prior to final publication. At this time the remainder of the amount due will become payable and the customer will also be required to send their confirmation signifying approval of the final work to Amateur.
Any queries must be submitted within 14 days of the order confirmation date.
Payments may be made by online transfer, credit card (Visa, Mastercard) or Debit Card. Our bank account details will be provided on confirmation of the order.
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We do not accept payment by cheque or cash.
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Publication and/or release of work done by Amateur on behalf of the client, may not take place before cleared funds have been received.
Default
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An account shall be considered default if it remains unpaid for 30 days from the date of invoice. Amateur shall be entitled to remove Amateur‘s and/or the customer’s material from any and all computer systems, until the amount due has been fully paid. This includes any and all unpaid monies due for any of our services.
Removal of such materials does not relieve the customer of its obligation to pay the due amount.
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No additional fees will be charged for late payment.
Copyrights and Trademarks
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By supplying text, images and other data to Amateur for inclusion in the customer’s website or other medium, the customer declares that it holds the appropriate copyright and/or trademark permissions. The ownership of such materials will remain with the customer, or rightful copyright or trademark owner.
Any artwork, images, or text supplied and/or designed by Amateur on behalf of the customer, will remain the property of Amateur and/or its suppliers unless otherwise agreed in writing.
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A licence for use of the copyright material is granted to the customer solely for the project defined in the scope or request and not for any other purpose.
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The customer may request in writing from Amateur, the necessary permission to use materials (for which Amateur holds the copyright) in forms other than for which it was originally supplied, and Amateur may, at its discretion, grant this and may charge for the additional usage. Such permission must be obtained in writing before any of the aforesaid artwork, images, text, or other data is used.
Any software, code, plugin or other third party material used in a web or digital project remains the property of the creator and any ongoing licence fees or fees for upgrades are the responsibility of the client, not Amateur.
By supplying images, text, or any other data to Amateur, the customer grants Amateur permission to use this material freely in the pursuit of the design.
Should Amateur, or the customer supply an image, text, audio clip or any other file for use in a website, multimedia presentation, print item, exhibition, advertisement or any other medium believing it to be copyright and royalty free, which subsequently emerges to have such copyright or royalty usage limitations, the customer will agree to allow Amateur to remove and/or replace the file on the site.
The customer agrees to fully indemnify and hold Amateur free from harm in any and all claims resulting from the customer in not having obtained all the required copyright, and/or any other necessary permissions.
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Alterations
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The customer agrees that changes required over and above the estimated work, or in addition to the agreed scope, or where the client makes changes to the supplied copy or changes required to be carried out after acceptance of the draft design, may be liable to a separate charge.
The customer also agrees that Amateur holds no responsibility for any amendments made by any third party, before or after a design is published.
Licensing
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Any design, copywriting, drawing, idea or code created for the customer by Amateur, or any of its contractors, is licensed for use by the client on a one-time only basis and may not be modified, re-used, or re-distributed in any way or form without the express written consent of Amateur and any of its relevant sub-contractors.
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Amateur follows the Terms and Conditions of Canva when using the platform.
All design work – where there is a risk that another party make a claim, should be registered by the client with the appropriate authorities prior to publishing or first use or searches and legal advice sought as to its use.
Amateur will not be held responsible for any and all damages resulting from such claims.
Amateur is not responsible for any loss, or consequential loss, non-delivery of products or services, of whatever cause. The customer agrees not to hold Amateur responsible for any such loss or damage.
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Any claim against Amateur shall be limited to the relevant fee(s) paid by the customer.
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Data Formats
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The client agrees to Amateur ’s definition of acceptable means of supplying data to the company.
Text is to be supplied to Amateur in electronic format as standard text (.txt), MS Word (.docx) or via e-mail / FTP or shared folder.
Images which are supplied in an electronic format are to be provided in a format as prescribed by Amateur via e-mail / FTP. Images must be of a quality suitable for use without any subsequent image processing, and Amateur will not be held responsible for any image quality which the client later deems to be unacceptable.
Amateur cannot be held responsible for the quality of any images which the client wishes to be scanned from printed materials.
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Additional expenses may be incurred for any necessary action, including, but not limited to, photography and art direction, photography searches, media conversion, digital image processing, or data entry services, colour correction and alteration of images
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Design Project Duration
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Any indication given by Amateur of a design project’s duration is to be considered by the customer to be an estimation. Amateur cannot be held responsible for any project over-runs, whatever the cause. Estimated project duration should be deemed to be from the date that cleared funds are received by Amateur for the initial payment or by date confirmed in writing by Amateur .
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Rights of Access for Website Construction
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The client agrees to allow Amateur all necessary access to computer systems and other locations, as required, in order to complete a website project and until all due funds are cleared, including the necessary read/write permissions, usernames and passwords.
The customer also agrees to allow Amateur access to any computer systems, usernames and passwords required to remove data and/or sites for failure to comply with these Terms and Conditions.
The customer agrees to supply Amateur with all necessary materials, electronic, or otherwise, required to create and complete the project, and to supply them in a timely manner.
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Design Project Completion
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Amateur considers the design project complete upon receipt of the customer’s confirmation of receipt of the final work. If the client does not acknowledge receipt of the final work within 5 days after it has been released, the project will be considered as complete.
Other services such as printing, display panel production, filmwork, website uploading, publishing etc either contracted on the client’s behalf constitute a separate project and can be treated as a separate charge.
Website design only
Amateur requires that a template is approved by the customer before design of a site commences. Once the template(s) for the web site are approved by the customer, design and development will commence, and may include changes to navigation items, colours, structure or content.
Once web design is complete, Amateur will provide the customer with the opportunity to review the resulting work. Amateur will make one set of minor changes at no extra cost within 14 days of the start of the review period. Minor changes include small textual changes and small adjustments to placement of items on the page. Any minor changes can be notified to Amateur by e-mail/other modes of communication.
Amateur will consider that the client has accepted the original draft, if no notification of changes is received in writing from the customer, within 14 days of the start of the review period.
Hosting websites
Amateur offers assistance to choose and complete hosting process through an out-sourced virtual server. Amateur does not guarantee continuous service and will accept no liability for loss of service, whatever the cause.
Amateur may request that clients change the type of hosting account used if that account is deemed by Amateur to be unacceptable because of poor service, lack of bandwidth or in any other way insufficient to support the website. Fees for hosting on these servers are as set by them (See Bluehost's plans).
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Fees due to third party hosting organisations are the responsibility of the client. Amateur may buy hosting plans on behalf of a client but accept no responsibility for any liability that may arise from such transactions.
Domain Registration
Amateur cannot guarantee the availability of any domain name. Where Amateur is to register a domain name on behalf of a client it will endeavour to do so but the client should not assume a successful registration.
Search Engine Submission
Due to the infinite number of considerations that search engines use when determining a site’s ranking, Amateur cannot guarantee any particular placement. Acceptance by any search engine cannot be guaranteed and when a site is accepted, the time it takes to appear in search results varies from one search engine to another. Rankings will also vary as new sites are added. Amateur recommends that customers use a professional SEO company and are happy to provide details of such companies, but accept no responsibility for their services.
Design Credits
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The customer agrees to allow Amateur to place a small credit on printed material exhibition displays, advertisements and/or a link to Amateur's own website on the customer’s website. This will usually be in the form of a small logo or line of text placed towards the bottom of the page.
The customer also agrees to allow Amateur to place websites and other designs, along with a link to the client’s site on Amateur’s own website for demonstration purposes and to use any designs in its own publicity and portfolios.
Rights of Refusal
Amateur will not include in its designs, any text, images or other data which it deems to be immoral, offensive, obscene or illegal. All advertising material must conform to all standards laid down by all relevant advertising standards authorities. Amateur also reserves the right to refuse to include submitted material without giving reason. In the situation where any images and/or data that Amateur does include in all good faith, and subsequently discovers is in contravention to such Terms and Conditions, the customer is obliged to allow Amateur to remove the contravention without hindrance, or penalty. Amateur is to be held in no way responsible for any such data being included.
Cancellation
Cancellation of orders may be made in writing to Amateur. The client will then be emailed the outstanding fees for all work completed over and above the non-refundable deposit that will have been made at the time of first ordering. The balance of monies due must be paid within 30 days. Please note: any cancellation which is not formally confirmed in writing and received by Amateur within 14 days of such instruction being issued, will be liable for the full quoted cost of the project.
Disclaimer
Amateur makes no warranties of any kind, express or implied, for any and all products and/or services that it supplies. Amateur will not be held responsible for any and all damages resulting from products and/or services it supplies. Amateur is not responsible for any loss, or consequential loss of data, or non-delivery of products or services, of whatever cause. While we take reasonable steps to investigate the materials we recommend, we accept no responsibility for the performance or quality of materials or any consequential loss arising from their failure. The customer agrees not to hold Amateur responsible for any such loss or damage. Any claim against Amateur shall be limited to the relevant fee(s) paid by the customer.
Amateur reserves the right to use the services of sub-contractors, agents and suppliers and any work, content, services and usage is bound by their Terms and Conditions. Amateur will not knowingly perform any actions to contravene these and the client also agrees to be so bound.
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General
These Terms and Conditions supersede any previous Terms and Conditions distributed in any form. Amateur reserves the right to change any rates and any of the Terms and Conditions at any time and without prior notice.
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Acceptance of Terms and Conditions and Quotation
The placement of an order for design and/or any other services offered by Amateur, by email, verbally or in writing, is deemed to be acceptance of these terms and conditions, which are freely available at https://designsbyamateur.wixsite.com/my-site.
An estimate validated by the customer in writing, constitutes acceptance of the estimate or quotation and agreement to comply fully with all the Terms and Conditions and forms a Contract for Business between the Client and Amateur.