Our Terms and Conditions

Website Use 

This section, together with any clauses, documents and definitions referred to therein, constitute the Terms and Conditions under which you may use our website. Please read these terms and conditions carefully as they contain important information about your rights and obligations when using this site.

By browsing on or using our website, you indicate that you accept these terms and conditions of use and that you agree to abide by them. If you do not agree to these Terms and Conditions, along with our Privacy Policy, please refrain from using our site. We reserve the right to amend these terms and conditions at any time and for any reason. It is your responsibility to check the Terms and Conditions regularly for any changes.

Last updated: 11 September 2023

 

Who we are: things we will and will not do

This website is owned and operated in the United Kingdom by Dan Summers Design (DSD) (‘we’/’us’/’our’), whose business address is 2nd Floor, 78 New London Road,  Chelmsford, Essex CM2 0PD

We make all reasonable efforts to ensure that this website is available to view and use twenty four hours a day throughout the year; however, this is not guaranteed and the site may be temporarily unavailable at any time due to server or systems failure or technical issues, required updating, maintenance or repair or reasons beyond our control.

We reserve the right to change the domain address of this website and any goods, products, prices, specification, availability and services at any time.

We process information about you and your visits to our website in accordance with our Privacy Policy. By using our site, you consent to such processing and you warrant that all data provided by you is accurate.

We may transfer our rights and obligations under these Terms and Conditions to another organisation. We may notify you in writing if this happens, but this will not affect your rights and obligations under these Terms and Conditions.

Any concerns and requests should be addressed to our business address stated below.

 

Definitions

‘Website’ or ‘site’ means the Dan Summers Design (DSD) website. The terms ‘you’ and ‘your’ refers to the user or visitor to our website. ‘Writing’ or ‘Written’ means emails are included unless we state otherwise.

 

Severance of Terms and Conditions 

If any term, clause or provision of these Terms and Conditions is held invalid, illegal or unenforceable for any reason by any court of competent jurisdiction such provision shall be severed and the remainder of the provisions hereof shall continue in full force and effect as if these Terms and Conditions had been agreed with the invalid illegal or unenforceable provision eliminated.

 

Intellectual Property Rights

This website and its content (including without limitation the website design, text, graphics and all software and source codes connected with the website and services) are protected by copyright, trademarks, patents and other intellectual property rights and laws.

In accessing this website you agree that none of the content may be downloaded, copied, reproduced, transmitted, stored, sold or distributed without the written prior consent of the copyright holder. This excludes the downloading, copying and/or printing of pages of the website for personal, non-commercial home use.

You must not use any part of the content of this website for commercial purposes without first obtaining our expressed permission in writing.

 

Loss of access, attacks on our site and downloading from it 

You must not misuse our website by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attack our site via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of-service attack. 

By breaching this provision, you could commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, as Amended. We may report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and will disclose your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to access our site will cease immediately.

We will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a distributed denial-of-service attack, viruses or other technologically harmful material that may infect your computer equipment, computer programs, data or other proprietary material due to your use of our site or to your downloading of any material posted on it, or any website linked to it.

 

Linking to our website

You may create a link to our website from another website, document or any other source without first obtaining our prior written consent. Any such link must be to our home page only, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it, but you must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.

You must not establish a link from any website that is not owned by you or contains content that is offensive, controversial, infringes any intellectual property rights or other rights of any other person or does not comply in any way with the law in the UK and the law in any country from which they are hosted.

We reserve the right to withdraw linking without notice and for any reason.

 

Links from our website

Where our website contains links to other sites and resources provided by third parties, any such links are provided for your information only and accessed at your sole discretion and risk. We have no control over the contents of those sites or resources, and accept no responsibility for them or for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them.

 

Reviews on our website

You acknowledge that any review, feedback or rating which you leave or submit may, at our discretion, be published by us on our website and may be displayed for as long as we consider appropriate and may be syndicated to another website operated by us, our publications or marketing materials. You undertake that any such material shall be factually accurate and contain genuinely held opinions.   

We reserve the right to edit or remove any reviews without notice and for any reason.

 

Terms of Business and Copyright Protection

This section, together with any related clauses, documents and definitions referred to therein, constitute the Terms and Conditions under which you may conduct bespoke creative design business with us. They contain important information about your rights and obligations when dealing with us. Acceptance of our quotation and/or payment of deposit will be taken as acceptance of our Terms and Conditions. Please ensure that you have read and fully understood the following section and contact us immediately if anything is not clear. 

1. The costs provided when quoting are guide prices based upon what we anticipate the creative time and production requirements to be, based on previous experience and on typical processes, plus your co-operation in provision of content, meeting deadlines and approval. Within reason, additional charges may be payable if there are significant variations to this, although you would be made aware of this well in advance. Charges are unlikely to deviate from those quoted unless requirements change significantly.

2. No creative or development work will commence until DSD has received approval of the quotation in writing or by unambiguous verbal agreement. Your commitment ensures that DSD fully undertakes to provide the very highest levels of service and expertise, from project inception through to completion.

3. The balance of payment will be due in full on invoice of project completion. Payments should be made within 10 days of invoice. See section 13 below. Where a project is being actioned in stages, each stage payment will need to be paid in full before DSD progresses to the next stage. Stage payments, including upfront deposit and balance-on-completion contracts and the terms thereof, are at the sole discretion of DSD. Failure to pay within allocated times may result in additional charges.

4. Any printing, fulfilment, mailing or third-party services that are provided by DSD will require a full up-front payment of 100% of the agreed cost. Please note that DSD will be unable to proceed to this stage without receipt of or proof of this payment.

5. Unless otherwise agreed in writing, advised or posted in advance on social media, work will normally commence within five to ten working days of quotation acceptance. We reserve the right to apply premium hourly design rates to projects requiring a rapid turnaround to meet shorter than normal deadlines. Any anticipated completion date provided by DSD is subject to options chosen and your co-operation in provision of information, resource (logos, images, content etc.) and approval. DSD will do its very best to ensure that agreed timetables are adhered to, but that unforeseen circumstances or events, amends requested, failed supply of requested content or additional requirements may potentially result in delays. Time frames provided are estimated but DSD will not be held liable if the project overruns due to delays caused by your failure to pass information or approval, or any third party issues or force majeure (act of nature or unavoidable catastrophes).

6. Costs provided normally allow for presentation of a single fully-worked design proposal and, where applicable, a mock-up of likely applications per brief for you to consider. In the unlikely event that you are not satisfied with the presented work, DSD will develop a further single option of creative origination and presentation thereof. If after this round there is still no agreement on creative direction, DSD reserves the right to potentially bring to an end any agreement with you, with costs covering time spent up to that point being due pro rata at our prevailing hourly rate for the job.

7. Costs provided normally allow for a single set of final revisions after which time additional charges may become payable pro rata at our prevailing hourly rate, although you would normally be made aware of this in advance.

8. At the end of each stage of the process (including – but not limited to – before sending an item to print or launching a website etc.) you will need to ‘sign-off’ your approval either in person or in writing. No further development can be undertaken until DSD is in receipt of written approval confirmation. Any amends to work after signed approved may incur additional pro rata charges for further time spent, although you would be made aware of this in advance.

9. Costs quoted allow for occasional meetings at key stages for a reasonable length of time between you and DSD. We reserve the right to charge for out-of-office meeting time (at a reduced hourly rate) and also travelling time (mileage by prior agreement) and subsistence (if appropriate) where we are requested by you to visit/survey your branch network or distant offices. 

10. It is assumed that unless otherwise stated, most copy and images will be provided by you. DSD is able to provide a proportional copywriting service or copy advice, as well as illustration and photography at an additional cost if required. Purchased royalty-free stock images from our standard sources (if required) will generally be priced at between £10 and £30 per image (dependent on source, image size and quality) to cover sourcing time and image costs.

11. Although you are not contract-bound to use DSD to provide a print service, it is highly recommended for quality control and peace of mind. If you prefer to use your own print supplier, DSD will provide artwork directly to you to manage and forward, and will be unable to monitor, advise or take any responsibility for the process or final output.

12.1 You should be aware that due to a variety of factors there will often be variance in colours shown between in-house proofs, colours on screen, printer’s proofs, and final printed items. These factors are determined by the source of the print or visual (each output source e.g. the DSD printer, your printer, the image setter, the PC monitor etc. will differ from the other); the types of inks or make-up of colours (even Pantone colours can vary significantly and often surprisingly depending on what stock or substrate they are printed on), the type of print process (short-run digital, longer-run lithograph printing), the substrate (paper, card, plastic etc.) used, individual preferences (ambient light, personal computer settings etc.) and any other reasonable reason. 

12.2 As a result of this DSD is unable to guarantee 100% consistency and accuracy of colour on all items and may not always be able to achieve the exact result expected by you. In the case of printed items, the only true guide as to what is likely to be produced, is to request a printer’s ‘wet-proof’ on the actual intended substrate with the actual inks to be used, although this will incur disproportionate additional cost and is normally only recommended for very large or expensive print runs. However, as long as you accept there may be inconsistencies across work produced this step may not be necessary as a Digital proof (from computer to inkjet device) is accurate for copy and a Contract proof (out of 4-colour process) may be requested for accuracy of both copy and colour. DSD does not accept any responsibility for colour variations as a result of any of the above indeterminate factors.

13. We request that all payments of accounts due are made no later than 10 days after the invoice date either by cheque or direct to our bank account as detailed on our invoice.       Until payment is received in full, all designs, artwork and rights to design and artwork (whether in digital or printed format) remain the intellectual property of DSD. Full copyright and ownership of all ‘commissioned’ work will reside with DSD until full payment has been received, at which point DSD will surrender to you, all claims of ownership and full copyright for final work produced (not including alternative designs, concepts, options, files, images or documents developed throughout the process). This agreement is subject to appropriate credit and acknowledgment appearing and DSD’s right to use the work for self-promotion in its portfolio and studio displays, in presentations, in advertising, in print and online including social media pages. If you’d rather we didn’t, please let us know and we’ll happily comply with your wishes.

14. DSD will never knowingly infringe any copyright or trademark and will deliver, to the best of its knowledge, creative solutions that are original and unique to DSD. Unless otherwise agreed in writing, it is the responsibility of the client to ensure that no copyright or trademark has been infringed and to make their own application for copyright or trademark with the ‘UK Intellectual Property Office’ (IPO) if required. DSD cannot be held liable for infringements by any third party or freelance designer.

15. DSD will not at any time or in any manner, either directly or indirectly, use for our personal benefit or divulge, disclose or communicate in any manner any information that is proprietary to the client. We will act reasonably to protect such information and treat it as strictly confidential.

16. You agree to alert DSD in writing to any justifiable defects or problems in relation to work and services provided within 30 days of the final invoice date. DSD will not be liable for any such claims made after this period. 

17. Appropriate credit and acknowledgment for work produced by DSD should be attributed to DSD where possible (for instance written in small text on the back of a printed item or at the bottom of a website) and may be referenced for the DSD’s promotional purposes unless otherwise (in exceptional circumstances) prearranged with you.

18. DSD’s online sales service provision may offer a range of creative merchandise for immediate purchase and our Privacy Policy describes how we process any such order, obtain payment and use your personal information.

19. These terms and conditions of business conduct supersede any previous versions and apply to all present and future projects unless otherwise agreed in writing. DSD reserves the right to change or modify these terms at any stage with immediate effect. By agreeing to these terms, your statutory rights are not affected.

 

Company Reserves

In addition to adopting a more sustainable business model, DSD operates a policy of retaining sufficient reserves in cash balances in a designated account without compromising the availability of those funds. They aim to provide a level of working capital that protects the continuity of our core work, unforeseen expenditure and unanticipated loss of income. DSD aims to maintain reserves at a level equivalent to at least three months’ expenditure but no more than six months’ worth. The current level of reserves represents 3 months’ expenditure based on present day expenditure and thereafter on DSD’s accounting years to 5 April.

Last Updated: 13/01/2022.

 

Governing Law and Jurisdiction 

These Terms and Conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the law of England and you hereby submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

We retain the right to bring proceedings against you for breach of our terms and conditions either in your country of residence or any relevant country. 

 

Contact us

If you have any concerns regarding the content or use of our website or terms of business, please email design@dansummersdesign.co.uk or call 01245 890238 or write to Dan Summers, Dan Summers Design, 2nd Floor, 78 New London Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM2 0PD

Thank you for visiting our website and reading our Terms and Conditions.