Click to See Complete Forum and Search --> : Do you give your client all origional files?
fayenet
08-04-2006, 07:52 PM
I get subcontracts from a company. For a recent logo design project, I promised to give 10 designs for their client to choose, but it turned out I did 20 designs plus alot of revisions(yeah, thats rite...) but their client brought a totally different concept after the 20th design was given. While the client was like "overall is good, ... we are almost there." for several times , but they turned to a total different idea after all designs.
I'm getting enough for this, so I'd like to close this project, so the company I got subcontracts from wants all the origional(AI) files I created.
Is this the way how business work??? Even if they pay in full as promised, I dont think I could give all my designs out rite?
What's your suggestion? Thanks!
rickself
08-04-2006, 07:59 PM
I don't think they need 'em all.
But it does bring up the "contract" question...did you have one with them?
fayenet
08-04-2006, 08:12 PM
I don't think they need 'em all.
But it does bring up the "contract" question...did you have one with them?
:( I think I didn't.
rickself
08-04-2006, 08:15 PM
:( I think I didn't.
That's a funny way of putting it!;)
Do they want all the files for one particular version of the logo or all the files for all the versions? I wouldn't give them any files for designs they didn't pick.
cornfed
08-04-2006, 08:43 PM
It is not standard to give them anything more than the file that they purchase. I would think that you agreed to do a logo design and that is what you quoted them a price for. You surely didn't quote them a price for all of my ideas and the logo. You own the copyright to all of those designs, who's to say they aren't going to turn around and sell them to someone else. In the future, you really need to protect yourself behind a contract. They have sample contracts on about.com
fayenet
08-04-2006, 08:58 PM
Thanks guys, I didn't get a contract with them was b/c I did a lot of things for them, like web design, graphics, and even photography... so it's kinda hard to sign contract everytime.
Jackimalyn
08-04-2006, 09:07 PM
hard or not... you gotta cover you arse!! Plus, the contract would grant them, on paper all copyrights to your work... youd think they'd like one, too. It protects everyone.
D-Frag
08-04-2006, 09:19 PM
my clients get a choice to purchase their files for a set fee on cd, if not, they have to pay an archival retrieval fee for my happy ass to look up and find their stuff for them in the future.
PrintDriver
08-05-2006, 12:34 AM
Weird situation. If you were on the hourly clock for the people who subcontracted you, then the work, any work, you did is probably theirs, chosen or not. If you were pseudo-contracted to create 'a logo' then they get one logo.
But I'm no lawyer.
firewired
08-05-2006, 05:45 AM
At my workplace, we give the client a flattened eps file, a psd file, a transparent gif and a jpg. We always work up a bid/contract and get signatures before we do anything.
just to clarify, You ---> Design Agency -----> Client
and it's the agency requesting the files?
I have to go with PD on this one, the agency commisioned you as an extension of their workforce to produce this work, whether in house or externally, they own whatever you produce within the remit of that commission, and i'm sure that if you put a contract infront of them that said otherwise, they'd laugh.
If they comissioned you to do other work for them, as in branding them, again it's different, because they've come to you as a freelancer, rather than a subcontractor. That's the difference, as a subcontractor you are an extension of their contract, not a seperate entity.
HTH
PrintDriver
08-05-2006, 03:51 PM
At my workplace, we give the client a flattened eps file, a psd file, a transparent gif and a jpg. We always work up a bid/contract and get signatures before we do anything.
That may work for print, in some instances. But not for a logo. Someone who buys a logo is investing in identity for THEIR company. Not yours. As I've said before, if I was buying a logo, I'd want to be able to do anything in the world of GD with it, including giving it to another designer to work with.
As for other files, I'm with DFrag. Pay up on delivery or pay me later to look it up. Some printers only archive for a certain time period after a job is done. We keep em as long as the media lasts. I've had calls from people looking for files from 1998! - mostly from designers who got caught in the Firewire drive firmware debacle when Panther came out. They had no backups!
Lookup time costs money.
urstwile
08-05-2006, 10:10 PM
I've never seen a situation where someone gets to have all the logo study work. In general, when we design logos for our clients, they get the logo in various file formats appropriate to different situations (print, web, color, b&w, etc.), but they don't get the concepts leading up to the one they signed off on.