Terms of Business

1. About Us

1.1 www.alex-stanley.co.uk is a site operated by Studio Alex. Studio Alex’s main trading address is Alex, Unit 3a, Town Yard Industrial Estate, Station Street, Leek, Staffordshire, ST13 8BF.

1.2 You can contact Studio Alex via email at [email protected]

2. Our Contract With You

2.1 These terms and conditions (Terms) apply to the request by you (Client) and supply of Services by us to you (Contract). They apply to the exclusion of any other terms that you seek to impose or incorporate, or which are implied by law, trade custom, practice or course of dealing.

2.2 At the point that a request for Studio Alex’s Services is provided by you, you are making an offer to receive Services from Studio Alex under these Terms.

2.3 Studio Alex will provide a quotation for the Services requested by you within 7 days of this being provided (by hand or email).

2.4 The Contract will be effective upon written approval of the quotation from you (by hand or by email). The Contract will relate only to those Services confirmed in the quotation.

3. Payment

3.1 The Services shall not commence until a minimum deposit of 50% of the agreed quotation (unless otherwise agreed in writing) has been received in cleared funds In such a bank account as Studio Alex nominates (Deposit). This ensures that Studio Alex is fully equipped to provide the highest levels of service and expertise, from project concept to completion.

3.2 If a quotation has been provided where a job will be approached in ‘stages’, each stage will need to be paid in full on completion before Studio Alex are able to progress to the next stage.

3.3 The quotation provided is based upon the anticipated creative time, production requirements and processes, the customer’s brief (if applicable), client cooperation in providing content, expediated deadlines and any additional time taken to receive client approval. Additional changes to the quotation may be made at any point if there are any variations to the scope and/or timeframe for completion. Any such charges will be advised to the customer for agreement in writing prior to any further work commencing.

3.4 All quotations are valid for 30 days from the date stated on the quotation, subject to any adjustments in accordance with clause 3.3.

3.5 Unless otherwise agreed in writing, the balance of the quotation will be due in full within 30 days from the date of the invoice. On some occasions, Studio Alex may ask for the balance of payment to be paid in full on project completion (e.g prior to delivery of printed items, or publishing of website).

3.6 If any project exceeds the agreed timeline or extends beyond twelve weeks from approval of quotation (whichever occurs first), Studio Alex reserves the right to invoice 25% of any outstanding balance, with the remaining 25% payable on completion.

4. The Services

4.1 Any descriptions or illustrations on Studio Alex’s site are published for the sole purpose of giving an approximate idea of the services described in them. They will not form part of the Contract or have any contractual force.

4.2 Unless otherwise agreed in writing, work will commence within fourteen working days of the Deposit being received.

4.3 Any completion date agreed between the parties is subject to quotation options chosen, Client co-operation in provision of information, availability of resources (logos, images etc.) and giving approvals. Studio Alex will do its very best to ensure that agreed timelines are adhered to, but this is subject to any amendments requested by you, any additional requirements made during provision of the Services, third party issues or delays in payments may potentially result in delays to project completion. The Client agrees that Studio Alex is not liable for any claims, losses, costs incurred or compensation due to any failure to carry out Services within a given delivery time scale.

4.4 Unless otherwise agreed between the parties, all quotations provided allow for an initial meeting between Studio Alex and the Client. Further meetings may incur additional costs but these will always be discussed and agreed in writing before proceeding.

4.5 Unless otherwise specified, quotations exclude the following where relevant: print; commissioned illustration, photography or stock images; image retouching; image scanning; copywriting; postage, in-house colour print-outs, travel; web hosting, couriers; other third-party costs incurred (such as merchant bank and payment gateway charges) etc.

5. Intellectual Property

5.1 It is assumed that unless otherwise stated, most copy and images will be provided by the Client, and the Client agrees that such are either owned by the Client or used with full permission of the original authors. The Client agrees to indemnify Studio Alex from any claim that may arise as a result of using the supplied media and content.

5.2 Studio Alex is able to provide a full copy writing 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) can also be provided at extra cost.

5.3 All intellectual property rights in or arising out of or in connection with the Services (other than intellectual property rights in any materials provided by you) will be owned by Studio Alex unless otherwise agreed by the parties before Contract commencement.

5.4 The Terms grant a non-exclusive limited license to extent that the use of the Service deliverables are restricted to the use by the Client and/or a single company owned by the Client only. You are not permitted to use a design for more than one website/product/service without prior written agreement between the parties.

5.5 You agree not to resell or distribute the completed Services unless prior written agreement is made between the parties. If you wish to transfer the completed web designs, images, pages, code and source files created by Studio Alex and any other intellectual properties belonging to Studio Alex to a hosting provider other than your own, Studio Alex reserves the right to charge for this.

6. Your Personal Information

6.1 Studio Alex will use any personal information you provide to us to:

6.1.1 provide the Services; and

6.1.2 process your payment for the Services.

6.2 Studio Alex will process your personal information in accordance with our [DATA PROTECTION OR PRIVACY POLICY LINK], the terms of which are incorporated into this Contract.

7. Content & Proofing

7.1 Costs provided allow for a maximum of three sets of Client amends on any project. Any further requests by the Client to amend the scope of the Services may incur additional charges, however these will be discussed and agreed between the parties prior to proceeding with additional work. .

7.2 It is the Client’s responsibility to ensure that all information provided in connection with the Services it requires is correct and accurate at the time of submission. Studio Alex will not accept responsibility for actual or consequential loss arising from incorrect spelling, punctuation, typographical errors etc., that are not pointed out by the Client before the production of the final artwork.

7.3 Clients should be aware that due to a variety of factors, there will often be variance in colours shown between in-house proofs, colours on the screen, printer’s proofs, and final printed items.

7.4 Appropriate credit and acknowledgement for work produced by Studio Alex is to be attributed to Studio Alex (for instance, written in small text on the back of a printed item or at the bottom of a website). It may be referenced for Studio Alex’s promotional purposes unless otherwise agreed by Studio Alex by prearrangement with the client.

8.0 Website, Hosting & SEO

8.1 The client agrees to alert Studio Alex in writing to any defects or problems in relation to the Services provided, within 30 days of the final invoice date. Studio Alex will not be liable for any claims made after this period.

8.2 For all web related projects, unless specifically stated, the client will retain 100% ownership of the web page design only (ownership is not applicable to proprietary software and programs or source code, such as databases, e-commerce and/or content management systems, web application source code or flash files/animations).

8.3 Studio Alex offers a web hosting service to host the websites it has built for the Client and hosting will be provided and stored within a secure data base located in the UK. This is recommended in order to ensure ongoing quality of service.

8.4 Although the standard of its hosting packages are high, Studio Alex is unable to guarantee 100% up-time (as no web host will do so) nor accept any responsibility for any error, omission or misrepresentation in relation to the websites hosted, or for any loss, damage, cost or expense (whether direct, indirect, consequential or otherwise) suffered by any user of the websites hosted. Studio Alex reserves the right to terminate a client’s website hosting in the event that payment against a hosting invoice is not received in a timely manner.

8.5 Studio Alex takes great care in providing Services to you in the form of printed or digital media and to provide those Services in a responsible manner. Studio Alex are not, however, a legal advice service and do not guarantee any media supplied as meeting all legislative requirements. It is the responsibility of the client to ensure that any information provided for inclusion with websites or other media e.g. terms of business, privacy policy, cookies policy etc. comply with legal requirements and the Client should take independent legal advice, in the Client’s capacity as the publisher of the work..

8.6 The Client agrees that Studio Alex is not liable for any failure to carry out Services for reasons beyond its control, including but not limited to acts of God, telecommunication problems, software failure, hardware failure, third party interference, Government, emergency on a major scale or any social disturbance of extreme nature such as industrial strike, riot, terrorism and war or any act or omission of any third party services.

8.7 Studio Alex will try to rank your business to best of our ability, however we are not in control of search engine’s final decisions. We are also not in control of search engine broad updates or when search engines index your website.

8.8 We do not have the ability to offer a guarantee on the rank that our customers will receive. We also cannot calculate or even estimate the amount of increased traffic that will occur as a result of our optimisation services. As such our services do not guarantee an increase in customer visits to your website or to sales, or other ranking metrics.

8.9 However, if the majority of keyphrases, and organic traffic significantly declines for more than 6 months after optimisation, then Studio Alex will offer our SEO customers free SEO services for 3 months or until the trend reverses, whichever arises sooner.

8.10 Studio Alex or the Client may terminate the Contract by giving 30 days notice in writing to the other. In the event of termination by either party (unless agreed otherwise) Studio Alex will be entitled to retain any Deposit paid and invoice/be paid for any additional work undertaken over and above the deposit value.

8.11 These terms and conditions of business supersede any previous versions and apply to all present and future projects unless otherwise agreed in writing. Studio Alex 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.