What to Put in Your Branding & Web Design Contracts
Nobody gets into design because they're excited about contracts. You're here because you love to create, not to write boring legal clauses. But there’s no way around it. Contracts are crucial as a brand and web designer to protect yourself and your work.
A good contract isn't about distrust. It's about clarity. When both parties know exactly what's happening — what's included, what isn't, what happens if things change — projects run more smoothly, relationships stay intact, and you get paid fairly for what you do.
So here's a roundup of everything your design contract should include, and what most designers tend to leave out.
The Essentials
1. Scope of Work
This is the arguably most important section in your entire contract! And the biggest mistake you can make in this section is being too vague. "Logo design" is not a scope of work. "Three logo concepts, with two rounds of revisions included, delivering final files in vector formats" — that’s a scope of work.
Vagueness in the scope of work section is where scope creep is born. The more specific you are, the safer you are. That’s why we recommend listing out exactly what's included:
how many concepts
how many rounds of revisions
what file formats you'll deliver
what's explicitly not included
If you're doing brand identity, spell out every piece — logo, color palette, typography system, brand guidelines document. If you're doing web design, clarify whether that includes development or design only, how many pages, whether copywriting is on them or you.
2. Timeline
Your contract should include a project start date, key milestone dates, and a final delivery date. That's the obvious part. What a lot of designers miss: what happens when the client is the one causing delays?
If a client takes three weeks to send you feedback, does your deadline shift accordingly? If they go quiet mid-project and resurface two months later expecting you to pick up right where you left off, are you obligated to?
To cover these types of situations, add a timeline extension clause that says the project timeline adjusts based on client response times, and define what constitutes an abandonment of the project. (AKA when you’re allowed to cancel the project if the client ghosts you for too long.)
3. Payment Terms
Be super specific here! Don’t just state the total fee. You need to outline the deposit amount, the payment schedule, when each payment is due, and what happens if a payment is late.
A few things worth including that many designers leave out:
Non-refundable deposit requirement.Never start work without one! Somewhere between 25-50% is standard, depending on project size. State clearly that their spot in your schedule is only reserved after paying a deposit and it’s not refundable. This helps you avoid people saying they want to work when you and then disappearing before you actually start.
Late payment policy. What happens if an invoice goes unpaid past the due date? A late fee (often 1.5-2% per month) is reasonable and worth including so it's not a surprise if you ever need to enforce it.
Work stoppage clause. If payment isn't received by a certain date, you have the right to pause work. This protects you from putting in weeks of work while chasing an overdue invoice.
4. Revision Policy
"Unlimited revisions" is a phrase that shouldn’t exist in any design contract! You need to define exactly what a revision is, how many rounds are included, and what happens when a client exceeds them.
Be specific about what counts as a round of revisions too. One round typically means one consolidated batch of feedback responded to in one round of changes. If a client sends you five separate emails with new thoughts each time, that should not count as one round.
5. Intellectual Property and Licensing
When does ownership of the work transfer to the client? Most designers default to "when final payment is received" — which is correct, and worth stating explicitly. Until that final invoice is paid, you retain ownership of the work.
Also worth addressing: what kind of license does the client receive? For most brand and web design projects, the client receives an exclusive, perpetual license for commercial use. (That means the client owns the right to use the work however they want, for as long as they want, for their business — and no one else can use it.) But if you're creating something with broader applications — illustrations, patterns, photography — the licensing terms may be different and should be spelled out.
It's also worth specifying that the license covers the final approved concept only — not everything created during the project. Unused logo concepts, rejected directions, and in-progress work should remain yours. If a client wants ownership of those too, that's a separate conversation with a separate price tag.
For logo and brand identity work especially, you’ll also want to clarify that the files are licensed for the specific client's use and are not to be resold or transferred to third parties.
6. Kill Fee
What happens if the client cancels the project after work has begun? A kill fee — sometimes called a cancellation fee — ensures you're compensated for the time and work you've already put in. A common structure is that the deposit is non-refundable, and if the project is cancelled past a certain point (say, after the first round of concepts), an additional percentage of the total project fee is owed.
Without this clause, a client can walk away at any point and you're left with nothing but hours you can't bill for.
7. Confidentiality
If you're working with clients who share business information with you — financials, unreleased products, internal strategy — a basic confidentiality clause protects them and signals that you take that trust seriously. It's also worth adding a clause that covers your end: that you have the right to display the completed work in your portfolio unless otherwise agreed.
8. Dispute Resolution
Nobody wants to end up in a legal dispute with a client. But if you do, having something in your contract that specifies how disputes are handled — mediation, arbitration, or small claims court — and which state's laws apply, saves a lot of confusion. Keep it simple, but have something.
What You Might Be Missing
Beyond the essentials above, a few things tend to be absent from designer contracts that can cause real headaches:
A client responsibilities section. Your timeline depends on the client doing their part — sending feedback within a reasonable window, providing assets when requested, having decision-makers available for approvals. Include a section that outlines what you need from them and when, and make clear that delays on their end affect the project timeline.
A "feedback and approvals" window. Pair this with your revision policy: define how long the client has to respond to each round of work. If you send concepts and hear nothing for three weeks, is the project still active? What happens if they come back after a long silence? Set expectations upfront.
What happens at project completion. What are you delivering at the end? In what formats? How are files being transferred? What's the process for the final handoff? Especially for web design projects, this is worth spelling out clearly so there's no ambiguity around what "done" means.
A Note on Contract Builders vs. Templates
There's a difference between a template you found on the internet and a contract that's been thoughtfully built for your specific type of work. Generic templates are a decent starting point, but they're often built for broad use cases and may not reflect how you actually work.
Here are some of my personal favorite resources for contracts that are specifically crafted for designers:
The Bottom Line
Your contract is doing a lot of work for you — protecting your time, setting expectations, ensuring you get paid, and giving both you and your client a shared reference point for the entire project. It deserves more than a quick download and a signature box.
Spend an afternoon going through your current contract against this list. Fill in the gaps. Get specific where things are vague. And if you've been sending the same agreement for a few years without revisiting it, this is your reminder to give it another look!
