General

These Terms and Conditions supersede any previous Terms and Conditions distributed in any form by Mainestay Visuals. As the vendor, we reserve the right to change any rates and any of the Terms and Conditions at any time and without prior notice. However, any orders placed before a change in terms or price, will be carried out at the amount/terms agreed to, and accepted on the date the order is placed. 

Project Acceptance

These Terms and Conditions supersede any previous Terms and Conditions distributed in any form by Mainestay Visuals. At any time, an updated version of these terms and conditions can be viewed on our website: mainestayvisuals.com/terms. As the vendor, we reserve the right to change any rates and any of the Terms and Conditions at any time and without prior notice. However, any orders placed before a change in terms or price, will be carried out at the amount/terms agreed to, and accepted on the date the order is placed.

Design Charges

Charges for design services to be provided by Mainestay Visuals 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 (usually via payment of the deposit), indicating acceptance of the Terms & Conditions, 100% of the quoted fee becomes payable.

Design services offered by Mainestay Visuals require an advance payment of a minimum of fifty (50) percent of the project quotation total before any work commences or is supplied to the client for review. The remaining fifty (50) percent of the total will be due upon completion of the work, prior to the release of any deliverables. This applies to all design services except retainer contracts, upon which one hundred (100) percent of the total is due before any work commences.

Mainestay Visuals is committed to providing design services that go above and beyond a client's needs and expectations, but in the event of a change of mind by the client, half of the initial deposit is forfeited and acts as a cancellation fee. The deposit is to ensure Mainestay Visuals allocates time in the schedule to create work for the client.

Every effort is made to display the prices accurately. However, on rare occasions, mistakes can occur. In this instance, Mainestay Visuals will correct the mistake and contact the customer so that they can decide whether to continue with the order at the correct price.

If—at any stage—you change your mind about our deliverables or aren’t happy with our work, you’ll pay us in full for the time we’ve spent working with you. Then, we agree to terminate this contract.

Exchange Rates & Price Adjustment

Note that all services offered by Mainestay Visuals are quoted in USD. If applicable, payments are subject to the exchange rate originally recorded on the estimate. However, the parties agree that should a negative or positive variation of over 15% in the exchange rate between the client’s currency and American dollars as published by ‘xe.com’ in any given quarter occur, the Employee and the Company will negotiate in good faith a possible exchange rate compensation for the quarter.

Payment

Payments may be made by online bank transfer (Scotiabank), PayPal, or cheque (local only). Payments made by cheque must be previously agreed to, and may be subject to an administration charge. Cheques should not be sent in regular mail. Returned cheques will incur an additional fee of $100 per returned cheque. Mainestay Visuals reserves the right to consider an account to be in default in the event of a returned cheque. If you opt to use PayPal, we ask that you add three (3) percent to your payment to supplement for PayPal fees.

Publication and/or release of work done by Mainestay Visuals on behalf of the client, may not take place before cleared funds have been received.

Communication

The majority of designer/client communication is normally via email (or some other form of written communication) which assists all parties to keep track of correspondence. All work requests must be in clear, concise writing, via email. Although Mainstay Visuals can be contacted by telephone, we will not take design instruction or changes via this method without further confirmation via email or text. This means that "The Client" and Mainstay Visuals can review past emails for clarification if needed.

Scope Changes

The client 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, will be liable to a separate charge. The customer also agrees that Mainestay Visuals holds no responsibility for any amendments made by any third party, before or after a design is published.

Licensing 

Any design, copywriting, drawing, or idea created for the customer by Mainestay Visuals, or any of its contractors, is licensed for use by only the client and may not be modified, re-used, or re-distributed in any way or form without the written consent of Mainestay Visuals and any of its relevant subcontractors.

Data Formats

The client agrees to Mainestay Visuals’ definition of acceptable means of supplying data to the company. Text is to be supplied to Mainestay Visuals in electronic format as standard text (.txt), MS Word (.docx) 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 Mainestay Visuals via e-mail / FTP. Images must be of a quality suitable for use without any subsequent image processing, and Mainestay Visuals will not be held responsible for any image quality which the client later deems to be unacceptable. 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, color correction and alteration of images.

Disclaimer

While Mainestay Visuals takes all care to avoid errors, we accept no responsibility for typographical errors, spelling mistakes, or incorrect information on any project committed to print or production. The client should proofread and approve all final copy before the production of artwork. The email verification of the Client’s Representative shall be conclusive as to the approval of all artwork prior to their release for printing, implementation or installation. No refunds or edits can be made after a final design has been approved, if mistakes are made due to oversights by the client's proofreading.

As with all printing, there may be some color variations in what the final product looked like, from what they look like on-screen versions. This is due to the nature of CMYK printing and bulk-run printing systems. There will be no reprints at the expense of Mainestay Visuals in this case.

Mainestay Visuals reserves the right to use the services of subcontractors, agents and suppliers and any work, content, services and usage is bound by their Terms and Conditions. Mainestay Visuals will not knowingly perform any actions to contravene these, and the client also agrees to be so bound.

Mainestay Visuals carries out work in accordance with good industry practices and at the standard expected from qualified people with relevant experience. That said, Mainestay Visuals cannot guarantee our work will be free from errors. We won’t be liable to you or any third-party for damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental, consequential or special damages, even if you’ve advised us of them.

Your liability to us will be limited only to the price stated in this contract. You won’t be liable to us or any third-party for damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental, consequential or special damages, even if we’ve advised you of them.

Finally, if any provision of these terms shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from this contract and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.

Design Project Duration

Any indication given by Mainestay Visuals of a design project’s duration is to be considered by the customer to be an estimation. Mainestay Visuals cannot be held responsible for any project overruns, whatever the cause. Estimated project duration should be deemed to be from the date that cleared funds are received by Mainestay Visuals for the initial payment, or by a date confirmed in writing by Mainestay Visuals.

Revisions

We offer one rework of a design before an hourly charge is incurred. Normally, small adjustments, such as colors or fonts, can be made without a complete redesign. However, once a design has been reworked once, (after the initial draft) an hourly rate will apply. Our hourly rate is $50 (USD) per hour. Please keep in mind that our goal is a happy customer, and redesigns are rare. We will advise you and seek your agreement before proceeding with any work that will incur additional charges.

Written Text

Unless included as a deliverable in the invoice you received for this project, we’re not responsible for copywriting. We provide professional copywriting and editing services, so if it’s not already included in your statement, and you’d like us to create, edit, or input content for you, we’ll provide a separate estimate.

Design Credits & Portfolio Rights

The customer agrees to allow Mainestay Visuals to reserve the right to place a small credit on printed/online material, exhibition displays, advertisements and/or a link to Mainestay Visuals Instagram account where applicable, on the customer’s post. This will usually be in the form of a small logo or line of text placed towards the bottom. 

Mainstay Visuals also retains the nonexclusive, perpetual and world-wide right to display reproduce and distribute the designs (including unused concepts) in Mainestay Visuals’ portfolio, website and social media accounts, as well as any third-party trade publications, awards or exhibits, solely for the purpose of promoting or exemplifying the work of Mainestay Visuals, and the right to be credited with copyright ownership and authorship of the designs in connection with such use. Mainestay Visuals acknowledges the confidential nature of projects and agrees to only display project work once product/site has been publicly launched/commenced.

Rights of Refusal

Mainestay Visuals will not include in its designs, any text, images or other data which it deems to be immoral, offensive, obscene or illegal. Mainestay Visuals also reserves the right to refuse to include submitted material without giving reason. In the situation where any images and/or data that Mainestay Visuals does include in all good faith, and subsequently discovers is in contravention to such Terms and Conditions, the customer is obliged to allow Mainestay Visuals to remove the contravention without hindrance, or penalty. Mainestay Visuals is to be held in no way responsible for any such data being included. 

Copyright Infringement

Mainestay Visuals cannot guarantee the Customer exclusivity of any marketing concept, strategy, design or other intellectual property provided. Therefore, Mainestay Visuals will not accept liability for any alleged claim from the Client or any Third Party as the result of unintentional similarity in part or whole of a Third Party’s copyright protected or registered trademark or brand, identity, color usage, image style and content, product or otherwise.

Here at Mainestay Visuals, we make every effort to produce original artwork. If, however, we create artwork for you which accidentally infringes on any existing trademarked artwork, our liability is limited only to a refund of the paid amount. Mainestay Visuals will do no research, checking on the legal availability of the name we are creating designs for. It is the Client’s responsibility to ensure that the name of their product, company or service is not already in use, and it is the Client’s sole responsibility to secure a service mark or trademark to protect the rights to any name or image. We will not be held responsible for any legal action that may result from improper due diligence on the availability of a company name or image.

Default

An account shall be considered default if it remains unpaid for 30 days from the date of invoice, or following a returned cheque. Mainestay Visuals shall be considered entitled to remove Mainestay Visuals and/or the client'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 services. Removal of such materials does not relieve the client of its obligation to pay the due amount. Clients whose accounts become default agree to pay Mainestay Visuals reasonable legal expenses and third party collection agency fees in the enforcement of these Terms and Conditions.

Cancellation

In the event that a 30-day period has passed, with no response from the customer/client's end, the project will be cancelled without any notice or intimation to the client or customer and no amount will be refunded.

Release of Deliverables

Due to the nature of our line of work, we will not be supplying a physical product. All of our artwork will be sent digitally. Currently, we do not use USB drives, CDs or DVD's to send artwork unless supplied by the client. Publication and/or release of work done by Mainestay Visuals, on behalf of the client, may not take place before funds have cleared. After the final design(s) are approved, they will be delivered to you as a digital file (.jpg, .png, and .pdf graphics file formats) via email/FTP.