Terms
Visual Serendipity Terms of Service
By purchasing any service from Visual Serendipity, you are agreeing to the terms expressed below.
Quotes
All project quotes will be honored for 15 business days from the date of communication. After 15 business days, we reserve the right to review the project details and create anew.
What are “Business Days” for Visual Serendipity
Business days are the days listed in your quote – 15 business days may mean more than 15 actual days as we do not count weekends or the days that our studio is closed. All closings will be listed on our site calendar and available to everyone. Please note that this does not mean that we are available to correspond or work with you as we try to give each client individualized attention in their project time frame, but we will respond to you as soon as we possibly can, not including weekends and days where the studio is not open. The studio is not open on weekends, holidays or days were we expressly list that we are not open on our site calendar. Please remember that we will always respect your time and hope that you respect ours as this does not include any time off for emergencies or family obstacles. As a business, we are not available 24 hours but adhere to flexible business hours during appropriate times.
Project engagement
To start a design project with Visual Serendipity after the quote has been agreed upon, an initial 50% deposit is necessary to hold a client’s place on our waiting list. The remaining 50% is due 2 business days before installation date that is documented in the aforementioned quote. Training sessions must be paid for in full before it is placed on our schedule. Payment arrangements are available after the initial 50% deposit has been made. Please contact us for more details as all agreements will be customized per project as needed.
Upon your initial 50% deposit you will be sent a questionnaire and access to our project portal. After completion of your questionnaire a design project plan will be created and each design element (this does not include widget customization or plugins) and coding functions will be identified as such. Upon review with our designer, all design elements will be documented and set to task in your project plan. All layout options will also be identified and documented to avoid any possible confusion as the process begins. If you need to add anything additional after the review, please contact us within the design process time frame to have the addition discussed, agreed upon and added to the plan – this pertains to the project time frame only. Revisions may be made later and billed accordingly as to do so will be considered outside of the original scope of the project plan. Please see the Revisions and Additions section below in this document.
The design process time frame is identified as the amount of time in business days (defined above in this document) agreed upon in the original project scope. We work hard to complete all projects in a timely manner and communicate openly during the design process, including updates and status reports. It is the client’s responsibility to check the site calendar for days scheduled closed as this is a flexible schedule although delivery date usually is aimed at a 15 business day turnaround. This does not mean that your project will have such a scheduled release, but please note that it is our goal to work effectively and efficiently and all design projects will be guaranteed per project plan agreement date. Please note that all work is scheduled during acceptable business hours so correspondences and notices will be created during the business work day when at all possible, but it not limited to just those hours. In the event of any delay, closing or emergency, we reserve the right to send updates and or communications when it does not interfere with the nature of the event. We will also post a notice when the studio will be closed for any additional reason as identified above.
Cancellations
Project cancellations made 5 business days or more before the start date and before the second 50% payment is made will receive a 10% refund and may renew and reschedule their project in the future with another deposit. Any cancellation made after the second and final 50% payment has been made will also receive a 10% refund and may renew and reschedule their project in the future with no (zero) deposit. No refunds will be granted in any other event as digital services cannot be refunded. This policy has no exceptions.
Payment arrangement cancellations and delinquencies will result in removal of all design and development on the client’s site and/or blog immediately. A delinquency is identified as 5 days after payment is due – these are 5 weekdays including weekends and NOT business days. Refusal to return artwork and coding may result in legal action, so please contact us if you are unable to make a scheduled payment as this is deemed a final resort and looked upon unfavorably on our part. We are available to negotiate terms whenever financially necessary as we understand that not all things are the result of human error.
In the event that Visual Serendipity is unable to reach a customer within a 15 business day time frame, all monies will be forfeited to Visual Serendipity and the project will be cancelled WITH OUT notification from Visual Serendipity – no exceptions.
Payment
We currently only accept payments through the PayPal system and clients may pay with credit cards, debit cards and e-checks. PayPal accounts are not necessary for this transaction and in the event of an error, please contact us to make other agreements and arrangements.
Design Revisions or Additions
We allow revisions and/or additional design or coding for 2 requests after project engagement within a 5 business day period. These changes and/or edits will be agreed upon and added to the project plan accordingly. Any additional work requested outside of this agreed upon period (5 business days according to identified work days agreed upon in project plan) will be billed at $75 a hour with a 1 hour minimum.
Authorization
Active or new clients agree to provide Visual Serendipity with access to hosting, domain control panels, WordPress accounts and all social media accounts (where applicable) before project installation. In the event that the log in is incorrect (user names or passwords, etc) and or the designer cannot make successful connections to hosting et al, an additional business day will be automatically amended to the initial agreement – no exceptions. Please test and confirm all account access before the project finalization (installation) stage.
Digital product copyrights
Visual Serendipity retains all copyright privileges on all design art work and coding and this does not include content of any kind. This does not include any artwork by another designer as they retain the rights to their own products. The Visual Serendipity copyright and name MUST remain in the footer of your design and to remove it is considered a violation of this agreement. Visual Serendipity will also retain the right to link to your site and provide images to your site in our portfolio, spotlight or new works areas -this includes any additional or future areas or pages encompassed in the Visual Serendipity website. Please do not use design elements or code anywhere outside of your site address which is identified in your project plan. Please contact us if you would like to re-use and terms can be negotiated. This does not include branding or logo images created for the purpose of print and identified in the project plan.
Limited Support
It is the client’s responsibility to learn (if necessary) or review the WordPress CMS functionality. As a design firm, we will not be responsible for misuse of the open source system. If you need help with learning how to use WordPress, please see our site for the link to the WordPress codex. Additional services are available on our site for training purposes if needed and must be paid for in full before scheduling. Lifetime email support is available for all current and previous clients who have completed the entire process and have a live site or blog on the internet. We will NOT provide service in the event that another designer or developer made unauthorized changes to our original product – no exceptions.
Refunds
There are NO REFUNDS for any reason as our work is of a digital nature and cannot be returned.
Please note that we retain the right to change these terms at any time.
