Terms of Business

1. About Us

1.1 www.studioalex.co.uk is a site operated by Studio Alex Ltd. Studio Alex’s Registered office address
Ebenezer House, Ryecroft, Newcastle, Staffordshire, United Kingdom, ST5 2BE

1.2 You can contact Studio Alex by email at [email protected] or by phone on 01538 822123.

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.

2.5 If you order print through our online print shop, section 9 also applies. Where section 9 is different from sections 2 to 8, section 9 applies to that order.

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 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, expedited 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 (see section 8), 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 UK data protection law and our privacy policy, 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. This clause does not apply to print ordered through our online print shop. We never add our name to your printed items.

8. Website, Hosting & SEO

8.1 Defects. Please tell us in writing about any defects or problems with the Services within 30 days of the final invoice date. We aren’t liable for claims made after that period.

8.2 Ownership. Unless we’ve agreed otherwise in writing, you own the design of your web pages. This doesn’t include proprietary software, programs or source code, such as databases, e-commerce or content management systems, plugins, or web application code.

8.3 Hosting. We offer hosting for the websites we build or look after. Websites are hosted on secure servers in the UK or the European Economic Area, run by reputable third-party hosting providers we choose. We may move your website to a different provider or server to keep it secure, fast or good value. If a move changes anything you need to do, we’ll tell you first.

8.4 What hosting includes. Unless your quotation or retainer says otherwise, our Hosting plan includes: (a) server space, an SSL certificate, and Cloudflare and DDoS protection; (b) security updates to the server and to PHP, applied by our hosting providers, with us checking they’ve been applied; (c) keeping your website on a version of PHP that still receives security fixes, where your website can run on it; (d) weekly off-site backups; and (e) uptime monitoring.

Our Hosting and security plan also includes urgent security fixes to your website when a serious flaw is announced, as set out in clause 8.5. Our Hosting and maintenance plan also includes updates to WordPress, themes and plugins, with checks after each update, and up to 10 hours a year for small content changes and updates, used at our discretion. Our Maintenance and marketing plan also includes 7 hours of marketing support each month. Unused marketing hours roll over to the next month only. What each plan includes, and its current price, is set out on our website and in your quotation.

The Hosting plan on its own doesn’t include updates to WordPress, themes or plugins. The Hosting and security plan doesn’t include routine updates to WordPress, themes or plugins. No plan includes redesigning or rebuilding a website so it can run on supported software, new features, content changes beyond any support allowance, or putting right problems caused by plugins, code or changes added by you or anyone else. We’ll always quote for these before we start.

8.5 Urgent security work. When a serious security risk affects websites we host, we may act straight away without asking first. That can include changing your PHP version, updating or switching off plugins, adding firewall rules, restricting access to your login page, or temporarily taking your website offline if it has been compromised or is putting other websites at risk. We’ll tell you what we did and why as soon as we reasonably can. Urgent security work carried out across all the websites we host is included in your hosting fee. If your website needs significant work of its own, we’ll agree it with you before we start.

8.6 Older websites. Some older websites can’t run on software that still receives security fixes. If yours is one of them, we’ll tell you in writing and explain your options, such as upgrading it, rebuilding it, or replacing it with a simpler static version. If you decide to keep it as it is, you accept the risk of doing so, and we may add extra protection, charge for the extra time it takes to look after, or give you 30 days’ notice that we’ll stop hosting it. We aren’t responsible for loss caused by a weakness in software you’ve chosen to keep after we’ve told you it’s no longer supported.

8.7 Your part. You agree to keep your passwords private and strong, to tell us straight away if you think your website or email has been compromised, and to check with us before installing plugins or code yourself. Our backups are there to restore your website. Please keep your own copies of important content, orders and records too.

8.8 Hosting fees. The Hosting plan is invoiced yearly in advance. Monthly plans are invoiced monthly in advance and can be ended with 30 days’ notice. We can agree other arrangements in writing. We review hosting prices once a year, and may also change them if our costs, or the work needed to keep websites secure, change significantly. We’ll give you at least 30 days’ written notice of any change. If you don’t want to continue, you can cancel before the change takes effect at no cost. If a hosting invoice is still unpaid 30 days after it’s due, we may suspend the website after giving you 7 days’ written notice.

8.9 Uptime and third parties. Our hosting is of a high standard, but no host can guarantee 100% uptime and neither can we. We aren’t liable for failures caused by our hosting providers, domain registries, Cloudflare or other third parties, or by events beyond our reasonable control such as hardware or software failure, telecommunications problems, attacks by third parties, extreme weather, strikes, riot, terrorism or war. When something like this happens, we’ll work with the provider to get your website back up as quickly as we can.

8.10 Moving your website elsewhere. If you move your hosting to another provider, we’ll give you a copy of your website’s files and database once all invoices are paid. We may charge for the time this takes, as set out in clause 5.5. We’ll delete your website and its data from our servers within 60 days of your hosting ending, unless the law requires us to keep it.

8.11 Working with similar businesses. We don’t consider designing websites for businesses in the same industry or area to be a conflict of interest. A website is a standalone creative and functional build for each client, and doesn’t involve targeting the same keywords or ad positions. We may, at our discretion, pass work to a trusted partner agency to manage workload or sensitivities.

8.12 SEO results. We’ll always work hard to improve your search rankings, but search engines make the final decisions, including when they index your website and when they release updates. We can’t guarantee any particular ranking, amount of traffic, number of enquiries or level of sales.

8.13 One client per area for SEO and Google Ads. To keep things fair and avoid competing against our own clients, we only provide active SEO or paid advertising (PPC) services to one client per industry in a defined area, usually the largest relevant town or city.

8.14 Legal content on your website. We take care with everything we produce, but we aren’t a legal advice service and don’t guarantee that any content meets every legal requirement. You’re responsible, as the publisher, for making sure your terms of business, privacy policy, cookie policy and other information comply with the law, and you should take independent legal advice where needed.

8.15 Limits on our liability. Nothing in these Terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law doesn’t allow us to limit. Subject to that, we aren’t liable for any loss of profit, revenue, business, data or goodwill, or for any indirect or consequential loss. Our total liability to you under or in connection with the Contract in any 12-month period is limited to the total fees you’ve paid us in that period. If you’re a consumer, clause 9.11 also applies.

8.16 Ending the Contract. Either of us can end the Contract by giving 30 days’ notice in writing. Unless we agree otherwise, we’ll keep any Deposit paid and invoice for any work carried out over and above its value.

8.17 Changes to these Terms. These Terms replace any earlier versions and apply to all current and future work unless we agree otherwise in writing. We may update them from time to time. We’ll give you at least 30 days’ written notice of any change that affects work we’re already doing for you. Your statutory rights are not affected.

9. Online Print Orders

9.1 This section applies to print ordered and paid for through the print shop on our website (a Print Order). Our Artwork Terms and our Print Returns & Refunds policy also apply to Print Orders and form part of these Terms.

9.2 Your order. When you place a Print Order you’re offering to buy the items in your basket. The contract is made when we email to confirm your order. We may decline an order, for example if a price was shown incorrectly or we can’t print your artwork, and if we do we’ll refund you in full.

9.3 Prices and payment. Prices are shown with or without VAT as stated on the page, and VAT is added at checkout where it applies. Print Orders are paid in full when you order, so clauses 3.1 to 3.6 (deposits, staged payments and invoicing) don’t apply. Any delivery charge is shown at checkout before you pay.

9.4 Artwork. You can upload your artwork when you order or email it to us afterwards. Every file is checked by a person before it prints. If we haven’t received your artwork 30 days after you order, we’ll contact you and may cancel and refund the order in full.

9.5 Proofs. We send a digital proof before printing and nothing goes into production until you approve it. Please check it carefully. We print exactly what you approve and aren’t responsible for mistakes on an approved proof. Clause 7.1 (three sets of amends) doesn’t apply to Print Orders; the AI artwork fix includes one round of changes as set out in our Artwork Terms.

9.6 Production and delivery. Print Orders are produced by our trusted UK trade printers. Turnaround is usually 4 working days from proof approval, plus delivery. Delivery dates are estimates. If you’re a consumer, you can cancel for a full refund if your order hasn’t been delivered within 30 days of ordering, or by a later date we agreed with you.

9.7 Colour and finish. Printed colours can differ from how they look on screen and can vary slightly between print runs. A small amount of movement when trimming is normal, which is why we ask for bleed and a safe area. These aren’t faults.

9.8 Cancelling. You can cancel a Print Order for a full refund at any time before you approve your proof. Because every Print Order is printed from your own artwork, it is made to your specification and personalised, so the 14 day cancellation right under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 doesn’t apply once production starts (regulation 28(1)(b)).

9.9 Problems with your print. If your order arrives damaged, faulty or different from your approved proof, or we’ve made a mistake, we’ll reprint it or refund you as set out in our Print Returns & Refunds policy. Please tell us as soon as you can, with photos and your order number.

9.10 Business customers. If you’re buying for a business, our total responsibility for a Print Order is limited to reprinting it or refunding the price you paid for it, and we aren’t responsible for indirect or consequential losses such as lost profit, lost business or the cost of an event.

9.11 Consumers. If you’re buying as a consumer, nothing in these Terms limits or excludes your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 or any other law, and any wording in these Terms that would do so doesn’t apply to you. We’re responsible for loss you suffer that is a foreseeable result of us breaking these Terms or failing to use reasonable care and skill.

9.12 Complaints. If you’re not happy with a Print Order, email [email protected] or call 01538 822123 and we’ll do our best to put it right. These Terms are governed by the law of England and Wales.

10. Data Protection for Websites and Email We Host or Manage

10.1 Roles. When we host or look after your website or email, we may store or handle personal data on your behalf, such as contact form messages, customer accounts, orders, newsletter sign-ups and emails. You are the controller of that data and we are your processor. This section applies to that data (Client Data).

10.2 What we process. We process Client Data only to host, maintain, secure, back up, support and repair your website and email, for as long as we provide those services. It may include names, contact details, messages, order and payment references, and any other details your website collects. It may relate to your customers, enquirers, staff and website visitors.

10.3 Your instructions. We only process Client Data on your documented instructions, which are these Terms, your quotation and anything you ask us to do in writing. If we think an instruction breaks data protection law, we’ll tell you. We’ll only act differently where the law requires us to, and we’ll tell you first unless the law forbids it.

10.4 Confidentiality. Anyone we allow to access Client Data is bound by a duty of confidentiality.

10.5 Security. We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to keep Client Data secure. These include SSL encryption, keeping server software and PHP on supported versions, prompt security updates, firewall and DDoS protection, access controls, and regular backups.

10.6 Sub-processors. You give us general permission to use sub-processors to provide the services, including our hosting providers, Cloudflare, backup storage and Microsoft 365. We’ll give each one written terms that protect Client Data to the same standard as this section. We’ll tell you before adding or replacing a sub-processor, and you can object on reasonable data protection grounds. We remain responsible to you for their work.

10.7 Where data is stored. Client Data is stored in the UK or the European Economic Area. We won’t transfer it elsewhere without the safeguards UK data protection law requires.

10.8 Helping you. Taking into account what we do and the information we have, we’ll help you respond to requests from people exercising their data protection rights, keep Client Data secure, deal with personal data breaches, and carry out any data protection impact assessment. We may charge for help that goes beyond our normal services, at our standard hourly rate.

10.9 Personal data breaches. If we become aware of a personal data breach affecting Client Data, we’ll tell you without undue delay, and we’ll give you the information we have so you can decide whether to report it to the ICO within 72 hours.

10.10 End of services. When our services end, we’ll return Client Data to you or delete it, as you choose, within 60 days, unless the law requires us to keep it. Backups are deleted on their normal rotation.

10.11 Records and audits. We’ll give you the information you reasonably need to show that this section is being followed, and we’ll allow and contribute to reasonable audits, on reasonable notice, at your cost.

10.12 Records of security work. We keep a log of the security work we carry out on each website we host, and we’ll share it with you on request.