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1. 

   Sergei Tatarinov says February 18, 2011 at 1:30 pm

   Thanks a lot. I’ve been waiting for this one since your teaser on twitter. :)
   • 

     ImJustCreative says February 18, 2011 at 4:38 pm

     Yes, I know :)
2. 

   Garry says February 18, 2011 at 2:56 pm

   Graham, your willingness to share your challenges, experience, and tools you use is helpful both pragmatically and emotionally. Knowing the challenges you’ve experienced helps to make the potholes in my path a bit easier to take. And the dialog that you promote through posts like this helps to take what we do a step further in the right direction. Thanks for sharing … as well as the manner in which you share it.
   • 

     ImJustCreative says February 18, 2011 at 4:38 pm

     I do it because it will mean I go to heaven.
     • 

       Garry says February 18, 2011 at 4:57 pm

       Dang, how self serving. All this time I thought you were just being a nice guy! ;-)
     • 

       Curtfast says March 23, 2011 at 3:55 pm

       LOL!!
3. 

   Adrian says February 18, 2011 at 4:02 pm

   Thanks for sharing.
4. 

   Adrian says February 18, 2011 at 4:02 pm

   Thanks for sharing.
5. 

   Tony says February 18, 2011 at 4:20 pm

   Ironically as a designer of logos on occasion I got caught out by the “make sure it isn’t trademarked before requesting” bit…
   Thanks for sharing… some good pointers… Paypal tax being one of them.
6. 

   Tony says February 18, 2011 at 4:20 pm

   Ironically as a designer of logos on occasion I got caught out by the “make sure it isn’t trademarked before requesting” bit…
   Thanks for sharing… some good pointers… Paypal tax being one of them.
   • 

     ImJustCreative says February 18, 2011 at 4:36 pm

     I wouldn’t look at it as being Paypal tax, because as we all know, to claw back the fee from the client is against their ToC. :-)

     However, you are able to include a handling/processing fee, just don’t call it out as surcharge etc. The important thing here is that I am not offering Paypal as an option, therefore, if a client requests it, it is against my preferred methods. Then this is their choice and they are fully aware that if they use Paypal, I am adding on a nominal handling fee to cover the delay and time with transferring the funds back out of paypal to my bank account, which all takes time etc.

     A small handling fee is very reasonable in this situation where you are having to jump through a couple of hoops just to get your money back into your own street bank account.

     If that makes sense I applaud you.
7. 

   Jessica Lee says February 18, 2011 at 4:51 pm

   Thank you for the awesome template and detailed post! I’m not working as a freelance designer now but would love to make living as a freelancer in future…. This template will for sure come in handy later.
8. 

   designinabox says February 18, 2011 at 5:25 pm

   Genius! Thank you very much. I’ll share in my twitter.
9. 

   David La Cava Create says February 18, 2011 at 8:20 pm

   Thanks! Always helpful. RT’ing it.
10. 

    Debashis Nayak says February 18, 2011 at 8:43 pm

    Great help, as always. Believe me, I have been searching for this quite a long time. Most of my local clients deal with no paper works, which makes me wired at times. Copyright, trademark and above all registration are still some buzzwords here in India. Dealing with clients happy to have their company names without a .com / .net and later forced to change it has became a trend here. I am on a mission, just started from my city having a vision to change ideally whatever I can I will do in next years to come. These documents certainly help me. Thank you once again, Graham :-)
11. 

    Ian Vadas says February 18, 2011 at 10:36 pm

    Nice work Graham. I hope this helps with your future clients. Thank you for sharing your experiences and tools for us to learn from.

    Am curious after reading David Airey’s recent post on a possible second book, if you’ve given much thought to writing a book of your own? The tuts, templates and advice you share on this blog should be more than enough to fill a decent sized book.

    I’m sure it’s not easy to get a book deal done, but may be worth looking into.
    • 

      ImJustCreative says February 18, 2011 at 10:59 pm

      As a matter of fact, last year I actually got approached by 3 publishers to write a book on logo design.

      As awesome as it was to be asked, there is a huge commitment involved. As I am only in my 2nd year of freelancing I had to make a very difficult decision to turn down each of the offers to focus on client work.

      Very hard choice, but I believe client work at this time is more important. A book can wait, should I feel I have the energy and time to complete it.

      Also, as David mentions, the financial reward is very minimal, so ultimately, focusing on establishing my portfolio was more important.
12. 

    Eric Leckband says February 19, 2011 at 12:35 am

    Graham,

    Thank you for sharing your insights and experience. I am always curious to see how others in the profession do things. I am excited to review and see what I can incorporate into my proposals.
13. 

    Christine Morris says February 21, 2011 at 2:21 pm

    Already a zillion comments but this is fantastic, so generous to share as it is such a difficult thing to get right. Thanks!
    • 

      ImJustCreative says February 21, 2011 at 2:40 pm

      Awww, too kind. As I said, important to understand that I am not saying ‘this proposal is right’, I don’t think it’s possible to make one that is truly right for every one person.

      But at least it gives you an idea of the direction I have had to take in order to reduce certain challenges within my workflow. Tweak, change as you see fit.
14. 

    Theraisa K says February 21, 2011 at 2:50 pm

    Thanks for sharing. I’ve been struggling with composing a half decent proposal that isn’t 5 million pages long for awhile. This is a great starting point for me to condense my own.
15. 

    Noris says February 22, 2011 at 2:42 pm

    Excellent idea about sharing methodology on proposals for designers. I found that a very clear understanding of the final pieces that will be delivered, gives the client a lot of trust and helps him to locate his part of responsibility in the design process. I also wonder if there are differences on the way we solve this in Mexico
16. 

    Davymac says February 24, 2011 at 8:47 pm

    Thanks for creating & sharing this, always like to see how other freelancers cope with the myriad of tasks we encounter daily. Big fan of templates, even writing them helps refine thinking.

    Cheers.
17. 

    Gaurav Shah says February 25, 2011 at 9:24 am

    I really Appreciate this,
    Thanks a lot.
18. 

    Lynn says February 25, 2011 at 4:11 pm

    Thank you so much for sharing your experiences (through these proposals) with us all. It’s very much appreciated! Have an awesome day!

    Lynn
19. 

    Chris OBrien says March 8, 2011 at 7:05 pm

    Very thorough proposal/contract. Thanks for sharing.

    Just curious- How often do you have clients contact you regarding their concerns/issues/questions about the wording? Or do the majority just sign and return it?
    • 

      ImJustCreative says March 8, 2011 at 7:15 pm

      Some clients may just ask for clarification or some may just need to hear me say it as well as seeing it in print. I get the odd ‘cold shoulder’ after sending the proposal, not hearing back from them at all, but I don’t tend to waste time or energy chasing them up. I’m busy with clients that are happy to work with me, so that’s where I focus my energies.

      It could be a number of things that turned them off: a slightly restrictive proposal, too pricey, can’t do it in the timeframe they want, they just found someone else or just changed their mind.

      But I don’t make a point of finding out why people don’t use me. Maybe I should, but as I said, I can’t complain with the amount of continuous work I have, so I must be doing something right for the majority of people; that suits me just fine. :)
20. 

    Cheryl says March 8, 2011 at 9:40 pm

    Thanks for posting up the template and for sharing your experiences with clients. Such a big help for me as I start out on the freelance path!
21. 

    James says March 8, 2011 at 9:56 pm

    Wonderfully honest. Honesty like this is brave… yes I’ve failed too but like you i’ve triumphed as well! The life of the self -employed can be hard!
22. 

    adart says March 23, 2011 at 3:52 pm

    Thank you Graham, very generous. You’ve done a great job covering all the bases.
23. 

    Amp says March 23, 2011 at 4:08 pm

    What a great document. I’ve been trying to get more serious about the business side of freelancing as most of my clients and I have very loose agreements. This helps tremendously. (Will need to proof the copy some, but it’s a small price to pay.)
24. 

    Tom Jones says March 29, 2011 at 2:21 pm

    One of the first things I learned was to put ‘by’ in front of my name (by John Doe instead of John Doe). This means you are signing on behalf of a company and not personally guaranteeing whatever it is you’re signing. Back in early 2000s an intellectual property attorney gave a talk for our local design club and that was one of the little things she mentioned. It seems small but it has a specific legal meaning.
25. 

    Kristy Ewing says March 29, 2011 at 7:11 pm

    Hi Graham, I enjoyed seeing your proposal and may indeed borrow some of your language or attitude. I got a big laugh out of the reference to micro-managing under Cancellation. Talk about nipping that problem in the bud! Good job!
26. 

    Ian Goss says April 1, 2011 at 4:22 pm

    *It’s* is not interchangeable with *its*.
27. 

    Shantanu Gautam says September 29, 2011 at 11:02 am

    Thank you so much for this.
28. 

    machzagnuson says November 9, 2011 at 5:54 pm

    I didn’t read through all the comments, so I hope this hasn’t been brought up already. Adding page numbers would be a simple way to improve the document. I’ve heard of people trying to claim that they “didn’t receive that page” so they aren’t bound to the content of the ‘missing page’.
    • 

      machzagnuson says November 9, 2011 at 5:58 pm

      Forgot to say thanks so much for the great resource. Does the job and looks great too.
29. 

    Marion says December 1, 2011 at 10:16 pm

    Thank you for this =)

    I hope you don’t mind me asking but how were you able to do this? http://awesomescreenshot.com/027pesd8d

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