About our Process

The Style Guide

A style guide is a document which defines the patterns by which an organization presents itself. It clearly states what is essential to the organization's best representation of itself and — just as importantly — notes the expressions which would be antithetical to the organization's best representation.

SQGLZ mostly works with small businesses and individuals many of whom operate without a style guide. The smaller your business, the less of a style guide you need. A single owner operator's personality is the personality of their business. And, this is as it should be.

So, from the SQGLZ perspective, a very small business is best branded by a few very simple core essentials: name, logo, colors, fonts, unique value proposition, and a few examples of good content execution. A larger business may be best served by spelling out everything from the acceptable use of colloquialisms to paper textures so that its many associates aren't left guessing about how they are expected to relate to clients, customers, and vendors.

In order to represent your business with content development, marketing materials, etc., an organization may need to have an established brand which is documented in a style guide appropriate to the scale of the firm. If a business has never established its brand parameters this may be a prerequisit to moving forward with your project.

The Project Brief

Before jumping into any project it must be defined. A client may draft a project brief or hire SQGLZ for a consultation, following which SQGLZ will create a proposal outlining its plan for solving the problems facing the client.

If you are interested in drafting your own brief but don't know where to start, SQGLZ recommends the following articles as good starting points:

• How to Create a Project Brief
• Build a Great Project Brief

In the later case, SQGLZ prefers to discus the problem with the client briefly, research the problem independently, meet with the client to discus the problem, and then draft a project proposal. In some cases this will be the end of SQGLZ involvement as SQGLZ may find ideal solutions to the clients needs which do not include SQGLZ services.

Whether working from a client provided brief or a SQGLZ produced proposal what should be documented includes:

• A comprehensive description of the problems to be solved
• A description of any failed attempts to solve this design problem and any details about why they may have failed
• The scope of all work to be completed
• The time-frame in which SQGLZ will complete the work
• The points in the production process at which SQGLZ will expect payment

A SQGLZ provided proposal, or SQGLZ agreement to a client provided brief, constitute a quote from SQGLZ. This quote will stand for sixty days, following which SQGLZ cannot guarantee that its time will be available and at the same price.

Revisions

CONTENT REVISIONS

Changing text, swapping graphical assets, and any similar alterations of content are usually incidental, and should not incur any additional billing. In some cases, such as when a photo has had to be retouched - and the new replacing photo will have to have the same work repeated, or when a text header has been treated with a cut-away effect, or a section of body text gets substantially longer, it may be the case that a non-negligible degree of work will be incurred. For these types of content revisions additional billing will have to be assessed.

DESIGN REVISIONS

SQGLZ does not work by the hour. For the client this means that all concerns about scope-creep, the tendency of projects to grow in complexity and time, are ours. This also means that SQGLZ pays keen attention to the deliverables defined in the project documentation. Requests outside of the project specs will be billed as additions to the project.

Quotes & Payment

SQGLZ does not require payment to review a client style guide and project brief, but does require a flat rate of $200 for initial consultation (as described above) on a project which does not yet have a brief written.

SQGLZ works to complete projects within written specifications. Each leg of a project begins with a payment as per its documentation. Projects do not generally proceed to their subsequent phases without previous payments being received. Generally, this functions well in lieu of a contract, though either party may request the creation of a contract for a project.

Projects of a dollar value of five figures are done under contract.

Contracted work may incur additional billing for efforts beyond their initial quote for the following reasons:

• Communications with individuals other than our client contact person.
• Revisions due to inadequate specification.
• Changes in project direction.
• Changes in project scope.

Deadlines

Quoted turnaround time begins when we have a signed agreement, and all stated necessary assets from the client.

Novel Programming and original creative assets do not come with hard deadlines. Routine work does.

Rights & Usage

All services provided by the designer shall be for the exclusive use of the client other than for the designer’s promotional use. Upon payment of all fees, the following reproduction rights for all approved final designs created by the designer for this project shall be granted.

SQGLZ may contract with other creative professionals to provide services such as web development, photography, and illustration. Any third party terms and conditions will include full reproduction rights for the client.

SQGLZ shall retain samples from the project deliverables, as well as screen captures, photographs of the completed product, as well as production sketches, and other content. SQGLZ may use such copies, photos, and samples for publication, exhibition, or other promotional purposes.

The client may elect to pay to keep their project confidential. The client shall inform the designer in writing before the project commences if any portion of any material or information provided by the client or if any portion of the project is confidential.

Contact

SQGLZ will maintain contact with a single representative of a client firm. All communications between SQGLZ and that contact person are free of charge, whenever related to SQGLZ contracted responsibilities with regard to said client. Contact with additional personnel, or regarding business other than contracted dealings is billable at $60/hr.

A client may appoint a new contact person at their sole discretion, and is responsible for informing them of the status and prior communication concerning the contract, or request that SQGLZ do so at a rate of $60/hr.

It is the responsibility of the client to manage their employees's use of billable time and resources.

Proofs & Approval

Once a proof has been approved all maters of design, content, and any other considerations represented in the proof and attached material, such as — but not limited to — hosting details, run numbers, and expected time of delivery are considered accepted by the client. Approval of a proof or writen approval of a development site constitutes final acceptance of a project's state, providing that the delivered project is consistent with the proof.

Completion

SQGLZ stands by its work. If, upon completion, some aspect of the project is found to have not met the project specifications then SQGLZ would like to made aware of this first.

Due to the vast number of considerations that search engines use when determining a site’s ranking, SQGLZ cannot guarantee any particular ranking with any particular search engine at any particular time. Appearance and ranking will vary. Likewise, no other marketing effort, advertising design, or branding effort which SQGLZ provides for, or assists with can be guaranteed to produce any particular result.

Design problems are dynamic and guarantees regarding design are correspondingly nebulous, but what SQGLZ can guarantee is that it will not ignore any requests to remedy a design problem which it has left un-solved.