MultiHub Forum

I'm a freelance graphic designer, and a new client has asked me to draft an independent contractor agreement for a large, six-month website redesign project. I've used basic templates before, but this project has a higher budget and involves creating original assets, so I want to make sure the contract is thorough and protects my intellectual property until final payment. For other freelancers, what specific clauses have you found most critical to include beyond the standard scope, payment, and timeline? How do you handle revisions, kill fees, and ownership of unused concepts, and do you have any recommendations for a reliable template or service to build a solid agreement?

You're right to want solid protections for IP. A practical MVP-friendly approach is to tie ownership to payment and separate pre-existing assets. Core idea: deliverables belong to the client only after full payment; you keep ownership of your underlying tools and templates; the client gets a clearly scoped, exclusive license to use the final work for the project. If you want true ownership on day one, spell that out but expect higher risk for you as the freelancer. Also include a simple change-orders process and a defined revision cap so scope creep is controlled.