1 – Transparent Framework for Cooperation

Our Terms and Conditions form the basis for a transparent and comprehensible framework for cooperation. They ensure that you understand how everything works before our collaboration begins. Upon approval of the proposal, we can proceed directly to work.

2 – Proposal Approval

Upon receipt of your acceptance of the proposal or in the case of an urgent order, we enter into a so-called partial agreement. This partial agreement, together with our Terms and Conditions, forms the foundation of our contractual relationship.

3 – Standard Work-for-Hire Agreement

If you prefer to enter into a standard work-for-hire agreement, we will be happy to prepare one for you.

4 – Regular Updates to Terms and Conditions

We periodically update our Terms and Conditions. The current version of the Terms and Conditions that was valid on the date of the partial agreement's conclusion always applies to our contractual relationship. Our version online and as pdf is always up to date.

5 – How Does Our Cooperation Begin?

The specific terms of cooperation are defined by the partial agreements and these Terms and Conditions. Based on your inquiry, we will prepare and submit a proposal to you. The partial agreement is concluded at the moment of proposal approval.

6 – Is It Possible to Modify the Terms?

You are, of course, not obligated to approve the proposal. The terms can be negotiated until both parties are satisfied. However, if the proposal specifies a date by which it is valid, it must be approved by that date. Otherwise, the terms offered may no longer apply. If the proposal does not specify a date for approval, it is valid for 1 month from the date of sending.

7 – What Does the Proposal Include?

The proposal includes: the scope of the project(s) and their division into stages, a timeline, the price, and responsible person.

8 – What Is a "Brand Sprint"?

When we designate an inquiry (request) as a "Brand Sprint," we do not send you a proposal. Provided there are no obstacles, we will send you a message that we are working on the order. At this moment, a partial agreement is concluded between us. If your request does not contain all the necessary information, we will begin work only upon receiving it from you.

The price and scope of work are predetermined and governed by the current conditions listed on our website. Please pay close attention to the proposal. Our work includes only those services explicitly mentioned in the proposal as services provided by us.

Partial agreements take precedence over the Terms and Conditions. This means that if something is not precisely specified in the partial agreement, it is governed by these Terms and Conditions. If something in the partial agreement differs from what is stated here, the partial agreement takes precedence over the Terms and Conditions.

9 – How Does the Cooperation Proceed?

We are committed to delivering the order on the agreed deadline and without defects. As the client, you undertake to provide timely feedback and to pay invoices by their due date. In the case of a pro forma invoice, you undertake to pay it by the specified deadline. We will begin the project's execution only after the advance payment is credited to our account.

10 – Individual Stages... Milestones

The entire project we execute is divided into milestones – these are parts of the project that are clearly separated and marked in the proposal. When working on these milestones, we will provide you with our work outputs in the form of drafts. How does it work?

• when we submit a draft, you can approve it or provide us with feedback for its revision.
• we respond to the feedback by preparing another draft. We call this an iteration.
• if you are not satisfied with the second draft, we will prepare a third draft based on your feedback.
• if you are not satisfied with the third draft, the following solution applies: either we agree to prepare further drafts, in which case we switch to an “extra work” mode, or we terminate the cooperation – as described in the “How Our Cooperation Ends” section.
• if you approve the draft or do not provide us with feedback for its revision within 10 days, the draft is considered accepted. Once you accept all drafts within a given milestone, we can invoice the work performed
  
  

11 – Timeline

Our timelines assume that you will provide us with feedback, materials, and necessary information or instructions within 3 working days. Delays in providing feedback may affect the promised timeline. If this occurs, we will inform you. We are not responsible for such timeline changes.

The timeline may also be affected by the number of iterations. If this occurs, we will inform you. We do not consider such timeline changes to be a breach of contract.

Please note that in the event of delays in feedback, delivery of materials, access, payments, or necessary information and instructions, we are not bound by the promised deadlines due to team capacity. However, we will provide the services according to our capacity at the earliest possible date.

If you notify us of objective defects in the draft, we will ensure their correction as soon as possible, and this will not be considered an iteration. The correction of defects will not affect the project price or timeline.

Subjective defects (i.e., everything complies with the objective parameters of the assignment, but the draft is, for example, "aesthetically unappealing") are not considered defects in the legal sense and are not subject to the complaint process.

12 – How Our Cooperation Ends

Ideally, the cooperation ends with the acceptance of all our deliverables and payment. :)
Either party may withdraw from further cooperation within a partial order in the following cases:

• if the other party repeatedly (twice or more) fails to fulfill its obligations under our agreement, even after a request for remedy, which we will send with sufficient advance notice before withdrawing from further cooperation.
• if we cannot agree on the preparation of a fourth draft.
• if we cannot agree on the terms of providing extra work.
  
  

In the event of premature termination of cooperation, the following applies:

• we have the right to invoice for services provided to the client up to the moment of termination. Due to the nature of our work, we invoice this fee based on a report and hourly rates, not based on delivered outputs. We also have the right to invoice for all incurred costs for third-party services or products (e.g., fees for fonts, stock photo libraries, hosting, etc.).
• immediately upon payment of the fee and any incurred costs, we will hand over all previous work, if you request it and if it is possible without undue effort.
• work handovers are free if they take less than 2 hours of work. For handovers exceeding 2 hours, we have the right to invoice the time spent on these handovers according to our current price list.
  
  

13 – How Is the Cooperation Paid?

The price is set in the partial agreement. The price is stated exclusive of VAT. VAT will be added to the invoice at the rate specified by current legislation. At this time, we are not VAT registered. We issue a pro forma invoice for 50% of the total project price for our work.

Please note that without timely payment of the advance, we are not obligated to start work, and in the event of a delay, we do not guarantee the approved timeline. The payment term for invoices is 14 days.

Unless otherwise stated in the proposal, the price does not include incurred costs for third-party services or products.

If you wish to purchase external products or services through us, we will re-invoice them to you with a 20% margin at the end of the stage in which we arranged them. If the price of incurred costs exceeds 450 USD excluding VAT, we will invoice these costs in advance, and the invoice's due date precedes the purchase of the service or product.

14 – Extra Work

If the assignment changes during the project from your side (e.g., scope or order of activities), we may change the price and timeline of provided services. We will mutually agree on such changes. If mutual agreement on the change is not reached, one of the following options applies:

• we will complete the project according to the original assignment, and we will negotiate further activities after completion.
• either party may withdraw from further cooperation according to the rules described above.

14 – Copyright

We grant you a pre-agreed license to our outputs. Please note that the outputs may include works of third parties (e.g., stock photos, fonts, etc.). In such cases, the scope of the license is governed by the licensor's terms.

We provide you with a license to our outputs in the following variants, and one of the variants must be selected before the project starts:

A – time and geographically unlimited
B – time-limited and geographically unlimited
C – time and geographically limited

The license and its precise rules are governed by our license agreement, which will be available to you. Our license is contingent upon full payment of the price and all related costs. The license fee is separately defined in the price proposal and is thus included in the invoicing of our services.

16 – Confidentiality

We treat all information you provide to us as confidential. We will disclose it to our team members or project collaborators only to a reasonable extent. We have agreements with all suppliers that protect the confidentiality of the information you provide to us.

We will protect all personal data and information, marketing and business plans and strategies, designs, technical solutions, employee information and data, and any other information that we designate as confidential (protected information) and that we become aware of during our cooperation.

Protected information will cease to be protected if it is publicly known or generally available. However, such knowledge or availability must not result from our breach of obligations.

Unless we agree otherwise, both you and we will:

• not disclose protected information to third parties,
• not use it for our own or others' benefit,
• secure it against leakage or misuse.

However, we may use and disclose protected information to third parties if:

• required by law (e.g., audit, requests for information from public authorities such as police, courts, offices, etc.),
• reasonably necessary to assert claims (e.g., proof of service performance, etc.), or necessary to fulfill our agreement.
  
  

Our obligations under this article will not cease even if our cooperation ends.

17 – Data Transfer

Submission, approval, or acceptance of anything may take place in any written form. Written form includes electronic communication.

We usually communicate important milestones by email, but various other platforms such as Google Drive, Figma, MarkUp, Slack, or ClickUp are also acceptable if we agree on them or if they become part of our communication.

18 – Disclaimer

If you modify our outputs, we are not responsible for their functionality.

Our relationships are governed by Czech law. Any disputes will be decided by Czech courts.

We may not unilaterally set off claims against each other without prior consent.
Our liability for damages is limited to the amount you paid us for the project related to the damage.

These Terms and Conditions are effective from March 1, 2025.
Current version is no. 1.0.

1 – What is a retainer?

A retainer is a form of long-term collaboration, operating on a monthly subscription basis. You pay a regular flat fee, which ensures a certain volume of our services, limited by the number of hours. This gives you constant access to our services, flexibility in ongoing work adjustments, and cost predictability. The minimum duration is 2 months.

2 – Terms and Conditions

Our terms and conditions are the basis for transparent and clear cooperation settings and are defined in the previous document. Unless otherwise defined here, these conditions also apply to the "retainer" form.

3 – How does our retainer collaboration begin?

We will determine your requirements and needs, and based on that, we will prepare and submit an offer for the scope and conditions of the retainer.

The offer will include:

• monthly price of our services
• defined number of hours
• responsible persons who will work on the retainer
• The offer may also include the contract duration. If it does not, we propose an indefinite commitment for both parties. The contract is concluded when you approve the offer.

Of course, you do not have to approve the offer. The conditions can be negotiated until both parties are satisfied.

4 – Validity of the price offer

If we do not specify an expiration date in the offer, it is valid for 1 month from the date of sending. The retainer is paid one month in advance, with payment due by the last day of the calendar month before the paid retainer period begins.

5 – Mutual responsibility

Within the monthly retainer, we commit to providing our services continuously, always emphasizing quality and deadlines. In return, you commit to paying the agreed price (invoices) on time, which is a condition of our cooperation.

We will provide you with monthly services up to the limit we agreed at the beginning of the collaboration. Additional hours will be charged at the agreed hourly rate. The specific activities included in a given month will always be determined based on our mutual agreement and your specific needs and requirements.

6 – Retainer progress

We will meet weekly to discuss the current agenda, and once a month, we will focus on evaluating the past period and planning the upcoming one to ensure our work meets your expectations and the intensity and quality of our work meet your needs.

When we approach the maximum monthly hour limit (i.e., we are about three-quarters of the way there), we will let you know, and we can agree on further steps. This might include a one-time increase in the monthly payment or a reduction in pace.

If we work fewer than the maximum number of hours in a month, we will carry over the unused capacity to the following month, up to a maximum of 25% of the total hours. The same hours cannot be carried over more than once. In such a case, we would have 125% of the dedicated work capacity for the following month.

7 – Competencies

A junior or mid-weight designer is available within the retainer. We can also offer specialist services in related fields from our team, such as creative coding, web design, motion design, etc. These collaborators will be compensated at an agreed hourly rate, which will always be agreed upon with the client in advance before their work begins. Senior designer work can be included in the retainer based on mutual agreement. Unless otherwise agreed, it is also compensated at the Gradual studio's pre-agreed hourly rate. When integrating a senior designer into the retainer service, it is necessary to consider that their hourly rate is higher, which is at the expense of the number of ordered hours that are adequate for a junior/mid-weight designer.

8 – Work reports and schedule

You will receive a report of hours worked for each calendar month at the beginning of the following calendar month.

For planning our capacities and for your overview, we will share an approximate schedule of the agreed work with you.

In the schedules, we assume that you will provide us with feedback, materials, and necessary information or instructions within 3 working days.

Delays in providing feedback can affect the promised schedule. When this happens, we will let you know. We are not responsible for such schedule changes. The schedule can also be affected by the number of feedback rounds. When this happens, we will let you know. However, we do not consider such schedule changes a breach of our commitment.

Please note that in the event of delays in feedback, delivery of materials, access, payments, or necessary information and instructions, we are not bound by the promised deadlines due to team capacity. However, we will provide services according to our capacity options at the earliest possible date.

9 – Defects and shortcomings

If you find objective errors, we will correct them immediately without affecting your monthly hourly limit or schedule. On the other hand, we do not consider subjective objections that do not conflict with the original assignment but rather with your personal taste to be legally relevant defects. Work on their modification will be included in your monthly hour limit.

10 – How does the retainer end?

We perceive flexibility as one of the advantages of a retainer, and therefore we want any termination of cooperation with us to be very simple. In principle, it is possible to terminate after the agreed period, by our mutual agreement, or by one party withdrawing from the contract.

If we have agreed to terminate cooperation, you have the option to terminate the contract with us with a one-month notice period. The notice period begins on the first day of the month following the month in which you delivered the termination notice to us. During the notice period, all obligations (ours and yours) remain, then our cooperation ends, and we will not continue it further.

11 – Other termination options

Either of us may withdraw from the contract if the other party repeatedly (twice or more) fails to fulfill its obligations under our contract, even after a request for remedy, which we will send with sufficient notice before withdrawing from further cooperation.

We may also withdraw from the contract if your payment of our invoice is more than 10 days late and you do not pay it even after we notify you of the delay.

12 – Conditions for early termination

We have the right to invoice the monthly price for the month in which our cooperation was terminated, and you are obliged to pay this price.

We have the right to invoice all costs of third-party services or products (such as fees for fonts, photo banks, hosting, etc.).

Immediately after payment of the fee and any other costs, we hand over all previous work, including source data, if you request it and it is possible without undue effort.

Work handovers are free if they take less than 2 hours of work. For more than 2 hours of work, we have the right to invoice the time we spend on these handovers according to our price list, which we provide in the general terms and conditions.

13 – Payment terms

We will set the price in the contract concluded under point 3.

We quote the price excluding VAT. We will add VAT to the invoice at the rate set by current legislation. At this time, we are not VAT payers.

On the first day of each month, we issue an invoice with a 14-day payment term for work in the following month. If the monthly retainer price (or any other invoice from us) is not paid within the payment term, we reserve the right to suspend all work until full payment of the outstanding amount. In such a case, we do not guarantee schedule adherence.

Unless we have agreed otherwise, the price does not include out-of-pocket costs for third-party services or products (such as fees for fonts, photo banks, hosting, etc.). If you wish to purchase external products or services through us, we will re-invoice them to you with a 20% margin in the next regular invoice. If the out-of-pocket cost exceeds CZK 10,000 excluding VAT, we invoice these costs in the month preceding the month in which we purchase the product or service.

14 – Licenses and copyrights

We grant you a pre-agreed license for our deliverables. Please note that the deliverables may include third-party works (such as photos from photo banks, fonts, etc.). In such a case, the scope of the license is governed by the licensor's terms and conditions.

We will provide you with a license for our deliverables in the following variants, and one of the variants must be selected before the project begins:

A – time and location unlimited
B – time-limited and location unlimited
C – time and location limited

The license and its exact rules are governed by our license agreement, which will be available to you. Our license is contingent upon full payment of the price and all related costs. The license fee is defined separately in the price offer and is also stated in the invoicing of our services.

15 – Information protection

We treat all information you provide to us as confidential. We will show it to people on our team or people who collaborate with us on the project only to a reasonable extent. We have contracts with all suppliers that protect the confidentiality of the information you provide to us.

We will protect all personal data and data, marketing and business intentions and strategies, plans, designs, technical solutions, employee information and data, or other information that we mark as confidential (protected information) and that we become aware of during our cooperation.

Protected information will cease to be protected if it is known to the public or if it is generally available. However, such knowledge or availability must not result from a breach of our obligations.

Unless we agree otherwise, both parties' protected information will be treated as follows:

• we will not disclose it to third parties
• we will not use it for our or another's benefit
• we will protect it against leakage or misuse.

However, we may use and disclose protected information to third parties if:

• required by law (such as audits, requests for information from public authorities such as the police, courts, offices, etc.)
• it is necessary to a reasonable extent to assert claims (such as proving the fulfillment of a service, etc.), or it is necessary to fulfill our contract.
• there is mutual agreement
  
  Our obligations under this article do not cease even if our cooperation ends.

16 – Data transfer

The submission, approval, or acceptance of anything can take place in any written form. We consider electronic communication to be written form.

We usually communicate important information by email, but various other platforms such as Google Drive, Figma, MarkUp, Slack, or ClickUp are also acceptable if we agree on them or if they become part of our communication.

17 – Disclaimer

If you modify our deliverables, we are not responsible for their functionality.

Our relationships are governed by Czech law. Any disputes will be resolved by Czech courts.

Without prior consent, we may not unilaterally offset claims against each other.

We are liable for damages up to the amount of the price you paid us for the project to which the damage relates.

These Terms and Conditions are effective from March 1, 2025.
Current version is no. 1.0.