Are you a freelance writer, graphic designer, or illustrator? Or maybe you’re an animator, content creator or videographer? Whichever it is, you might need to get your legals in order for your potential clients. Having the right legal framework in place will help to build business credibility and trust with your clients and customers and also hopefully avoid any time-consuming legal disputes in the future. Getting your legals in order means you can keep moving to focus on the things that you love and the things that you do best!
Here at Cherrypicka we have taken the guess work out of it and have set out below some of the essential documents that every creative freelancer needs:
| What is it? | Why do I need it |
| Creative Freelancer Terms | Creative Freelancer Terms are like a set of rules. They ensure that clients will understand what freelance services you are going to provide them. These Terms include things like payment, intellectual property (who owns the work you create – will it be licenced or assigned), termination, cancellation, delays and limiting your liability if something goes wrong. |
| Website Terms and Conditions | This document is the unsung hero of every website. It sets out the rules about how visitors to your website can or cannot use your website, prevent users from posting abusive comments or copying content. |
| Privacy Policy | Use it to tell customers, clients, visitors to your website and even employees, how you use, collect, store and share their personal information. It is best practice to have a Privacy Policy on your website regardless of whether your business is legally required to have one. |
| Non-disclosure agreement (NDA) (aka Confidentiality Agreement) | Use it to protect your valuable ideas and commercially sensitive business information from misuse. For example, you are looking to engage a contractor to perform some work for your business but before you formally engage them you need to share sensitive business information about your business to enable them to provide you with a fee estimate or quote. Use a NDA to ensure that the contractor can only use that information for the purposes of preparing a quote. |
| Independent Contractor Agreement | While you will largely be doing most of the creative yourself, there may be times when you need a little help and wish to outsource. An independent contractor agreement can be used to appoint service providers and independent contractors in those times where you are a little stretched! |