Original article

As I’m in the very early stages of setting up a freelance web development business, I wanted to give a very quick shout out to Stuff & Nonsense for their fantastic Contract Killer – an open-source contract for web designers and developers.

Not only does provide the beginnings of a very well written (in plain English) contract for you to modify as required, but it also goes into a lot of detail to explain why the different parts of the contract exist. I think my favorite part is its clarification on browser testing, specifically:

Browser testing no longer means attempting to make a website look the same in browsers of different capabilities or on devices with different size screens. It does mean ensuring that a person’s experience of a design should be appropriate to the capabilities of a browser or device.

Although I have access to wonderful resources such as the fantastic Design is a Job book by Mike Monteiro (if you get a chance, watch his Fuck you. Pay Me. lecture), and The Web Design Business Kit published by SitePoint, they both fall short in comparison to what Contract Killer provides regarding this very important legal document (seriously, watch Fuck You. Pay Me.)

Update (26th January 2013)

It’s taken me 28 revisions, and a week of editing, but I’m happy to share with you the Lime Blast edition of Contract Killer 3.

I’m not currently 100% happy with it, mostly because I don’t know anything about British contract law (and as such, I’m a little bit nervous about actually using it), but I’m hoping what I’ve ended up with is going to be suitable for my needs.