Contracts for design work

Ryan Carter a quick and short answer is yes, they are very much worth it. No one ever sets out in the beginning to run a bad project, but they are an inevitable part of doing business and freelancing. A good contract keeps all parties honest. It ensures everyone is treated fairly and agreements are documented and respected.

You'll make mistakes by not doing contracts or not writing good contracts. My philosophy is Win or Learn. You're bound to write a contract that isn't descriptive enough and then you'll get burned having to do some work you didn't plan on. There is no iron clad advice on such a thing. In my work, I've found contracts to be most important in the situation of pricing. There will always be scope creep on a project. The problem most designers/developers/clients have is they don't quite remember what was and what wasn't included in a scope of work. When the client's expectations exceed the agreed upon scope, you'll want to have a super clear contract to refer back to. I recommend starting with this contract and then you can tweak it as you go so it fits your style of work/language.

You may want to check out http://www.thefreelanceweb.com. Specifically episodes 5, 6 and 8. They're a quick listen. Also, Mike Monteiro's book Design Is A Job is well worth the $10.