Who Pays for Mistakes?

In 20 years of doing business as a graphic designer, the most painful lesson I have ever learned - and learned, and learned - is that it is critical to have quality control procedures in place. Even more critical is to create an understanding ahead of time of who pays for mistakes.

It doesn't matter how clever your concept is - if you publish a job with errors, your client is going to be angry.

I usually make clients sign a form that clients must sign that authorizes a job to go to press, and explains that the client is responsible for the cost of any errors not caught before the job goes to press.

Almost every time we have deviated from this procedure, we have gotten nailed - we have an angry client whose job is messed up, and the last thing the client wants to do is to pay for a reprint.

Why do we ever deviate from this procedure? Usually because of time pressure.

The best insurance for both clients and designers is to have a memorandum of understanding, a written policy, or a form that explains that it is the client who bears the cost of all mistakes. Then, whatever procedures you have agreed to, the client knows that, bottom line, accuracy is the client's responsibility and not the designer's.

The Benefit Principle

If you buy graphic design services and printing, you may ask - why is this fair? Simply put, it is because the client benefits from publication of the work, not the designer. The designer is working at the client's behest, usually for an hourly fee. It is the client who should pay all costs of publication. A client who cannot afford to assume the risk of reprint costs and other liabilities arising from printing or publishing should not be printing or publishing. 

All policies, forms, and procedures can then flow from this principle. Design quality control procedures that protect the client against mistakes, and enforce them even at the cost of delaying a project, and mistakes will be rare. Before you embark on those quality control procedures, make sure your client agrees with the 'benefit principle.' Then in the rare instances a mistake occurs, you will not lose your shirt.