What Should I Ask a Design Studio Before I Sign?

Ask who owns the accounts, how a revision round is counted, what files you get by name, who does the work, and what happens if you stop halfway. Price and timeline are the two questions that prevent nothing.

Disputes come from somewhere else, and almost always from the same handful of places. Below are the questions that prevent them, with the answers that should put you on guard. We are writing this as a studio, about studios, including about us.

1. Who owns the domain, the hosting and the accounts, from day one?

You do. Your company, in your company’s name, with you as the owner and the studio added as a user you can remove.

The list covers the domain, the hosting, Google Analytics, Search Console, the social profiles and the ad account. If you hear “we keep those on our side, it is simpler”, ask what happens to them the day the work ends. Simpler now means a negotiation later, at a moment when you have no leverage and a launch date.

2. How many feedback rounds are included, and what counts as a round?

Both “unlimited revisions” and “one round” are bad signs. The first is not true and turns into resentment once the fifth version arrives. The second leaves you stuck with a direction you were never given room to question.

The real question is not the number, it is the definition. If you send three emails with notes over two days, is that three rounds or one? Is a round the same thing at the concept stage as it is at the artwork stage? Get it written down, because the alternative is working it out while you are already annoyed with each other.

3. What exactly do I get at the end?

“Brand identity” can mean three files or thirty. A quote of £1,950 and a quote of £16,000 can both carry that label honestly, and the only thing that separates them is the deliverables list.

Ask for that list with names, formats and counts: which logo variants, which vector files, which versions for print and which for screen, a brand guide or not, and how many pages if yes. We wrote out what sits behind the different price levels in how much brand identity design costs.

Separately from the files, ask for font and photography licences registered to your company. A logo built on a typeface you have no commercial right to use is a problem that surfaces at the first large print run, which is the worst possible moment to find out.

4. Who owns the rights once I have paid?

Paying for creative work and owning the rights to it are not automatically the same thing. What you own depends on what the contract says, and plenty of contracts say less than the client assumes, or say nothing at all.

The short version of the question: is there a written transfer of rights, and what does it list? You want it to name the work covered, the media and territories you can use it in, and for how long. A studio that transfers rights on payment will tell you so in a sentence. A studio that keeps the rights and licenses them back to you may be perfectly reasonable, but you should know that is the deal before you sign it, not after you want to sell the company.

5. Who writes the copy?

Late content from the client is the single most common reason a design project misses its deadline, and almost nobody settles it in advance.

Write down who produces the text, by what date, and what happens to the delivery date if your side is late. Without that, the deadline quietly slips and the blame circulates at the end, usually in the same week you needed the work live.

6. Who actually does the work?

The person selling you the project is not always the person doing it. A studio portfolio is also made by people who in some cases no longer work there.

Asking who holds your project and who you speak to when something goes wrong is entirely fair. The answer tells you how far apart the sales conversation and the delivery are, which is the real difference between most of the options on your list. We compared the structural trade-offs in design studio versus freelancer.

7. What happens if we stop halfway?

The contract should say what is delivered and paid for at that point, which files you actually receive, and what happens to the deposit.

Raising it is not distrust, it is hygiene. Projects stop for reasons that have nothing to do with the design: funding moves, a co-founder leaves, the product changes. A studio that has been through it has a prepared answer. One that gets flustered is telling you it has never got that far, or that it would rather not discuss it.

8. How do decisions get made when people inside my company disagree?

Internal disagreement stalls more projects than craft ever does. The founder wants one thing, marketing wants another, and somebody arrives with an opinion from a friend.

Ask how the studio helps you get out of it: on what basis two directions get compared, who signs off at the end, and how the rounds are structured so you do not loop. A studio that treats design as a matter of taste has no way to answer, because taste has no tie-breaker. One that works from your audience and your commercial goal does. The failure mode when nobody answers it is the one we described in paying for a brand identity that still does not feel like your business.

9. What do you need from me so we do not run late?

Turn the question around and watch what comes back. A studio with a real process answers with a list: these assets, these approvals, these decisions, by these dates.

Vagueness here predicts vagueness everywhere. If nobody can tell you what your side owes, the timeline in the proposal is a hope rather than a plan.

How we think about it

All nine answers live in our contract or in the kickoff document, not in the conversation at the end. Accounts are registered to the client’s company on day one. The deliverables list carries file names. Scope and price are fixed before the work starts, and the transfer of rights is not something we negotiate at handover.

You are also talking to the person who does the work, because there is one senior designer on your project and no handoff between the pitch and the file. That is most of what the questions above are really trying to find out, and it is why brand identity is quoted as a fixed scope rather than an open-ended retainer.

Ask these questions of any studio, and if the answers come out irritated rather than prepared, you learned what you needed to learn while it was still cheap.

FAQ

What should a UK contract with a design studio include? The scope, the number of revision rounds, who owns the files and the rights, and the price in pounds, all agreed before work starts.

How many revision rounds should I ask for? The number matters less than the definition. Unlimited revisions and one single round are both traps. Ask for it in writing: how many rounds are included at each stage, and what counts as a round. Without that, every change you request later becomes a negotiation instead of part of the job.

Why does it matter who owns the domain and the accounts? Because if they sit on the supplier’s side, leaving means losing them or buying them back. The domain, the hosting, Analytics, Search Console and the social accounts should be registered to your company from day one, with you as owner and the studio added as a user you can remove.

What happens if we stop halfway through the project? The contract should say what has been delivered and paid for at that point, which files you actually receive, and what happens to the deposit. A studio that has been through it before answers in one breath. One that gets uncomfortable is telling you it has never got that far, or would rather not discuss it.

Is it normal for the studio to ask me to write the copy? Yes, if that is what you agreed, and it is one of the main reasons projects run late. What matters is that the plan names who writes it, by when, and what happens to the deadline if your side is late. Without that, the blame circulates at the end and nobody wins.

How do I know who will actually work on my project? Ask directly. A studio portfolio is made by people who are sometimes no longer there, and the person selling you the project is not always the person doing it. It is a fair question, and both the answer and the speed of the answer tell you a great deal.