terms of service

1. what we do

ascnd provides design services on a subscription basis, and as fixed-scope projects.

Subscription. You pay a recurring monthly fee and submit design requests. We work through them one at a time, in the order you prioritise them.

Build sprints. A fixed piece of work, agreed in advance with its own scope, price, and timeline.

The specific services, price, and any terms particular to your engagement are set out in the agreement or proposal we send you. Where those conflict with these terms, your agreement takes precedence.

2. how the subscription works

Requests.You can submit as many requests as you like. We work on one active request at a time and move to the next when it’s approved or parked. Adding more requests doesn’t mean more work happens simultaneously.

Turnaround. Most requests are completed within a few business days, depending on scope. Larger pieces of work (full websites, complete brand identities, multi-screen product design) are broken into stages and take longer. Turnaround times are estimates based on typical work, not guarantees, and they depend on you responding to questions and feedback.

Revisions.Revisions are included. We’ll keep refining a request until you’re happy with it, within the scope of the original request. A revision that fundamentally changes the brief becomes a new request. If we think something you’ve asked for crosses that line, we’ll say so and agree it with you before starting — we won’t treat work as a new request after the fact.

Fair use.The subscription is intended for one company’s design work, used at a reasonable pace. It isn’t intended for resale, for use by multiple unrelated businesses, or for volumes that would require us to hire additional people. If your usage goes beyond what a subscription can reasonably support, we’ll talk to you about it before taking any action.

What isn’t included. Unless separately agreed: printing and production, paid media buying, copywriting for long-form content, photography and videography, ongoing website maintenance and hosting, third-party licences and subscriptions, and work outside design and front-end.

3. your responsibilities

To do good work we need things from you. You agree to:

• provide briefs, assets, brand materials, and access we reasonably need
• give feedback within a reasonable time; extended silence pauses the clock, not the billing
• make sure you have the rights to any content you send us, including images, fonts, copy, and trademarks
• give us a single point of contact, or tell us who has final approval

If work stalls because we’re waiting on you, that time still counts as part of your billing period.

4. payment

Subscription fees are billed monthly in advance. Your billing period starts on the day your first payment is received and renews on the same date each month.

Invoicing. We currently invoice directly. Payment methods, currency, and payment details are set out on your invoice. Fees are exclusive of any taxes, duties, or transfer charges, which are your responsibility.

Due date. Invoices are payable within 7 days of issue.

Late payment. If an invoice is unpaid after 7 days past its due date, we may pause work until it’s settled. Paused time from non-payment does not extend your billing period.

Price changes.We may change our prices. Existing clients will be given at least 30 days’ notice, and any founding or locked rate we’ve agreed with you in writing will be honoured for as long as your subscription stays active without interruption.

5. pausing your subscription

You can pause your subscription instead of cancelling it.

• Pause requests should be sent to contact@ascnd.design before your next billing date.
• When you pause, any unused days in your current billing period are held as credit and applied when you resume.
• Subscriptions can be paused for up to 3 months at a time. After that, the subscription is cancelled and any remaining credit is forfeited unless we agree otherwise.
• Any locked or founding rate is preserved through a pause.
• While paused, we don’t work on requests and you aren’t billed.

Pausing is designed for the periods when you genuinely don’t need us. It isn’t a way to defer payment for work already in progress.

6. cancellation

You can cancel at any time, with no notice period and no cancellation fee.

• Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. You keep access until then.
• We don’t refund partial months. See our Refund & Cancellation Policy for the full detail.
• On cancellation we’ll deliver the final files for any completed work. Work in progress that hasn’t been paid for isn’t delivered.
• If you return later, the rate available at that time applies, unless we’ve agreed otherwise in writing.

We may also end an engagement, with 30 days’ notice, if the working relationship isn’t working. In that case we’ll refund any unused portion of the current period.

7. intellectual property

Your materials stay yours. Anything you send us (brand assets, copy, product access, existing designs) remains your property.

Final work. The intellectual property in the final delivered work transfers to you once it is complete and paid for. On a subscription, that means the billing period the work was delivered in has been paid in full; on a build sprint, it means the project has been paid in full. You then own it and can use it however you want.

Before payment, all rights in the work remain with us. Work delivered but not paid for is not licensed for use.

What we keep. We retain ownership of our own tools, templates, systems, components, and general know-how, plus any concepts, drafts, and directions that were explored but not selected. Nothing here stops us using the same skills and approaches for other clients.

Third-party assets.Fonts, stock imagery, icons, plugins, and similar assets are licensed, not owned. Where these are used, the licence is yours to hold and maintain. We’ll tell you what’s needed.

8. showing the work

We’d like to be able to show what we make. Unless you tell us otherwise, you agree that we may display work we’ve done for you in our portfolio, on our website, on social media, and in case studies, including your company name and logo.

If you’d prefer we didn’t, or you need us to wait until a launch date, just tell us. We’ll honour it, and we’ll never publish anything before a client’s own public launch without asking first.

If you need a formal NDA, we’re happy to sign one.

9. confidentiality

We’ll keep your confidential information confidential, and won’t share it with anyone outside our team without your permission, except where we’re legally required to. This doesn’t apply to information that’s already public, that you make public, or that we already knew.

The same obligation applies to you regarding anything non-public we share with you about how we work.

10. working in your systems

Some work means going into things you already run — your website, your CMS, your hosting, your analytics, your design files. Where you give us that access:

• we use it only to do the work you’ve asked for, and for nothing else
• we take only the access we actually need, and we’ll tell you what that is rather than asking for the keys to everything
• any personal data belonging to your own users or customers stays yours. You decide what happens to it and we act on your instructions — in data protection terms, you are the controller and we are your processor
• we don’t copy that data out of your systems, and we don’t use it to train anything or for any purpose of our own
• when the engagement ends, or whenever you ask, we hand the access back and remove ourselves from the accounts

If your own obligations require a formal data processing agreement, send it to us and we’ll sign it.

Backups are yours. We work carefully in live systems, but you should be able to restore them without depending on us. Keeping your own backups stays your responsibility.

11. warranties and liability

We provide our services with reasonable skill and care. Beyond that, our services are provided “as is” and we make no other warranties, express or implied.

We don’t guarantee any particular business outcome. Design affects a lot of things, but conversion rates, funding, sales, and traffic depend on many factors outside our control, and we don’t promise results.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total liability to you for any claim arising from these terms is limited to the amount you paid us in the 3 months before the claim arose. We aren’t liable for indirect or consequential losses, including lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, or business interruption.

Nothing in these terms limits liability for fraud, death or personal injury caused by negligence, or anything else that can’t be limited by law.

12. indemnity

You agree to indemnify us against any claim arising from materials you provide to us, including claims that those materials infringe someone else’s rights.

13. suspension and termination

We may suspend or end services immediately if you don’t pay, if you use our services unlawfully, or if you’re abusive towards our team. We’ll always try to talk to you first where it’s reasonable to do so.

Where we end services under this section, the refund of the unused period described in section 6 does not apply — that one covers us ending a working relationship that simply isn’t working, not a breach of these terms.

14. things outside our control

We’re not liable for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control, including internet or power outages, illness, natural events, or government action. If something like that happens, we’ll tell you and agree a revised timeline.

15. general

Changes. We may update these terms. Material changes will be notified to active clients at least 30 days in advance, and the date at the top will change.

No partnership.These terms don’t create a partnership, employment, or agency relationship. We operate as an independent contractor.

Assignment.You can’t transfer your agreement with us to someone else without our written consent.

Severability. If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest stays in force.

Governing law. These terms are governed by the laws of Pakistan, and the courts of Islamabad have exclusive jurisdiction.

16. contact