Website terms and conditions

This website is operated by Luke McInery, a sole trader carrying on business under the trading name Subtle Standard from Berkshire, England. Subtle Standard is not a registered company or a legal person separate from Luke McInery. In these terms, “Subtle Standard”, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Luke McInery trading as Subtle Standard. The site is available at subtlestandard.com and can be contacted at legal@subtlestandard.com.

Subtle Standard is established in Ascot, Berkshire, England, and works mainly by email, phone and video. You can contact Luke McInery trading as Subtle Standard quickly by email at hello@subtlestandard.com. Luke McInery's name and a UK postal address at which documents relating to the business can be served are stated on every proposal, contract, invoice and business letter, and are given in writing straight away to anyone dealing with the business who asks at legal@subtlestandard.com.

These terms govern access to and use of the public website, including its text, illustrations, interface, articles, service descriptions, example work and enquiry routes. The privacy policy and cookie and storage policy explain related data handling and browser storage.

These are website terms, not the full terms on which design, development, hosting, maintenance or support services are supplied. A paid engagement requires a separate written agreement as explained below.

Your permission to use the website is subject to these terms. Please read them before continuing; if you do not accept them, do not use the website. The section headed “Additional terms for business users” identifies the limited circumstances in which a business user may be responsible for loss caused by unlawful use or unauthorised material. If you use the site for an organisation, you confirm that you are authorised to act for it in relation to that use; simply browsing does not authorise you to bind the organisation to a project contract.

We may update these website terms prospectively to reflect changes to the site, law or business. The date and version at the top identify the applicable version. A change to these online terms will not retrospectively alter an existing client contract. Material changes will be brought to users' attention where reasonably appropriate.

Website material is general information about the studio and its services. It is not legal, financial, tax, regulatory or other professional advice. You should obtain advice suited to your circumstances before acting on material that carries legal, financial or operational risk.

We take reasonable care with published information but do not promise that every page will always be complete, error-free or current. This does not permit misleading statements and does not exclude responsibility for an express representation that the law makes binding.

You may access the website and make a reasonable number of copies or extracts for your personal information or legitimate internal business evaluation. Any other permission must be agreed in writing.

You must not:

• use the site unlawfully, fraudulently or in a way that infringes another person's rights;
• attempt unauthorised access to the site, server, accounts, source systems or connected infrastructure;
• introduce malware, harmful code, denial-of-service traffic or other material intended to disrupt or compromise a service;
• circumvent technical controls, probe vulnerabilities without written permission or conceal the origin of abusive traffic;
• scrape, crawl or extract content at a volume or frequency that harms the site or creates a substitute dataset, except where law prevents restriction;
• impersonate another person, misrepresent authority or submit knowingly false information;
• frame, mirror, resell, republish or commercially exploit the site or a substantial part of it without permission; or
• use website material to train or populate a commercial model, service or content library without a written licence, except to the extent the law expressly permits and does not allow restriction.

Security research must be authorised in advance. A suspected vulnerability should be reported privately to the contact address rather than publicly disclosed before we have had a reasonable opportunity to investigate.

Unless stated otherwise, the website and its original copy, layout, code, graphics, illustrations, brand elements and selection or arrangement of material are owned by or licensed to Subtle Standard and are protected by copyright, trade mark, design and other intellectual-property laws.

You receive a limited, revocable, non-exclusive and non-transferable permission to use the site for the purposes allowed above. No ownership transfers. You must keep copyright or attribution notices intact and must not imply that Subtle Standard endorses you or your organisation.

“Subtle Standard”, its logo and related presentation are business identifiers. No right to use them in a domain, company name, advertising, product, service or confusingly similar branding is granted by these terms.

Work labelled “concept”, “studio concept”, “exploration” or equivalent is illustrative work and must not be interpreted as a commissioned client engagement, endorsement, testimonial or evidence of a commercial relationship. Names, interfaces or scenarios used in concepts may be fictional or transformed for demonstration.

Third-party trade marks, software, typefaces, libraries, stock material or other assets remain subject to their owners' rights and licences. Their appearance does not transfer ownership or imply sponsorship. If you believe website material infringes your rights, email enough detail to identify the material, the right claimed and your authority to act. We will assess the notice in good faith.

You remain responsible for material you choose to send. You confirm that you are entitled to provide it and that our limited use to assess the enquiry, prepare a proposal or deliver an agreed service will not infringe rights, breach confidence or violate law.

You grant us only the non-exclusive permission reasonably needed to receive, review, reproduce internally and respond to an enquiry. We do not claim ownership of your ideas or materials merely because they are submitted. An enquiry is not automatically confidential; if pre-contract material is particularly sensitive, ask for an agreed confidentiality arrangement before sending it.

Do not submit unlawful material, malware, credentials we have not requested, unnecessary personal data or another party's confidential information without authority. We may decline, delete or isolate material where reasonably necessary for safety or compliance.

Any price displayed on the website is a business guide price and depends on the stated starter assumptions. A proposal will confirm the contracting party, scope, exclusions, deliverables, client dependencies, price, expenses, payment schedule, revisions, timing, acceptance, cancellation, intellectual-property treatment and other terms relevant to the engagement.

A project starts only when the acceptance steps in that proposal or agreement are completed. Unless a written agreement says otherwise, an email discussion, discovery call or unpublished estimate is not authority to begin chargeable work. A change to scope, assumptions, timing or dependencies may require a written change order covering the effect on fees and delivery.

The signed or affirmatively accepted project documents will establish their own order of precedence. They should normally include a proposal or statement of work, client terms, any service schedule, any data-processing schedule and accepted change orders. They govern the paid service and prevail over these website terms where they conflict.

Audit, design, development, managed hosting and support services are currently offered only to companies, sole traders, partnerships, charities, public bodies and other people acting wholly or mainly for purposes relating to a trade, business, craft or profession. We do not currently enter paid project contracts with people acting wholly or mainly as consumers.

Anyone may still browse the public site. This business-only project policy does not remove mandatory rights that apply to a visitor's use of the public website. If the operating model later expands to consumer projects, the contract pack and sales process must be updated before any consumer is invited to contract.

A website cannot promise the outcome of a service that has not yet been scoped. Search rankings, traffic, conversions, revenue, uninterrupted availability, absolute security, universal accessibility and compatibility with every present or future device, browser, operating system or third-party service are not guaranteed merely because a related service is described on this site.

A paid agreement should identify measurable commitments where applicable—for example, supported platforms, accessibility target, performance budget, security controls, hosting availability, backup frequency and retention, restore scope, support hours, response targets and handover responsibilities. A response target is not a guaranteed resolution time unless expressly stated.

Domains, hosting, APIs, payment services, plugins, app stores, content systems, fonts, stock assets and open-source software may be governed by third-party terms and licences. Account ownership, renewals, price changes, exit assistance and the effect of a provider failure must be addressed in the relevant project or service schedule.

We may update, correct, suspend, restrict or withdraw all or part of the public website for maintenance, security, legal or operational reasons. We do not guarantee continuous access to this free informational site. Where reasonably practical, significant planned changes will be managed to reduce disruption.

We use proportionate security measures, but no website or transmission can be promised to be completely free of vulnerabilities, malicious code or interruption. You are responsible for using supported software and appropriate protective measures on your own device. This paragraph does not excuse a failure to use reasonable care or limit a liability that law does not allow us to limit.

External links may be provided for context or convenience. Unless expressly stated, we do not control or endorse the external operator, content, security, availability, privacy practices or terms. Following a link is your decision and the third party's terms apply.

We remain responsible where the law makes us responsible for our own selection, representation or conduct. A disclaimer about a third party does not override an express commitment made in a paid project agreement.

Consumers

If you are a consumer, we are responsible for loss or damage that is a foreseeable result of our breach of these website terms or failure to use reasonable care and skill. We are not responsible for loss that was not foreseeable or for business losses arising from consumer use. Your mandatory rights remain unaffected.

Business users

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable to a business user for loss arising solely from reliance on general website information, or for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, revenue, sales, business, contracts, anticipated savings, opportunity, goodwill, reputation or data arising from use or unavailability of the free public site. This wording does not govern paid services; the relevant project agreement must contain an appropriate, separately reviewed liability regime.

If you use the site in the course of business, you are responsible for direct losses and reasonable external costs we incur to the extent they result from your unlawful use of the site, your material breach of the prohibited-use provisions, or material you submit without the rights or authority confirmed above. If a third party makes a related claim, we will give you prompt notice where reasonably practicable and a reasonable opportunity to participate in its defence or settlement. You are not responsible to the extent a loss was caused by our own breach, negligence, unreasonable settlement or failure to take reasonable steps to reduce it.

These website terms and the documents expressly referred to in them form the agreement about use of the public site. Neither party relies on a statement about that use that is not set out here, but this does not exclude liability for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation and does not apply as an entire-agreement clause to a separate project contract.

Send a website or service complaint to legal@subtlestandard.com with enough information to identify the issue, relevant dates and the outcome sought. We will aim to acknowledge it promptly, investigate proportionately and explain our response. Data protection complaints follow the specific process in the privacy policy.

If a consumer dispute cannot be resolved directly, we will provide any information about an accredited alternative-dispute-resolution provider that applicable law requires, including whether we are obliged or willing to use that process. Nothing in these terms forces a consumer to arbitrate, prevents court proceedings or removes a choice that consumer law protects.

Severability

If a court finds part of these terms unlawful or unenforceable, the remainder will continue and the affected wording will apply to the greatest lawful extent.

No waiver

A delay or failure to enforce a right is not a waiver. A waiver on one occasion is not a waiver on another.

Third-party rights

Unless expressly stated, a person who is not a party to these website terms has no right to enforce them under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

Transfer

We may transfer the operation of the website and these terms as part of a genuine sale, reorganisation or transfer of the business, provided this does not reduce mandatory rights or materially prejudice you. We will give reasonable notice of a material transfer where practicable. You may not transfer rights under these website terms where doing so would prejudice security or our rights without written consent.

Relationship

Website use does not create a partnership, joint venture, agency, employment relationship, fiduciary duty or professional-client relationship.

These website terms and non-contractual disputes arising from them are governed by the law of England and Wales. If you are a business user, the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction. If you are a consumer, you may bring proceedings in any court available to you under mandatory law, including the courts of the part of the UK in which you live where applicable. This choice of law does not deprive a consumer living outside the UK of any mandatory protection that applies in their country of residence.

If you need these terms in another accessible format or encounter an accessibility barrier, email us and describe the format or assistance required. We will consider reasonable steps to provide access.

Questions about these website terms can be sent to legal@subtlestandard.com. General correspondence about the public website can also be sent to hello@subtlestandard.com. Formal notices relating to a paid project must use the method and address specified in the relevant project agreement.