All your work: gone.

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses the risks and challenges faced by designers and freelancers when working on high-profile projects, particularly the potential for data loss and the legal consequences of not meeting deadlines.

🙋 Q&A

[01] Signing a big client contract

1. What are the key points highlighted in this section?

• The designer signs a big contract with a Fortune 500 client, which is a breakthrough moment in their career.
• The designer is excited and confident they will deliver the project ahead of schedule.
• However, the designer overlooks a clause in the contract about penalty payments for missing the deadline.

2. What is the designer's mindset at this stage? The designer is extremely happy and optimistic about the opportunity, and is focused on making a great impression on the client. They are not concerned about the penalty clause in the contract.

[02] Data loss and project restart

1. What happens that causes the designer to lose all their work? The designer's cloud provider servers crash, resulting in a complete loss of data, including all the project files and settings. The backups are also destroyed, for unknown reasons.

2. How does the designer respond to this situation? The designer initially thinks the cloud provider must have backups, but then realizes everything is lost. They have to restart the project from scratch, a week before the deadline.

3. What is the client's reaction? Instead of understanding the situation, the client sues the designer for not delivering the project on time, as per the contract. They do not want to take legal action against the cloud provider.

4. What is the outcome for the designer? The designer ends up $50-70K in debt, despite having to redo the entire project. They are unable to make the original deadline.

[03] Comparison to a physical work scenario

1. How does the article contrast digital work with a physical work scenario? The article uses the example of an electrician doing wiring work in a living room to illustrate the difference. In the physical scenario, the electrician brings their own tools, does the work, and leaves. In the digital scenario, the designer loses all their work tools and files when the cloud provider fails.