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The handshake that ended my casual approach to NDAs
Back in 2018 I was at a small creative meetup in Portland. I shook hands on a logo project with a local coffee roaster, no paperwork. Three months later they were using my sketches with another designer. That $800 lesson taught me to always get a signed NDA before sharing any concepts, even for a 30 minute chat. Has anyone else had a verbal agreement blow up on them like that?
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lopez.simon5h ago
Oh man, that stings. I had a similar thing happen with a band logo back in 2015 - we shook on it over beers and I sent them three rough sketches. They took those sketches to a different artist (someone who worked way cheaper) and had him trace over my concepts. Now I use a simple one-page NDA I found online (free template, just customized it a bit). It's a pain sometimes but I hand it over before I even open my laptop now, even for a 10 minute coffee chat.
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lopez.simon4h ago
Do you think the real problem is that handshake deals set up a weird power dynamic from the start? When you skip the paperwork, you're basically telling the client "I trust you more than I trust myself." Then when they screw you over, it feels like a personal betrayal instead of a business lesson. I had a friend who did a handshake deal for some website mockups and the client kept asking for "just one more revision" for six months. By the time he walked away, he'd done the work of three projects for the price of one. A signed NDA at least forces both sides to treat the conversation like a real business transaction from minute one.
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