Is It Out of Scope? — Web development
Is creating a new brand color palette out of scope for a web development project?
Yes. This is design work, and on a development-only engagement it's outside the scope regardless of how small it sounds — the dev team implements a palette, it doesn't create one.
On a build-only engagement — the client supplied a design or existing brand assets, and the team's job is implementation — a request to "come up with some new brand colors" sometimes shows up mid-project, often because there's no active design resource in the loop and the developer is the person available. It's an understandable ask, but choosing a color palette is a design decision with implications (accessibility, brand consistency, emotional tone) that isn't part of what a development engagement is scoped to produce.
Is it out of scope?
Yes. This is design work being routed to a development-only contract because it's convenient, not because it's covered. Implementing a palette someone else designs is in scope for a dev engagement; originating the palette is not, and doing it without real design judgment risks a result the client won't be happy with anyway.
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Exclusions clause→ — The engagement covers implementation, not visual design decisions — originating a color palette is design work outside that, even where the developer is technically capable of picking colors.
Example contract wording
Example contract wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
This falls under design rather than development — I can implement whatever palette you land on, but choosing the colors themselves (with accessibility and brand consistency in mind) is a design decision I'd recommend getting proper design input on, either from your existing designer or a referral. Happy to help coordinate once you have a direction.
How MarginFlow flags it
MarginFlow flags design-origination requests like this as outside_scope on development contracts specifically, distinguishing them from implementation requests ("change this color to #") which are ordinary development work — the explanation makes clear this isn't about the size of the ask but about it being outside the contracted discipline.