Always Sign a Contract

Recently, a few friends have asked me to come up with some logos and/or monograms.

Unfortunately for me, i haven't asked them to sign a contract or for deposits up front because "who needs such things when working with friends?" -- WRONG!

So here i am, having wasted a few hours and brain cells - not to mention the hand pain incurred (carpal tunnel -- cliche, i know).... only having to receive the latest reply along the same lines of "Oh, my business partner ended up creating a design himself, but thanks."

One organization actually emailed me late at night frantically begging for some designs to be submitted by 9am the next morning. I checked with them in the morning and they were still desperate for some designs... Many hours after submitting the designs they were 'so desperate' for, i sent an email asking what they thought, only to receive a similar "oh, we went with another idea"

So, now i need to come up with a simple contract for clients stating something along the lines of 'client will pay artist $X upon completion of project, with $X due at start of project as a non-refundable deposit...full payment due before sending final design...'?

Any ideas?

Then again i'll need some actual rates and deposit amounts...

i know one graphic designer who charged $150 (about 6 years ago) for wedding monograms which included an initial 6-8 ideas.

Will an 'electronic signature' hold up?

I'll need to 'watermark' all samples/ideas i send out but how do i know someone won't end up taking my ideas (having them re-created if they are obscured by watermark) and running to someone else to do their design?