Brand Design Deliverables: Rights, Fonts, and Source Files

After finishing a brand design project and paying the final balance, many companies receive a cloud-drive link containing only a polished PDF manual and a few JPG previews. A month later, when the administration team asks a printer to produce business cards and packaging boxes, the printer says, “You need to give me the AI vector file with the text converted to outlines.” The marketing team wants to make a PPT with the new template but discovers that the text in the PDF cannot be edited at all. More alarmingly, six months later, the legal team suddenly receives a letter from a font foundry’s lawyer stating that the standard lettering beside your logo uses its commercial font without authorization!

To avoid “paying for design only to receive incomplete assets or even end up in a copyright lawsuit,” be sure to check the handover package item by item against the following 4 checklists when accepting a completed brand project:

I. Logo and Graphic Asset Package in All Formats (Logo & Graphic Assets)

The designer cannot provide only an original project file, because ordinary employees do not have Adobe Illustrator installed on their computers. A proper logo asset package must be organized into folders by color mode (full color, solid black, reversed white, and gold/silver production artwork) and layout (horizontal, vertical, and graphic-only versions), with each version supplied in 4 formats:

1. Print and editable vector formats (.ai / .eps / .pdf): All text must have been converted to outlines (Outlined), ensuring that any printer anywhere in the world can open the file without distortion caused by missing fonts.
2. Vector format for web and digital development (.svg): For direct use by website frontend engineers and app developers, with a small file size and perfectly sharp rendering at any scale.
3. Transparent raster images for everyday office use (.png): Supply high-resolution (300dpi) images with transparent backgrounds so sales and administrative staff can drag them straight into Word or PPT.
4. Website and social media profile icons (Favicon & Avatar): A precropped icon package in 512×512px, 180×180px, and 32×32px sizes.

II. Copyright and Licensing Boundaries for Fonts and Brand Lettering

This is the area most prone to costly mistakes. Two things must be distinguished during handover:

• Logo lettering (Logotype): If the company’s abbreviated Chinese and English names beside the mark are entirely original, hand-drawn letterforms created by the designer, or are reshaped and reconstructed from open-source fonts that are free for commercial use, their full copyright belongs to the company, and trademark registration and commercial use involve no fees or concerns. If letterforms from a commercial font library are used, confirm the font library’s specific licensing terms for “use as a corporate logo or trademark.”
• Everyday body fonts specified by the VI guidelines: For fonts regularly used in PPT, brochure body text, and the corporate website, we strongly recommend prioritizing high-quality, free, open-source fonts for commercial use, such as Source Han Sans/Serif, Alibaba PuHuiTi, HarmonyOS Sans, Inter, and Roboto, and including authentic font installation files directly in the handover package. If the client insists on paid commercial fonts from Founder, Hanyi, Monotype, or similar providers, the deliverables list must state the font library name and official purchasing channel. The company must complete the appropriate purchase by year or legal entity before using them in publicly released materials.

III. Working Office and Social Media Templates with Directly Editable Text

In addition to the fixed-layout “VI Visual Identity Guidelines PDF,” the application system’s PPT presentation masters (.pptx), Word official stationery templates (.docx), and social media cover masters (Figma links or layered .psd files) must remain editable with unmerged layers. Open a .pptx file on the spot, try changing a heading and replacing an image, and confirm that the font sizes, colors, and master placeholders all work correctly. Only then is the brand asset handover truly complete.