What should a tech startup receive at the end of a branding project: files, font licenses and ownership of the work?

Illustrative situation: a seed-stage team pays its final branding invoice on a Friday. On Monday the first front-end hire asks for the logo as an SVG and the brand blue as a token. The handover folder holds a PDF, three PNGs and a list of hex codes. The headline font turns out to be installed on the agency’s laptops under the agency’s license. The only paper about ownership is a proposal nobody at the agency signed. The scene is invented. It shows the gap this guide helps close: the team paid for an identity and received a picture of it.

Humbleteam, a digital product design agency, publishes this guide. It covers files, color contrast, tokens, font licenses, ownership, stock and AI-made elements, a checklist and an invented example. Sources and product behavior are described as of November 9, 2026 and can change. This is not legal advice: a lawyer who knows your contract and jurisdiction decides what you own. The clauses to negotiate before signing are in our contract checklist. This guide starts when the work arrives.

Which files does each surface need?

Ask for editable masters plus exports, because an export cannot be edited. This list is ours, not a standard.

• Logo: a vector master in full color, one color, and light-on-dark. SVG covers the web.
• Favicon: Google says a favicon must be square and at least 8x8 px, recommends more than 48x48 px and requires a stable URL. Google supports one per host.
• App store icon: Google Play wants a 32-bit PNG at 512 by 512 px, up to 1024 KB. We could not read Apple’s icon rules, so ask your mobile lead to check them before the agency exports.
• Social avatar and email signature: a square crop-safe version and a small raster. Platforms change sizes, so test an upload.
• Usage rules: clear space and a minimum size written as a number. That number decides whether the logo survives in a browser tab.

Also settle where the masters live. Name a folder or Figma team the company owns, with two admins. In Figma only the current owner can transfer a file, and deleting an account also deletes the files in its drafts, whoever owns them. If the identity also changes your name, the product surfaces that carry it are in our rollout guide.

Do the colors pass in the product?

WCAG 2.2 level AA asks for 4.5:1 contrast for normal text and 3:1 for large text, meaning 18 point or 14 point bold. The ratio is not rounded, so 4.499:1 fails. Buttons, input borders and focus rings need 3:1 against their neighbors.

Logos and logotypes are exempt from both rules, so a palette can look right on the logo sheet and still fail in a button. Ask for a table of every text and background pair, the computed ratio, and pass or fail, in light and dark.

What should the product team build with?

A hex list gets retyped by hand, while a tokens file can be imported. The W3C Design Tokens Community Group announced the first stable Design Tokens specification, 2025.10, on October 28, 2025. Its format module uses .tokens or .tokens.json files and core types such as color, dimension and fontFamily.

A Figma library works too. Variables can hold modes, such as light and dark. Publishing a library is not available on the free Starter plan. Ours: ask for token names that match your code’s existing names, or the engineers translate by hand.

Whose name is on the font license?

Monotype says each font file is a separate piece of software, with separate desktop, web, app, ePub and server licenses. Fontfabric’s license page tiers desktop by users, web by monthly pageviews and apps by downloads. Emigre’s web license must be upgraded when monthly pageviews pass the invoiced tier, and an agency may not share one web license across client sites.

Fontfabric lets you share fonts with an agency only for the length of the collaboration. Our reading: a font the agency licensed for its own machines does not cover your website, your app or your hires. Ask for a list: font, foundry, license type, licensee, receipt.

Open-source fonts are simpler. Most of the Google Fonts collection uses the SIL Open Font License 1.1, and some fonts use Apache 2 or the Ubuntu license. The OFL FAQ welcomes use in logos and other graphics. A font bundled in a mobile app must carry its copyright statement, license notice and license text. The font cannot be sold on its own. Read the license of each font you use.

Do you own the work?

Under US law, copyright vests initially in the author, and a commissioned work counts as made for hire only if it fits one of nine listed categories and both parties sign a written instrument saying so. The Copyright Office’s Circular 30 says a work that fails any requirement is not made for hire. A transfer of ownership must be in writing and signed by the owner.

So check for a signed assignment, not a proposal and a paid invoice. Whether a given logo or brand site fits a category is a question for your lawyer. In the UK, the IPO says the creator of a commissioned work is the first owner unless you agree otherwise in writing, and a court may imply a limited license. We did not read EU rules.

An assignment does not cover everything. The Copyright Office’s Circular 33 lists business and product names, domain names, slogans, familiar symbols and typefaces as outside copyright, and says names and short phrases may be protectable under trademark law. The USPTO describes a trademark as a word, phrase or design that identifies goods or services. Trademark clearance is a separate job; see our name check guide.

What about stock, illustrations and AI-made elements?

A stock license is a license, not a transfer of ownership. A Graphic Artists Guild review of six stock sites (the page shows no year) reports that their terms barred licensed imagery from logos, service marks and trademarks, with wording that varies by site. Ask for every third-party element in the identity with its license and licensee.

On AI, the Copyright Office’s January 2025 copyrightability report says copyright does not extend to purely AI-generated material, and that prompts alone do not give enough control. Human-authored expression, creative selection and arrangement, and creative modifications can be protected, case by case. Our inference: an AI-generated mark may have nothing to assign. Ask which elements came from AI tools and what people changed.

What does a handover checklist look like?

Illustrative worked example: Halcrest

Everything here is invented: company, colors and prices. Halcrest sells inspection software to property managers. Its handover folder holds a PDF logo, three PNGs and a hex list.

• Contrast: white text on the brand blue #3D7BFF is 3.84:1. That passes 3:1 for large text and borders and fails 4.5:1 for a 16 px button label. The darker #2F5FD0 gives 5.72:1. Gray body text #8A94A6 on white is 3.06:1 and fails; #5B6577 gives 5.88:1 and passes.
• Fonts: the headline font is licensed to the agency for 2 desktop seats. Halcrest needs 5 desktop seats, a web license for 130,000 monthly pageviews and an app license for 50,000 downloads. Invented prices: $95 per desktop seat, $190 for web up to 100,000 pageviews, $380 for web up to 500,000, $420 for the app. The 130,000 pageviews call for the $380 tier. Total: 5 × $95 = $475, plus $380, plus $420, which is $1,275.
• Ownership: the contract says rights pass “on final payment” and no assignment was signed. The symbol also includes a stock icon.

Halcrest sends one list when the final files arrive: SVG masters, a contrast table with the darker blue, a font license plan, a signed assignment, and a replacement or exclusive license for the stock icon. Before it holds back the final invoice, it asks counsel whether the contract allows that.

Where do these defaults stop working?

We read the pages linked above. We did not read Apple’s icon rules, EU or other non-US ownership rules, or the current license text of any stock site. Foundry terms differ, so read the real license. The Copyright Office report is the Office’s position, not a court ruling. WCAG AA is a floor, not proof of usability. The checklist, file list and example are ours, and we tested no tool.

What can you produce now?

Five things, in about a week:

1. A file inventory against the checklist, with gaps marked.
2. A contrast table for every text and background pair in your product.
3. A font license list with a buy-or-replace decision for each font.
4. An ownership packet for your lawyer: the contract, the SOW and every third-party license.
5. A named home for the master files, with two admins.

To compare teams for the identity work itself, see our comparison of startup branding agencies.