The folder you hand over

The deliverable is a folder, not a file

A client who receives one PNG will, within six months, have somebody redraw the mark in Word, stretch it on a banner, and put it on a dark background with a white box behind it. Every one of those is preventable by what you hand over.

The folder

acme-logo/
  README.txt
  01-usage/
    acme-logo-usage.pdf
  02-print/
    acme-logo-primary-cmyk.pdf
    acme-logo-primary-cmyk.eps
    acme-logo-stacked-cmyk.pdf
    acme-logo-mono-black.pdf
    acme-logo-mono-white-knockout.pdf
    acme-icon-cmyk.pdf
  03-screen/
    acme-logo-primary.svg
    acme-logo-primary-1024.png
    acme-logo-primary-512.png
    acme-icon-256.png  128.png  64.png  32.png  16.png
    acme-favicon.ico
  04-source/
    acme-logo-master.ai        (or .cdr / .svg / .afdesign)
    acme-logo-master-outlined.pdf
  05-fonts/
    fonts.txt

Five folders, numbered so they sort in the order somebody needs them. The numbering is not decoration; it is the difference between a client finding the right file and picking whichever is first alphabetically.

What each file is for

• PDF is the universal print deliverable. Vector, fonts outlined, opens everywhere, and a printer with nothing else can use it.
• EPS because some older shops and some embroidery digitisers still ask. No transparency in it, which is fine for a flat mark.
• SVG for the web and for developers.
• PNG with transparency at declining sizes, because the client will need them and will otherwise make them badly.
• ICO for the favicon, containing 16 and 32 px, because browsers still want one.
• The source file in your working format, clearly named as the master.
• An outlined PDF of the master as a format-independent archive, so the mark survives even if nobody can open your .cdr in ten years.

The usage PDF

Four to six pages, no more. Anything longer is not read.

1. The mark, large, and the lockups.
2. Clear space and minimum sizes, shown as diagrams with the unit drawn.
3. Colours: hex, RGB, CMYK, Lab, and the spot reference if there is one. Lab because it is the only value that means the same thing at two different printers.
4. The one-colour and knockout versions, with a line saying when each is used.
5. Backgrounds: what is allowed, what needs the plated version.
6. The “do not” page, with six crossed-out examples.

The README

A plain text file, ten lines, at the top level. It is read by the person who opens the folder in a hurry.

ACME logo pack — delivered 2026-09-21, v1.0

If you are a printer: use 02-print/acme-logo-primary-cmyk.pdf.
If you are a web developer: use 03-screen/acme-logo-primary.svg.
If you are an embroiderer: use 02-print/acme-logo-mono-black.pdf and read
  page 4 of 01-usage/acme-logo-usage.pdf for minimum size.

Colours:  Primary  #0B5FA5  /  C90 M60 Y0 K10  /  Lab 38 -3 -44
          Black    100K only for small text

Do not redraw or re-set the wordmark. The source file is in 04-source/.
Contact: <your name and email>

Naming that survives

Lowercase, hyphens, no spaces, no version numbers in the filename except in the source. acme-logo-primary-cmyk.pdf tells you what it is. Logo FINAL final2 (1).pdf does not, and you will be sent it by somebody within the year.

Send it as a zip, and keep a copy

Zip the folder and send it once, with the README’s contents pasted into the email so it is read before anything is downloaded.

Then keep your own copy, with the date, indefinitely. You will be asked for it again: after a hard disk fails, after the marketing person leaves, after the client changes printers. Being the person who still has the file three years later is worth more business than most portfolios.

What to leave out

A delivery pack gets worse as it gets larger, because the client stops being able to find anything in it. Three things people include that they should not:

• Every intermediate version. Ship the final. Keep the rest in your own archive.
• Mockups. The photograph of the mark on a mug is a presentation asset, not a deliverable, and somebody will send it to a printer.
• A forty-page brand manual for a business with four employees. They will not read it and its existence makes the six rules that matter harder to find.

Walk the pack before you send it

Open the zip on a machine that is not yours: a different laptop, a phone, a cyber café computer. Then answer three questions as if you were the client.

1. Can I find the file a printer needs, from the README alone, in under thirty seconds?
2. Does the SVG open and render correctly in a browser?
3. Do the PNGs have genuine transparency, or a white background somebody will notice on a dark slide?

Those three checks catch nearly every packaging failure, and each takes a few seconds. The pack is the last thing the client sees of your work, and it is the only part of it that their next three suppliers will ever see at all.