You can tell almost everything about a brand by what happens after someone says, “Approved. We are going with this one.”

In that quiet moment, a logo stops being a private file on a designer’s screen and becomes public property. It will be dragged into slides at midnight, dropped into social templates, printed on lanyards, stitched into jackets, and squinted at on sponsor walls from twenty rows back. The way you deliver that logo determines whether it survives all of this with its dignity intact, or slowly fractures into a dozen off brand cousins.

This is a guide about that moment, about how to deliver your final logo package so it works for the people who will actually use it, not just the people who argued over kerning.

At SendTheLogo, we live in that space between “final file” and “real world use.” We see what happens inside marketing teams and agencies when logo packages are handled well, and what happens when they are not, scattered files, constant requests, quietly eroding consistency, and one exhausted “logo person” in the middle of it all.

What follows is a complete, modern, and slightly opinionated guide to how to deliver your final logo package in a way that feels as considered as the logo itself.

How to Deliver Your Final Logo Package: A Step by Step Guide

1. Understand What a Final Logo Package Really Is

A final logo package is not a single PDF that gets buried in someone’s downloads folder. It is a small, durable system. Across reputable design guides and professional practice, that system almost always includes:

• A handful of logo layouts that can survive different shapes and spaces
• A set of color versions that work on light and dark backgrounds
• Vector and raster formats for print and digital
• A simple structure and naming convention that non designers can actually use
• A brief set of instructions that keeps people from guessing

Think of it as a survival kit. Wherever the logo ends up, whether on letterhead, LinkedIn, or a 16 foot banner, the kit should already contain the right version, in the right format, with the right colors, and clear clues about which one to choose.

At SendTheLogo, we describe ourselves as a brand delivery tool for exactly this reason. We are not trying to archive every asset you own. We are trying to make sure that when someone says “Can you send me the logo,” the answer is no longer an email, but a single reliable place.

2. Clean the Master Before It Leaves the Studio

The invisible heart of any good logo package is the master file. If it is sloppy, every exported child will carry that sloppiness forward.

Before you think about folders or filenames, open your vector file and make it ruthlessly honest.

Outline the type, so the logo does not depend on missing fonts. Simplify shapes, so what looks like one clean mark is not secretly five overlapping shapes that choke a vinyl cutter. Remove stray points and ghost elements hiding off the artboard. Make sure every color is tied to a deliberate swatch, not the relic of a random experiment.

Save two versions. One is your fully editable, layered master, where the typography still lives and nothing is flattened. The other is your “clean for export” file, where everything is outlined, grouped, and ready to produce all the formats your client will ever need.

No one will thank you for this in the moment. No one will see the difference in a portfolio upload. But months from now, when someone else needs to re output a logo for a new use, this is the difference between “no problem” and “who built this thing?”

3. Plan Logo Variations for the Real World

The fastest way to guarantee a distorted, misused logo is to pretend a single layout will fit every context. The second fastest is to give your client twelve near identical versions and wish them luck. A good final package lives in the middle. In practice, most brands need a small, disciplined set of layouts:

• A primary lockup, the version that feels like “the logo”
• A secondary layout that handles the opposite proportion, horizontal or stacked
• A stripped down mark or icon for small spaces and avatars
• A version without a tagline, because taglines rarely survive at small sizes
• Optional one color or minimal marks for highly constrained applications

You do not create variations to show how clever you are. You create them so the logo never has to be stretched, squashed, or crammed into a space it was not meant to occupy.

When you are tempted to add a new layout, ask a simple question,

“Is there a real use case for this in the next year, or is this just indulgence?”

If it is the former, it belongs. If it is the latter, let it go. The most generous thing you can do for your client is to make their choice obvious.

4. Treat Color as Infrastructure, Not Decoration

Color is where design fantasy and production reality often collide. On your screen, the brand blue sings. On a printed brochure from a rushed local vendor, it sighs. Somewhere between those two outcomes lies your color strategy. You need to work on two levels. First, the technical one. Prepare both CMYK and RGB versions of your logo. CMYK exists for print, where ink and paper define the rules. RGB exists for screens, where light does the work. A logo intended to show up in both worlds must have a version tailored to each, otherwise you will spend your life explaining why the LinkedIn banner looks different from the trade show sign.

Second, the visual one. Build a clear set of color versions:

• Full color, for when the brand can sing
• A black version, for single color applications
• A white version, for dark backgrounds
• Any special inverse or “knockout” versions your system requires

Do not stop there. Document the values. At minimum, give people HEX, RGB, and CMYK. If Pantone is part of the system, name the exact swatches.

SendTheLogo leans so hard on this idea that we made it a feature. When you upload a logo, we automatically extract its colors and show HEX, RGB, CMYK, and more, right next to the logo in your portal. You can organize primary, secondary, and accent palettes and export them for design tools. Color stops being a buried note in a PDF and becomes something people can actually use.

Even if you never touch our software, you can steal the philosophy. Treat color like infrastructure. Make it hard for anyone in your organization to say “I guessed.”

5. Choose File Formats That Match Reality

Clients often ask, “Which files do we really need?” Designers often answer, “All of them,” and then hand over a zip archive that looks like someone emptied the contents of their working folder. You can be more precise. For most modern brands, there are two families of formats worth caring about.

Vector formats, which scale without losing sharpness, belong to the world of print, production, and large scale applications. These include your native design format, such as AI or an equivalent, plus PDF, and usually EPS or SVG. Printers and sign makers will recognize these. Developers will appreciate SVG. Anyone making something physical will demand a vector.

Raster formats, made of pixels, belong to the everyday world of slides, documents, and lightweight digital use. Here, PNG and JPG are still the workhorses. PNG handles transparency. JPG keeps file sizes small.

From a practical standpoint, the minimum package looks like this:

• AI or a native vector file for editing
• PDF as a universal vector for print and archiving
• EPS or SVG for vendors who require them
• PNG in a generous size for screen use
• JPG in a similar size for places where transparency is not needed

At SendTheLogo, we have simply automated this thinking. You upload once, and the system converts your logo into all the standard formats and sizes you need, then makes them available in one place for anyone who visits your portal.

Working manually or with tools, the principle is the same. Do not flood people with options. Give them the formats they will encounter in real life, clearly labeled, in sizes that will not betray them when projected, printed, or posted.

6. Make Your Folder Structure an Interface, Not a Puzzle

If you are delivering logos as files and folders rather than through a portal, those folders function as your product interface. They should feel obvious, not clever.

A simple structure might look like this:

• BrandName_Logo_Package
• 01_Primary
• 02_Secondary
• 03_Icon

Inside each of those, you might separate:

• Print_CMYK, with AI, PDF, and EPS
• Digital_RGB, with SVG, PNG, and JPG

The exact names do not matter as much as the feeling. Someone who has never opened design software should be able to click once or twice and feel confident that they have arrived in the right place. That means plain language, not codes. “Primary” instead of “Lockup_A.” “Print” instead of “CMYK Assets” for those who do not speak in acronyms.

The same principle drives how SendTheLogo organizes its portals. Logos are grouped visually. Colors sit beside them. Download buttons say exactly what they are, from PNG to EPS to “Website header.” You never need a legend to decode it. Treat your folder structure as a small act of hospitality. You are guiding people, not testing them.

7. Write a Small Logo Guide That Prevents Big Problems

A logo package without any explanation is an invitation to improvisation. You do not need a 60 page brand bible to counter this. In many cases, a two or three page logo guide, written in humane language, is enough to prevent most avoidable mistakes.

That guide should answer questions like:

• Which version is the “main” logo?
• When do we use the secondary layout or the icon?
• What is the difference between CMYK and RGB, in words anyone can grasp?
• Which file should I use if I am sending something to a printer?
• Which file should I use if I am making a slide deck?
• What are the brand colors, and how do I copy them?
• What must we never do to the logo?

The voice here matters. At SendTheLogo, we favour plain speech and direct verbs. “Ready for press, print, and social in seconds.” “Never resize, convert, or resend a logo again.” There is very little jargon in that. It is the same tone you should borrow for your guide.

For example:

• “If you are sending files to a printer, use the PDF or EPS files in the Print folder.”
• “If you are adding the logo to PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides, use the PNG files in the Digital folder.”
• “If you are not sure which to use, start with PNG. If it looks blurry when you make it big, ask for a vector file.”

You are not trying to impress your peers. You are trying to protect your logo from well intentioned people working in a hurry.

8. Rethink Delivery, from Zip Archive to Single Source of Truth

For years, the standard handoff ritual went like this, export, organize, zip, upload to Dropbox or Google Drive, paste a link into an email, and hope for the best. That method still works in the short term. In the long term, it fails in predictable ways. Links break. Files move. People save “their” copy locally and forget there was ever a canonical source. New hires are given old zip archives. Half a decade later, nobody is entirely sure which version was supposed to be final. We built SendTheLogo as a quiet rejection of that pattern.

Instead of treating the logo as an attachment that travels, we treat it as a place people visit. The logo lives in a branded portal, at a simple URL. In that portal sit all the variations, formats, and colors you intended, along with optional style guides. Teammates, vendors, and partners can arrive there at any time, with no login, and download exactly what they need.

You send one link. It stays current. It becomes the sentence everyone in the company learns, “If you need the logo or brand colors, go to brandname.sendthelogo.com.”

If you are not using a portal yet, you can still approximate this mentality. Decide on one “home” for your logo assets, whether that is a shared drive folder, an intranet page, or a knowledge base entry. Put the files, the colors, and the guide there. Then treat every other delivery, including zips and email attachments, as temporary mirrors of that source.

The mechanics matter less than the promise. There should be exactly one place where people feel sure they are seeing the right thing.

9. Onboard People, Not Just Files

A logo package is not fully delivered when the zip hits someone’s inbox. It is delivered when the people who will use it know where to go and what to do.

Take five minutes for that step.

Record a short walkthrough video. Spend five slides in your final presentation explaining the structure and the portal. Write one clear paragraph in your handoff document that says,

“From now on, the logo and brand colors live here.”

In the SendTheLogo BrandScript, we describe the transformation that happens when a marketing or brand lead does this. Before, they are the person everyone bothers for the logo. After, they are the person who gave the company a self serve home for the brand. That is not accidental. It is design. You are not only designing the mark on the page. You are designing the way your organization will request and use that mark for years.

10. Avoid the Common Mistakes That Undermine a Good Logo

Even thoughtful teams fall into familiar traps at the finish line.

They send only raster files and discover too late that there is nothing vector for the sign maker. They ignore CMYK, and every printed piece comes back slightly wrong. They overwhelm clients with endless variations and formats, then wonder why nobody uses the right one. They give files cryptic names that require translation. They rely on fragile links that die quietly. They skip documentation and answer the same four questions every month.

You can avoid all of this with a few simple commitments:

• Always include vector formats.
• Always prepare both CMYK and RGB.
• Curate variations and formats instead of dumping everything.
• Name things for humans, not for your internal shorthand.
• Give the logo a stable home, not a disposable link.
• Write down the rules you keep explaining out loud.

None of this is glamorous. All of it is the difference between a logo that stays whole and one that slowly unravels.

11. Use a Final Checklist Before You Hit Send

Before you call anything “final,” look at this list and answer yes to each line.

• Are your master files clean, with outlined text and sensible swatches?
• Do you have a small, intentional set of logo layouts?
• Have you created both CMYK and RGB versions?
• Do you have full color, black, white, and any necessary inverse versions?
• Have you exported vector formats, including at least one universal choice such as PDF?
• Have you exported raster formats, at least PNG and JPG, in generous sizes?
• Is your folder structure, if you use one, clear to a non designer?
• Have you written a short logo guide in plain language?
• Does your logo have a single, reliable home, whether a folder, a page, or a portal?

If you are using SendTheLogo, much of this condenses into a three step ritual, upload your logos, configure your portal, share the link, and stop resending files forever.

12. Remember the Quiet Power of a Well Delivered Logo Package

A logo is rarely judged at the moment of approval. It is judged in hindsight, through a thousand small appearances.

The final logo package, handled carelessly, becomes the source of slow, silent damage. Wrong blues. Fuzzy exports. Improvised lockups. A sales deck here, a sponsorship banner there, and suddenly the brand looks like a collection of approximations. Handled well, the same moment becomes a quiet triumph. People know where to go. They find what they need. The logo looks like itself on screen, on paper, on stage. The person who once fielded every logo request is now free to focus on campaigns, strategy, and ideas.

You cannot control every slide deck or every print run. But you can decide how your logo enters the world.

Deliver it as if you expect it to be seen everywhere. Give it the formats, colors, and guidance it deserves. Give your team one place to find it, and one sentence to remember it by. And then, when someone inevitably asks, “Can you send me the logo,” you will have the rarest privilege in marketing.

You will be able to say, “You already have it,” and know that it is true.