A brand kit is the small set of files and exact values that make everything you publish look like it came from one company: your logo files, your colors as hex codes, one or two typefaces, and a few rules for using them. For an app, add the app icon, a handful of current screenshots and a one sentence description. A working brand kit fits on one page plus a folder of files, and most small teams can assemble one in about an hour.
This guide covers what a brand kit must contain, element by element, with the decisions to make for each and a filled in example. It also covers what a kit does not need, how it differs from brand guidelines and a media kit, the tools that hold one, and how to hand it to a freelancer. Each example links to the company's own brand page, and every rule from Apple, the W3C and Google was checked against the source in October 2026.
What is a brand kit used for
A brand kit answers one question quickly: which exact logo, color and font do I use here. Four kinds of reader ask it. You, six months from now, making a post at midnight. A freelancer or new teammate who has never seen your Figma file. A journalist or partner who needs your icon and a description for an article or a listing. And software, because design tools now read a kit directly.
That last reader is why exact values matter. Canva's Brand Kit help page describes the feature as one place to upload and organize official logos, colors, fonts and assets, which team members then use inside the editor. A tool cannot interpret "a warm blue". It can apply #5865F2.
A useful way to judge a kit is to time it. Hand the link to someone who has never worked on the product and ask them to make one square image with your logo, your main color and your headline font. If they finish without sending you a message, the kit works. Every question they ask is a line the kit is missing.
What should a brand kit include
Six things. Each one below lists what you need to decide and shows the entry for an invented app called Tidemark, a tide times app for iPhone, so you can see how short a finished entry is. Everything outside these six is optional until you have a specific reason to add it.
1. Logo and app icon files
Store the app icon at full size and the wordmark as a vector file, each in a version for light backgrounds and a version for dark ones. Apple's Human Interface Guidelines for app icons list a layout size of 1024 by 1024 pixels for iOS, iPadOS and macOS and ask for square, unmasked artwork, because the system applies the rounded corners. Keep that square original in the kit and round the corners yourself only on marketing copies.
The same page gives advice that applies to any logo. It says "Embrace simplicity in your icon design", recommends including text only when it is essential to your brand, and asks for a consistent icon on every platform so people do not mistake one app for several. It also explains the file formats in one line: vector graphics such as SVG or PDF stay crisp at any size, and PNG is the format to prefer for raster artwork because it loses no detail.
Current versions of iOS add one more thing to store. Apple's guidance says people can set their Home Screen icons to a default, dark, clear or tinted appearance, and that the system generates any variant you do not supply. If you designed a dark icon, keep it in the kit beside the default one. Apple's Icon Composer can export a flattened version of a layered icon for marketing use, and that flattened export is the file your posts and press page need.
Add two usage rules and stop. The first is clear space: Mastodon's brand toolkit asks for at least 36 pixels on all sides of its logo, Spotify's design guidelines set an exclusion zone of half the icon's height, and Signal's brand assets page asks for clear space of at least half the size of the logo. The second is a minimum size: Spotify says its full logo should never appear smaller than 70 pixels on screen and its icon never smaller than 21 pixels, and Signal sets its floor at 26 by 26 pixels.
- Decide which mark leads on social posts. For most apps it is the icon, because that is what people tap every day.
- Decide which backgrounds each version may sit on. Raycast's press kit says its dark logo is used only on dark backgrounds and its light logo only on light ones, and that dark backgrounds are preferred.
- Decide the clear space as a fraction of the mark, such as half its height, so the rule works at every size.
- Decide the smallest size you allow, by testing where the mark stops being readable on a phone.
- Decide the corner radius for marketing copies of the icon, and write it down as a percentage of the width.
Tidemark's entry: the icon as a 1024 pixel square PNG, a flattened copy with rounded corners for posts, the wordmark as SVG and PNG in a light and a dark version. Rules: clear space of half the icon's height, the icon never under 24 pixels, and the light wordmark only on the navy background.
2. Colors as exact values
List three to five colors with their hex codes and say what each one is for: background, text, primary, accent. Published kits are shorter than you would expect. Discord's branding page lists three colors: Blurple (#5865F2), Light Blurple (#E0E3FF) and Black (#000000). Linear's brand guidelines list two, a near white and a near black, each with RGB and hex values. Raycast's press kit lists three as well: one brand red (#FF6363) and two dark backgrounds.
Usability research points the same way. Nielsen Norman Group's article on visual hierarchy advises limiting an uncomplicated design to two primary and two secondary colors, because too many colors of similar strength make it harder to see what matters. A palette of four or five named colors is that advice written down.
Then check that your text colors can be read on your background colors. The W3C's explanation of contrast in WCAG 2.2 sets the Level AA minimum at 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text, where large means at least 18 point, or 14 point bold. Text that is part of a logo is exempt. Paste each pair into the WebAIM contrast checker and write the ratio next to the pair in your kit, so nobody sets white text on your light accent color by accident.
Shapes need checking too. A related rule, non text contrast in WCAG 2.2, asks for at least 3:1 between meaningful graphics and the colors next to them. In a post that covers a chart line, a star rating or an icon that carries the message. The W3C adds that these ratios are thresholds and must not be rounded up, so 2.99:1 does not pass 3:1.
- Decide one background color and one text color for it first. Those two carry most posts.
- Decide one primary color, usually taken from the app icon, and one accent for highlights.
- Decide which pairs are allowed for text, and record the ratio of each.
- Decide which pairs are forbidden. A written "never" saves more mistakes than a written "always".
Tidemark's entry: Navy #0B2545 for backgrounds, Foam #F7F9FB for text on navy, Teal #13A89E as the primary, Sand #F2C078 for highlights and Ink #1B1F24 for text on light backgrounds. Foam on Navy measures 14.6:1 and Navy on Teal 5.2:1, so both are safe for any text. Foam on Teal measures 2.8:1, which fails even the large text minimum, so the kit says: text on teal is always navy.
3. One or two typefaces
Name one typeface for headlines and one for body text, the weights you use, and where the license lives. If you need a free option, the Google Fonts FAQ states that all Google Fonts are open source and free, and that you can use them commercially, in a logo and on any surface.
App developers often reach for San Francisco because it is the font inside the app. Read the license first. The agreement on Apple's fonts page says the San Francisco font is to be used solely for creating mock ups of user interfaces for software running on Apple's operating systems. That covers designing your interface. It does not cover a headline on an Instagram post, so pick a marketing typeface you are licensed to use.
Weights and sizes belong in the entry as well, because that is where most drift starts. Apple's typography guidance advises avoiding light font weights in general and names Ultralight, Thin and Light as hard to see when text is small, which is exactly the condition of a post in a feed. The same Nielsen Norman Group article recommends no more than three sizes: one each for the header, the subheader and the body.
- Decide the headline typeface and the one weight you use for headlines.
- Decide the body typeface and at most two weights, a regular and a bold.
- Decide three sizes for a post and name them, such as headline, supporting line and small print.
- Record where each font file and license is stored, so a freelancer does not substitute a lookalike.
Tidemark's entry: Sora at weight 700 for headlines, Inter at 400 and 600 for everything else, both from Google Fonts, three sizes per post and no italics. That is the whole entry.
4. Current screenshots
An app's product is its interface, so a few clean, current screenshots belong in the kit as much as the logo does. Slack's media kit offers high resolution product screenshots for desktop, mobile and tablet in four languages. Raycast's press kit sorts its product shots by platform and by light or dark mode, and states which mode it prefers. You need three to five, retaken after each visible redesign.
If you show them inside a phone, Apple's marketing guidelines ask you to use the product bezels Apple provides, unmodified, and to show fictional account information instead of a real person's data. They also ask for screens made on the latest operating system version, with a status bar that shows full network, wireless and battery icons. The rules are summarized in plain words in our guide to the App Store marketing guidelines, and the pixel dimensions are on the App Store screenshot sizes page.
- Decide which three to five screens explain the app, one job per screen.
- Decide light mode or dark mode and use one of them everywhere.
- Decide the fictional data: one invented name, one place, round numbers that are easy to read.
- Decide who retakes the set, and tie that task to the release that changes the interface.
Tidemark's entry: four screens in dark mode (Today, Week, Spot Search and the Home Screen widget), all showing the invented beach Harbor Point, captured on the newest iPhone the app supports, with a note of the version they were taken on.
5. Your name and a one sentence description
Write down how your name is spelled and what the app does, in one sentence and again in about 50 words. Linear's page opens with exactly this: the name is one word with a capital L, and it is not "Linear app". Flighty's press page carries a ready to paste About section, and Raycast's press kit has a section that gives the company in a single paragraph. People will copy whatever description they find first, so give them the one you want repeated.
Add the store wording once, because it is easy to get wrong. Apple's marketing guidelines say an app is available on the App Store or can be downloaded from the App Store, and they list longer names for the store among the wordings to avoid. Put the correct sentence in the kit and nobody has to look it up again.
- Decide the exact spelling and capitalization of the name, and the versions you do not accept.
- Decide the one sentence: who it is for and what it does, with no adjectives you could not prove.
- Decide the 50 word version, which adds the platform, the price model and one or two features.
- Decide the facts people ask for: launch year, who makes it, where it is available.
Tidemark's entry: "Tidemark", one word, capital T only. One sentence: "Tidemark shows today's tide times and heights for your beach on one screen." The longer version adds that it is an iPhone app, covers the next seven days, has a Home Screen widget and is free to download with a yearly plan for extra locations.
6. Voice in three rules
Captions are part of how a post looks, so a kit needs a few lines on how you write. Keep it to rules someone can apply without thinking. Microsoft sums up its voice in three principles on its brand voice page: warm and relaxed, crisp and clear, and ready to lend a hand. The page separates voice, which stays constant, from tone, which shifts with the situation. If three lines are enough for Microsoft, they are enough for an app with two people.
- Decide who is speaking: "we", "I" or the app's name.
- Decide how you address the reader, and whether you use contractions.
- Decide your punctuation habits, such as no exclamation marks and no emoji in headlines.
- Decide how numbers are written, with units, and which words you never use.
Tidemark's entry: second person, short sentences, no exclamation marks, times and heights always with units. A caption that breaks the rules reads "Huge update!!! You're going to love this". The same caption inside the rules reads "Version 3.0 adds a seven day view. Check Saturday's low tide before you pack the car."
A complete example brand kit for an app
Here is Tidemark's whole kit as one table. Tidemark is invented for this guide, and the contrast ratios were calculated with the WCAG formula. This is what "one page" means in practice: thirteen rows, each one an answer.
| Item | Tidemark's entry | Rule that goes with it |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Tidemark | One word, capital T only. Never TideMark, never Tidemark app |
| One sentence | Tidemark shows today's tide times and heights for your beach on one screen | Use it unchanged in every bio and store listing |
| About 50 words | Tidemark is a tide times app for iPhone. Pick a beach and it shows today's high and low tides, the next seven days, and sunrise and sunset on one screen. A Home Screen widget keeps the next tide in view. Free to download, with a yearly plan for extra locations | For press, partner listings and directories |
| App icon | icon_1024.png, square, plus icon_rounded.png for posts | The square file is the original. Only the rounded copy goes on marketing |
| Wordmark | wordmark_light.svg and wordmark_dark.svg, each with a PNG copy | Light version on Navy only, dark version on Foam only |
| Logo rules | Clear space of half the icon's height. Icon at 24 pixels or more, wordmark at 96 pixels wide or more | Do not recolor, stretch, rotate or add a shadow |
| Colors | Navy #0B2545, Foam #F7F9FB, Teal #13A89E, Sand #F2C078, Ink #1B1F24 | Navy is the background on dark posts, Foam on light posts. Teal and Sand are accents |
| Text pairs that pass | Foam on Navy 14.6:1, Ink on Foam 15.7:1, Navy on Sand 9.2:1, Navy on Teal 5.2:1 | All four clear the 4.5:1 minimum for normal text |
| Text pairs that fail | Foam on Teal 2.8:1, Teal on Foam 2.8:1, Sand on Foam 1.6:1 | Never set text in these pairs, at any size |
| Typefaces | Sora 700 for headlines. Inter 400 and 600 for the rest. Both from Google Fonts | Three sizes per post. No italics, no light weights |
| Screenshots | Today, Week, Spot Search and Widget, dark mode, fictional beach Harbor Point | Retake the set with every release that changes the interface |
| Voice | Second person, short sentences, numbers with units | No exclamation marks. No claim we cannot show in a screenshot |
| Badge and links | Apple's black App Store badge, App Store link, website, press email | One badge per image, at 40 pixels high or more |
Notice what the example leaves out. There is no mission statement, no secondary palette and no page of logo misuse drawings. Notice also the row of pairs that fail. Most kits list only what is allowed, and the first off brand post usually comes from a combination nobody thought to forbid.
What a brand kit does not need
Leave these out until someone asks for them twice:
- A mission statement, brand values or a brand story. They explain why the brand looks the way it does. They do not change what the next post looks like.
- Mood boards and brand archetypes. Useful while a designer is choosing the identity, useless once it is chosen.
- Pages of logo misuse examples. One line does the job. Discord's page handles it in a single sentence that asks people not to alter the logo, then moves on.
- Print values such as Pantone and CMYK, unless you print. Mastodon lists them because it also offers posters and flyers to download.
- A secondary palette of ten colors. Each extra color is one more way for two posts to disagree.
- Rules for motion, sound, photography and illustration. Add each one the first time you make that kind of asset, not before.
Large companies do publish all of that. Dropbox's brand guidelines have sections for framework, voice and tone, logo, typography, iconography, color, imagery and motion, and that is right for a company with a brand studio and hundreds of people making things. A team of three that copies the structure ends up with a document nobody opens. A practical test: if a rule has not been needed in your last 20 posts, it does not belong in the kit yet.
Brand kit vs brand guidelines, style guide and media kit
The four terms overlap, and companies use them loosely. The difference that matters is who the document is for.
| Term | What it is | Who uses it | Typical size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand kit | The files and exact values: logo, icon, colors, fonts, screenshots, description | You, your team and your design tools, every time something is made | One page and a folder |
| Brand style guide | The kit plus rules for using it: layouts, voice, what to avoid | Anyone creating content for the brand | One to ten pages |
| Brand guidelines or brand book | The full system with reasoning: strategy, identity, voice, imagery, motion | Design teams, agencies and partners | Tens of pages or a website |
| Media kit or press kit | What an outsider needs to write about you: description, screenshots, icon, facts, contact | Journalists, reviewers, partners | One page and a download |
Real pages mix the labels. Slack calls its page a media kit, Mastodon calls its page a brand toolkit, Linear and Obsidian say brand guidelines, and Discord's page is titled Brand Assets with a button that says View Brand Kit. All of them hold roughly the same things. Start with the kit. When you are ready to add rules, the brand style guide template turns it into a one page guide.
Two more terms come up in searches. A brand board is the kit shown as a single image, with the logo, the color swatches and a type sample arranged on one canvas. It is handy as a preview, and it is no substitute for the files. Brand identity is the thing itself: the name, the mark, the colors and the type that a designer created. The kit is the container you keep that identity in. You can have an identity and no kit, which is the situation of most small apps, and it is the reason two posts from the same team rarely match.
Brand kit examples from real apps
These are public pages you can open today. The short ones are the best models for a small team.
- Discord: logo, symbol, a clear space rule, three colors with hex codes and a short list of dos and don'ts. Copy the length.
- Mastodon: wordmark, a mark for small spaces, a 36 pixel clear space rule, five colors and product screenshots on one page. Copy the plain instructions on when to use the black or white logo.
- Linear: how to write the name, then wordmark, logomark and icon with a note on when to use each, and two colors. Copy the naming rule.
- Obsidian: a download, a link to the files in Figma and one paragraph of guidelines. Proof that a brand page can be a few sentences long.
- Slack: logos plus product screenshots in several languages. Copy the idea of keeping official screenshots next to the logo.
- Raycast: one paragraph about the company, three colors with hex codes, logo and wordmark in dark and light versions as SVG and PNG, app icons, and screenshots grouped by platform. Copy the order, which follows what a writer needs first.
- Signal: logo downloads, app screens for each platform, and usage rules written as short do and don't lines, including clear space and a 26 pixel minimum. The page shows its last update date, November 8, 2024, which tells a visitor the files are current.
- Day One: a press page with the app's history, three headline numbers, a dated list of milestones, a press contact and one zip file of logos and product images. Copy the milestone list if your app has been around for a few years.
- CARROT Weather: a press kit from a one person studio with a description, what is new in the latest version, pricing, the App Store link, screenshots, a single download with screenshots, promo art and a high resolution icon, awards and a contact. Copy this if you want press coverage.
- Spotify: logo colors, clear space, minimum sizes and a list of misuse cases. Read it for precise wording of logo rules.
Read a few of them in a row and a pattern shows. The pages built by small teams give files, exact values and a handful of rules, and they spend no words on why the brand looks the way it does. They tell you what to use and stop.
What should a press kit include for an app
A press kit is the brand kit's outward facing cousin, and people search for it almost as often. The reader is different: a journalist, a reviewer or a partner who has ten minutes and will copy whatever is easiest. Everything in it should be ready to paste or download without asking you. For an app, the CARROT Weather and Day One pages above are the models, and between them they cover this list:
- A one paragraph description and the one sentence version, the same ones from your brand kit, so coverage repeats your words.
- The app icon in high resolution and the logo in light and dark versions, as one download.
- Five or six current screenshots, plus one image that shows the app in use, with permission to publish them.
- The facts writers check: who makes it, where it is based, launch date, price and plans, platforms, and the App Store link.
- What is new in the latest version, in three lines, with the date. This is the part that turns a press kit into a story.
- Awards, notable coverage and milestones, each with a date, the way Day One lists its history.
- A real contact: a named person and an email address on your own domain that someone reads every day.
Add a way to try the app. If it is paid, App Store promo codes let a reviewer download it free: Apple's help page on promo codes says you can request up to 100 per version for each platform the app supports, that each code works once and stays valid for four weeks from the day it is generated, and that people who redeem one cannot rate or review the app. Send codes one at a time on request, rather than printing them in the kit where anyone can use them.
A brand kit template for an app
This is the blank version of the example above, for an app with a small team. Copy the table into a document and fill in the middle column with your own values.
| Item | What to store | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|
| App icon | A 1024 by 1024 pixel PNG, square, no rounded corners baked in | It is the mark people already know from their Home Screen |
| Wordmark or logo | SVG and PNG, one version for light backgrounds and one for dark | For your website, press and partner listings |
| Logo rules | Clear space, minimum size, and one line: do not recolor or stretch | Stops the most common mistakes without a rulebook |
| Colors | Primary, background, text and one accent as hex codes, with the contrast ratio of each text pair | Exact values are the only kind a tool or a freelancer can apply |
| Typefaces | Headline face and body face, the weights you use, a link to each license | Keeps a third font from appearing and keeps you inside the license |
| Screenshots | Three to five current screens with fictional account data | They are the product, and they go out of date faster than anything else |
| Description | The name as you spell it, one sentence, and a 50 word version | People paste whatever they find first |
| Voice | Three rules: who speaks, punctuation, how numbers are written | Captions are made by whoever is free that day |
| App Store badge | Apple's official badge file, kept at 40 pixels high or more on screen | Apple's marketing guidelines set the minimum size and clear space |
| Links | App Store URL, website, press or support email | Saves a round of messages every time someone features you |
How to make a brand kit in an hour
You are collecting decisions that already exist in your app and on your website, so this goes quickly.
- Pull what exists (10 minutes). Export the icon from your project. Open your asset catalog or stylesheet and copy the colors. If you have a website, the free brand kit generator reads its colors, fonts and logo for you, and Canva's help page says a Brand Kit can also be set up automatically from a website or a PDF.
- Cut the colors to five and check contrast (10 minutes). Delete near duplicates, name each color's job, and record the ratio for every text and background pair. Anything under 4.5:1 is for large text only.
- Confirm the two typefaces and their licenses (5 minutes). If the marketing font is not licensed for marketing, replace it now.
- Export the logo files (10 minutes). Vector and PNG, light and dark, with transparent backgrounds.
- Retake the screenshots (15 minutes). Latest version, fictional account data, three to five screens that each show one thing the app does.
- Write the description and the three voice rules (5 minutes). One sentence, then 50 words. Read both aloud.
- Put it in one place (5 minutes). One page with the values, one folder with the files, one link you can send. Pin that link where the team works.
Doing this for free is realistic: a shared document and a cloud folder are enough. The format matters far less than having a single link that is always current.
Tools to build and store a brand kit
A document and a folder are a complete kit. A tool earns its place when it applies the kit for you, so that picking the right color takes one click inside the place where posts get made. These are the common choices, with what each vendor's own page said in October 2026.
| Tool | Use it for | What its own page says |
|---|---|---|
| Canva Brand Kit | Keeping logos, colors and fonts inside the editor where the posts are designed | The Free plan includes 1 Brand Kit limited to 3 colors, and Pro has 5 Brand Kits at $18 a month for one person, according to Canva's pricing page. Restricting a team to the kit's colors and fonts is a Business plan feature |
| Adobe Express brand kits | The same job for teams already paying for Adobe | Brand kits are listed under Premium, $9.99 a month, on Adobe's pricing page |
| Figma | A design file that holds the logo, colors and type, with post templates built on top | The Starter plan is free on Figma's pricing page. Figma Buzz, in beta, adds brand templates with locked parts for social posts |
| Coolors | Choosing and trimming the palette | The Coolors site offers a palette generator, a tool that extracts colors from a photo and a contrast checker |
| WebAIM contrast checker | Recording the ratio of every text pair | Enter two hex codes and it reports the ratio with a pass or fail for each WCAG level |
| Google Fonts | Typefaces you can use in marketing at no cost | All fonts are open source, and the FAQ says the most common license is the SIL Open Font License |
| Icon Composer | Exporting the app icon for marketing | Apple's page says it can export a flattened version of the icon for marketing and communication needs |
One caution on the free tiers. A kit limited to three colors has no room for a text color, a background, a primary and an accent at once. If you stay on a free plan, keep the full list in your document and treat the tool's kit as a shortcut to the three colors you use most.
Folder structure and file names
Whatever tool you choose, keep one folder that would still make sense if the tool disappeared. Five subfolders are enough:
- Logo: the wordmark as SVG and PNG, named by version and background, such as wordmark_light.svg.
- Icon: the 1024 pixel square original and the rounded marketing copy.
- Screenshots: one subfolder per app version, so old sets are easy to spot and delete.
- Fonts: the font files you are allowed to share, or a text file with the download links and license names.
- Kit: the one page document, exported as a PDF as well, with the date in the file name.
Name files by what they are and where they go, never by version words such as final or new. The date of the last change belongs on the one page document, the way Signal prints an update date on its brand page.
What is a brand kit in Canva, Clipchamp and Copilot
Many people first meet the term inside a tool, as a panel called Brand Kit, and search for what it means there. In each case it is the same idea as this guide, a stored set of logos, colors and fonts, with different limits on who can make one and what it holds. These details come from each vendor's help page, read on October 17, 2026.
- Canva: the Brand Kit holds your logos, colors and fonts inside the editor, and the free plan's version is limited to three colors, as the tools table above shows. Canva's Brand Kit Builder can also create a kit automatically from a website or a PDF of brand guidelines, on Pro, Teams, Enterprise, Education and Nonprofit plans.
- Clipchamp: Microsoft's video editor uses a brand kit to store logos, fonts and colors for videos, along with other branded media. Microsoft's Clipchamp help page says a personal account can add one brand kit, work and school accounts can add several and share them, and logo files can be PNG, JPEG or SVG up to 10 MB.
- Copilot: in the Microsoft Copilot app, an official brand kit is set up by a brand manager whom the IT administrator names. Microsoft's support page on brand kits says it can hold logos, color palettes, typography, templates, photography rules and voice guidance, that built in AI can pull guidelines from existing files, and that it needs a Microsoft Copilot Premium license.
- CapCut: the video app also uses the term, but we could not find an official CapCut help page that describes its brand kit on October 17, 2026, so check inside the app for what your plan includes.
Whichever tool you use, keep the source of truth outside it. A panel in an editor is a shortcut to your values, not the record of them, and the day you switch tools or a free plan limit cuts your palette to three colors, the one page document and the folder are what you still have. The brand kit generator page compares how Canva, Adobe Express and Copilot build a kit in more detail.
How to hand a brand kit to a freelancer
A freelance designer or social media manager will ask for your kit in the first message. What you send decides whether the first draft is usable.
- Send one link, not attachments. A folder link stays current when you replace a screenshot. An email attachment is out of date the same week.
- Give view access to the kit and edit access only to a working folder. The originals stay yours.
- Include three posts you consider on brand and one you consider wrong, with a sentence on why. Examples settle more questions than rules do.
- List what is fixed and what is theirs to decide. Colors, type and logo placement are fixed. Layout ideas, crops and headline wording are open.
- Check the font licenses before you share font files. Fonts from Google Fonts are open source, so the freelancer can download the same files. For a typeface you bought, read its license, or send the name and let the freelancer license their own copy.
- Ask for one test post before a batch. Compare it with the kit line by line: hex codes, weights, clear space, voice rules.
- Ask for source files with the delivery. A flat PNG cannot be corrected when a screenshot changes.
The test post is the step people skip, and it is the cheapest one. A mismatch found in one post costs minutes. The same mismatch found after thirty posts costs the batch.
What should a branding package include when you hire a designer
If a designer is making your identity rather than you assembling one, the brand kit is what they should hand over at the end, and a branding package is the name most studios give to that delivery. Prices vary too much to quote, but the contents should not. Before you agree a fee, ask for the delivery list in writing and check it against this one:
- The logo and the app icon as vector source files, plus exported SVG and PNG versions for light and dark backgrounds.
- The square 1024 pixel icon original without rounded corners, and the layered file it was made from.
- Every color as a hex code, with RGB values, and Pantone and CMYK only if you will print.
- The names of the typefaces, a link to each license, and confirmation that the license covers marketing use by you, not only by the designer.
- A one page usage sheet: clear space, minimum size, allowed color pairs and the backgrounds each logo version may sit on.
- A few applied examples, such as a social post, an App Store screenshot frame and a profile picture, so you can see the kit in use.
- A written transfer of the copyright in the logo and the artwork to you or your company.
The last item is the one people forget, and it matters more than the file formats. Paying for a design does not by itself make you its owner. The U.S. Copyright Office's circular on works made for hire explains that work by someone who is not your employee counts as made for hire only for certain kinds of commissioned work and only under a written agreement. For a logo, ask for a signed assignment of the copyright with the final files. The rules differ by country, so if the logo matters to the business, have a lawyer look at the contract.
Common brand kit mistakes
- Colors described in words. "Our blue" becomes four blues within a month. Hex codes only.
- A logo saved from a screenshot. If the only copy is a small PNG, ask whoever designed it for the vector file now, while they still have it.
- The app icon with corners already rounded. It looks fine until someone places it on a dark background and a white fringe appears. Keep the square original.
- No dark background version. The first dark post then uses the light logo with a white box behind it.
- Screenshots from two versions ago. Followers who open the app see something different from the post.
- Real customer data in screenshots. Apple's marketing guidelines ask for fictional account information, and your users would ask for the same.
- A marketing headline set in San Francisco. Apple licenses that font for interface mock ups only.
- A PDF from last year in someone's downloads folder. If the kit is not a live link, people use the copy they have.
- Too many options. A kit with nine colors and four fonts restricts nothing.
A kit only stores the decisions. Using them is the next job. For laying out posts with these pieces, see how to design social media posts for an app. For keeping the result steady month after month, see brand consistency without a design team.
Where Spreadcast uses a brand kit
Spreadcast builds this kit from your App Store listing. You paste your App Store link once at the start page, and it reads the app icon, the screenshots and the colors in the icon. If the app has a website, the logo and fonts come from there. A brand kit screen lets you correct the logo, colors, screenshots and audience. From then on each app update, new 5 star review and rating milestone becomes a post designed with that kit, which you approve with one tap or let publish by itself. Plans are on the pricing page.