Commissioning a logo and a minimum brand kit

Updated 4 September 2026 · reading time about 8 minutes

There are two ways a logo gets paid for twice. The name changes after the mark is drawn, or what arrives is a picture rather than an editable original. Neither is a design failure. Both are briefing failures, and both are settled in the half hour before you order.

Commission after the name stops moving

Outsource when the name is settled, you can say in one sentence where the brand sits in its market, and you know roughly who the buyer is. Do it yourself, or simply wait, when the name is still moving. A mark drawn around a name you abandon next week is paid for twice, and the second attempt is not a continuation of the first — it is a new job with a new brief, because the letterforms were the design.

Waiting is not idleness. Set the working name in one typeface you already hold a licence for, put that in the header, and leave it. A plain wordmark is not embarrassing; it is a placeholder you can replace later without unpicking anything else you have made. The first sale turns on whether the product page answers an objection and whether checkout survives a phone, and neither improves because the mark got prettier. The 7-task launch outsourcing checklist sets out what deserves attention ahead of this.

One check before the brief goes out: confirm the name is actually usable on the surfaces you will trade on — the domain, the handles, the marketplaces. A mark built around a name you cannot put on the storefront is the same waste arriving later.

What you are actually buying

Not a nice mark. A set of files that has to survive the next two years of everything else you produce.

At minimum that means a primary lockup for the site header, a stacked or square variant that still reads after being cropped into a circle for avatars, a one-colour version for packaging, labels, stamps and invoices where only one ink is available, and a written record of the colours and typefaces so the next thing you order matches this one.

That last item is the one people leave out, and it is the one that makes the rest reusable. A brand kit does not have to be a fifty-page document. One page — colour values for screen and for print, typefaces named, the smallest size the mark may be used at, and how much clear space it needs — is enough to keep a retoucher, a theme developer and a printer producing work that looks related. Without it every later supplier guesses, and their guesses will not agree with each other.

Whoever builds or restyles your theme will ask for these files by name. Having them in hand is the difference between a build that proceeds and a build that waits on you: see briefing a landing page or theme build.

Why the source file is the whole negotiation

Ask for the editable vector original in writing before you order. Almost everything else in the deal is recoverable afterwards. This is not.

A flattened export is a photograph of a decision. You cannot adjust the spacing in it, set the mark in a second colour, lift the icon out on its own, or scale it to a shopfront without it turning to mush. Each of those becomes a new order, and it has to be an order with the same seller, because nobody else holds the file. That is the trap: without the original, the person who drew your mark holds a quiet veto over your brand for as long as you use it, and if they stop trading you are redrawing from a picture.

So confirm two things — that an editable vector source ships, and which application produced it. A source file you cannot open is only marginally better than none. A seller who answers both questions plainly is also telling you something useful about how the rest of the job will go.

Typefaces are a licensing question, not a taste question

A wordmark is usually a typeface with the letterforms adjusted. Which typeface was used therefore matters commercially, not only aesthetically.

Have the typefaces named in writing and their licensing status disclosed before you order. A mark set in a typeface you hold no commercial licence for is a mark you may not be able to ship on packaging, run in paid ads, or sell a product under. The exposure sits with you, not with the seller who picked the font. Ask which typefaces were used, where they came from, and what licence covers commercial use — then confirm that licence covers your actual uses, held in your own name.

The clean way through it is two separate requests. Ask for the delivered artwork with the lettering converted to outlines, so the file no longer depends on a font being installed anywhere. Then ask separately which typefaces to use for headings and body text across the site, with their licensing noted. Both belong in the brief, and they are not the same question.

Usage rights and trademark intent

What you may do with a delivered mark varies by seller and by package. It is not something to infer from the confident tone of a listing.

Agree usage rights in writing before ordering, and raise trademark intent up front rather than after the fact. Whether the design becomes exclusively yours, whether the seller may display it in a portfolio, whether a near-identical concept may be sold to someone else — these differ from seller to seller and from package to package. If you may want to register the name and mark, say so at briefing, because artwork assembled from shared stock elements or drawn close to an existing brand can be a poor candidate no matter who produced it. This page is not legal advice: confirm the terms with the seller, and where a filing is planned, with a professional qualified in the market you intend to file in.

One habit worth keeping: leave the agreement in the written thread. A message where the seller states what is included, in their own words, is worth considerably more three months later than your memory of what you assumed.

Customising a pre-made mark or commissioning an original

Both are legitimate, and they suit different situations. Pretending otherwise is how founders overbuy while the category is still a guess, then underbuy at the point the mark actually has to carry weight.

Customised pre-made mark versus commissioned original, compared on what changes later
Dimension	Pre-made mark, customised	Commissioned original
Distinctiveness	Assembled from shapes available to everyone using the same library. Workable when the name carries recognition.	Drawn around your name and category, so the icon can carry recognition without the name beside it.
Turnaround	As fast as you can make decisions, because you do the iterating yourself.	Runs on the seller's schedule plus revision rounds. Plan a launch around it, not into it.
Source files	Depends on the tool and the package. Confirm what is included before you commit, because this is the part you cannot add afterwards.	Negotiable, and should be named in the order. Ask for the editable vector original explicitly.
Revision latitude	Endless within the editor, but bounded by what the editor exposes. Nothing outside those controls is available at any point.	Bounded by the rounds you agreed, but open in the sense that a person can act on a reason.
Risk of visual collision	Higher. Shared component libraries mean another store may land somewhere close to you, including in your own category.	Lower, though never zero. Ask what reference material informed it and check the mark visually before committing.
Suits	A name-led brand, a category you may still abandon, a shop that needs to look coherent this week.	A name you have committed to, packaging heading to print, anything you may want to register later.

What moves a quote here: the number of initial concepts, the number of revision rounds, whether the editable source and the full variant set are included or sold separately, whether a brand-kit page is part of the order, rush turnaround, and add-ons such as packaging artwork or social templates. Ask for a quote against the finished brief below rather than against the category, because the brief is what sets the real scope.

Where to look: logo design listings for a commissioned original, or Fiverr's own Logo Maker to customise a pre-made mark instead. Read either the same way you would read any listing: vetting a seller in any category.

The brief

Fill this in and send it as the order description. None of it requires design vocabulary. It requires you to decide what you want and write it down where a stranger can act on it.

Brief

NAME
Exact spelling and capitalisation, as it must always appear:
Punctuation that is part of the name (ampersand, full stop, hyphen):
Any word that must never be abbreviated or shortened:
Tagline, if one must sit inside the lockup (verbatim):

PRODUCT AND BUYER
One sentence on what the product is and who buys it:
Where the buyer first meets the brand (feed, search, shelf, box):

TONE
Three brands whose visual tone I want to sit near, with links:
  1.
  2.
  3.
Two brands I do not want to look like, and why:
  1.
  2.

SURFACES THE MARK MUST SURVIVE
Site header, small, beside navigation:
Social avatar, cropped to a circle at app-icon size:
Packaging or label, one ink, on coloured stock:
Invoice and shipping paperwork, black on white:
Ad end-frame, over footage, light and dark backgrounds:
Anything physical: embroidery, engraving, foil, vinyl, stamp:

COLOUR
Colours I must match (existing packaging, print, or none):
Colours to avoid, and why:
Must also work in a single colour: yes / no

DELIVERABLES
Editable vector source, with the application it was made in named
Vector and transparent raster exports for web use, at the sizes my
  theme and profiles require (I will confirm each current requirement)
Primary horizontal lockup
Stacked or square variant for avatars
One-colour black version, and a knockout version for dark backgrounds
Simplified icon-only mark for very small use
Brand kit page: colour values for screen and print, typefaces named,
  minimum size, clear space
Number of initial concepts, and revision rounds included

TERMS TO STATE IN WRITING
Commercial usage rights granted, in plain wording:
Whether the design is exclusive to me once delivered:
Typefaces used, their source, and their licensing status:
Whether lettering is delivered converted to outlines:
That I may seek to register this name and mark:
Delivery date, and what counts as a revision:

Check on delivery

Open the source file, do not just receive it. An editable vector original must be present, not only flattened exports. If you cannot open it yourself, have someone open it before the order closes. Without it, every future edit is a re-purchase from one seller.
Shrink it to avatar size on an actual phone. Send the file to yourself and look at it in a message thread at the size a profile picture renders. Judge it there, not on a laptop.
Strip the colour out. The one-colour version has to stay readable in black on white and in knockout on a dark ground. Print a sheet and look at it at arm's length.
Read the name character by character. Spacing adjustments are where a full stop disappears or an ampersand becomes "and".
Confirm the typefaces are named and their licensing status stated, and that any lettering you asked to be outlined has been.
Tick the deliverables against what you ordered. A subset delivered confidently is easy to accept by accident: the stacked variant, the monochrome version and the brand kit page are the ones that go missing.
Look the mark up visually before you commit it to packaging. Artwork built on a widely sold stock element may sit closer to another store than either of you would like.

Where to look: logo design listings.

Approve it at the size it will be used

Concepts arrive as a presentation: the mark large, centred, on a clean background, viewed on a laptop. It looks decided. Then it goes live and the header renders it at a fraction of that size, the avatar crops it to a circle, the ad end-frame drops it over dark footage. The fine outline vanishes, the tagline turns to grey fuzz, and the icon that read as a bird now reads as a smudge. That is rework created at the approval step rather than at the drawing stage, which makes it the round most easily avoided.

So approve the way the mark will be seen. Phone screen, avatar size, in a real thread. One colour against black. Printed and held at arm's length. A concept that survives those three will look after itself when it is large. A concept that does not should be simplified now, while simplification is still a revision rather than a fresh order.

Decide as well whether the icon has to work on its own. A lockup where the name does the recognising can carry a delicate mark. An avatar-first brand cannot, and that constraint belongs in the brief, not in the feedback on round two.

The mark is the smallest part of what you are buying. What you are buying is the ability to make the next asset without going back to anyone: an editable source, a variant for every surface you actually sell on, and one page naming the colours and typefaces. Secure that and a modest mark ages well. Miss it and an excellent mark becomes a permanent dependency.