Logo vs brand identity: what you get and which files to ask for

What is the difference between a logo and a brand identity?

A logo answers one question: what is the mark? A brand identity answers the next: what does everything else look like when someone else makes it? That means exact colour values, typefaces with sizes, icons, a grid and written rules for each surface. The brand is a third thing: what customers think of you. No designer can hand that over in a folder.

The difference shows the first time someone else makes something for you. With only a logo, a printer, a web developer and a marketplace manager each pick their own blue and their own font, and you look like three companies. With an identity they open one document and get the same answers.

Which files come with a logo package?

Every file in a logo package has a job. When one is missing, someone later screenshots or redraws your mark.

Favicons are easy to get wrong. An SVG favicon alone is not enough for Google Search: its guidelines (updated 28 August 2026) list BMP, GIF, ICO, PNG, JPEG, PPM and TIFF, with no SVG, and recommend a square larger than 48 × 48 px.

What does a brand identity package add on top of the logo?

The two VITON¹³ packages, line by line. Ask any designer you are comparing to fill in the same rows before you pay.

Two lines matter most. Fixed colour values stop drift: “our blue” in words means one thing to a web developer and another to a printer. The application step tries the system on your real surfaces, so a palette that works on a phone is corrected for cotton or kraft paper during the project, not at the print shop.

Already own a good mark? Standalone brand guidelines cost $73 AI-assisted or $113 human-led over 5–8 working days.

Do you need a full identity yet, or is a logo enough?

A logo alone is enough while one person makes everything customers see on one main surface, such as an Instagram account or a shop sign. Move to an identity when any of these is true:

• Someone else now makes your material: a freelancer, printer, sign maker or marketplace manager.
• You are about to print something expensive to redo: packaging, signage, uniforms.
• You sell in three or more places and they already look like different shops.
• You are launching a product line that needs a family of labels.
• You are pitching investors or distributors, and the deck, site and samples must match.

If none applies, a logo with a one-page usage sheet is the right purchase for now.

What does each cost, and how long does it take?

Each VITON¹³ package runs in two modes: AI-assisted (AI drafts variants, a designer directs and signs off) or human-led (a designer draws, AI assists). The file list is the same; the final price moves with the number of surfaces, lockups and revision rounds.

Where does an identity get applied: website, social, packaging, signage?

Packaging is the most expensive place to find a mistake, because a print run cannot be taken back. The mark must work in one ink, the palette needs print values, and the layout must leave room for what you do not design: barcode, ingredients, legal marks. In the US a single GS1 US GTIN, one barcode number, costs $30 with no annual renewal fee (GS1 US, read 23 Sep 2026). Dielines, SKU variants and print-ready artwork are packaging design, a separate job that starts at $93 at VITON¹³.

What can a small business postpone until later?

Postpone by surface, not by taste: each item earns its place on the day a specific supplier or channel asks for it.

Who owns the files, and what should the contract say?

Paying for a logo does not make you the copyright owner. Under US law, work commissioned from an outside designer counts as “made for hire” only if it belongs to one of nine categories in the Copyright Act and both sides sign a written agreement saying so (Circular 30). A standalone logo usually fits none of them, so the designer keeps the copyright until a transfer is signed in writing (17 U.S.C. § 204(a)).

Copyright covers the drawing; a trademark protects a word or design that identifies your goods or services, and the USPTO notes a logo can be protected that way. A designer's similarity check is not trademark clearance.

The contract should state:

• The final mark and system are assigned to your company in full on payment, in writing and signed.
• The files handed over, by format, including editable sources.
• Rejected concepts stay with the designer and are not resold as variants of your mark.
• Which typefaces are used and who holds each licence. Google Fonts may be used commercially and in logos; paid fonts need a licence in your company's name.
• Any stock, AI-generated or third-party elements, listed.
• Portfolio rights, revision rounds and what counts as new scope.

Which files should you ask for at handoff?

Tick every line before the final payment, whoever the designer is.

• Vector masters of every lockup in full-colour, one-colour and inverted versions, as SVG and PDF, plus the editable source
• Transparent PNGs at the sizes you use now: site header, avatar, email signature
• Favicon in PNG or ICO larger than 48 × 48 px, and in SVG
• HEX and RGB for screen, CMYK for print, a spot colour if you print one ink
• Font names, weights used, files or links, proof of licence
• Heading and body sizes for phone and desktop (identity)
• Safe zone and minimum size as numbers
• Icon set in SVG and a guidelines PDF (identity), or a one-page usage sheet (logo)
• Examples applied to your real surfaces
• A signed rights transfer and an invoice that names the deliverables

Before approving, send the folder to your printer and web developer and ask what is missing; their questions are cheaper to answer now than after the designer moves on.