As a business, we are dedicated to creating and providing our clients with high quality artwork in all aspects of branding, packaging design, digital design and design for print. The delivered item to the client is known as the ‘end product’ which can be submitted to the client in several phases or as one product at the end of the project, also referred to as product delivery.

The ‘end product’ is any piece of design work that is required by the client upon their initial brief. For example, if a client asks for a brochure design for a 10 paged brochure, the end product is the 10 page brochure design as an entire product. That is, in this case, a PDF print ready digital version of a brochure which consists of 10 pages. Unless specifically requested, the client will not receive the source files for this as the source files are; typically much larger in file size, the intellectual property of the designer and can be built up using multiple files, sources and assets. If a client requires the source files, they must specifically request for source files to be provided in the initial project brief so that the designer or design team can appropriately construct source files in a way that is easily accessible for the client. In many complicated and detailed design projects, providing source files can be extremely tedious due to sorting, arranging, collating and compressing file sizes. If source files are requested by the client in the initial brief, then a fee will be added for providing source files in the job quotation. The fee is calculated based on the complexity and detail of the artwork. 

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• For small and simply built files (up to 50MB in size), the fee for providing source files is £10.00. This is typically Illustrator files for brand identities, illustrations, icons and other simple graphics. 

• For medium and slightly more complex files (between 50MB and 500MB in size), the fee for providing source files is £25.00. This is typically layered Photoshop or InDesign files for basic advertisements, flyers, and brochures.

• For high complexity and intricate design files (over 500MB in size), the fee for providing source files is £50.00. This is typically layered Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign files for 3D digital product mock ups, complex renders, complex advertisements, complex brochures and catalogues.

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The intellectual property for the source file is transferred to the client upon payment for the respective file. Although the client pays for the ‘end product’, the source files are not included as part of the ‘end product’. The client is paying for the ‘end product’ which is the final design as per requested in the brief, like in the example mentioned.

If source files are specifically requested, then the client will be provided with a quote to add the source files to the ‘end product’. 
In cases like packaging design, where the client requires the flat artwork files in Illustrator, they will indeed receive the raw layered flat artwork files saved in Illustrator format (.AI). This is because in this case, the source file is indeed the ‘end product’. Without receiving the layered artwork file, the client cannot make use of the 'end product' as the packaging design cannot be implemented without this file. Therefore, no fee is issued for the source file in this case.

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For clients signed up to one of our ‘Creativity for Hire’ plans, we will provide source files at no fee, if and when requested. Part of the payment plan includes intellectual property ownership of source files.

For all other clients, a fee must be paid to receive source files.

We do this to not only protect our designers, their work and their intellectual property, but also to ensure our clients use source files appropriately, avoiding misuse. 

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An analogy: When we eat at a restaurant, do we ask the chef or waiter if we can take home the pan, the extra raw ingredients, utensils and other paraphernalia used to cook the meal we have eaten? These are all tools and elements used to create the ‘end product’, in this case the meal we’ve paid for.

Similarly, the principle applies to all aspects of business, specifically in this case, for design work. The source files are created by our designers using design tools such as Photoshop, Illustrator and other software, and these files themselves are a canvas to create the very ‘end product’ that the client requires.

Requesting source files at a later date:

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Clients can request source files for their designs at any point up to 12 months from the date of receiving their ‘end product’. As mentioned previously, there is a fee to receive these files (unless subscribed to a ‘Creativity for Hire’ plan).

After 12 months, if these files have not been used, opened or edited, they will be archived. If requested after 12 months, to retrieve these files from archive an additional fixed fee of £35.00 is required, regardless of the complexity and size of the source file. The reason we archive files after 12 months is because of storage capacity, which can be costly. Source files can be extremely large, in some cases reaching several gigabytes worth which costs us to store these. If a project is complete and the files are not used within 12 months of the initial ‘end product’ being delivered, then these files will be archived. If files are in continuous use, the 12 month period will only start from the date in which the file was last opened, edited or saved.

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Files that have been in archive for 12 months (24 months from date last opened, edited or saved), then these will be permanently deleted and removed from our hard drives and storage databases.

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If clients require source files, we highly recommend requesting them upfront before the project has started, so that we are able to quote and plan ahead for source file delivery.