Fonts and stock in client work: what transfers to the client and what does not

The handover email goes out on a Friday: final files, the working folder, and, because the client asked for "everything," the fonts. Most designers have done it. Under most font licences it is a breach, and the only reason it rarely causes trouble is that nobody checks.

This page is what four common licences actually say about the moment work passes from you to a client, read from the licence texts. It describes the terms; it is not advice about your contract or your case, licences change, and North is not legal counsel.

Adobe Fonts

The terms as recorded from Adobe's font licensing FAQ, and as cited in the contract-clauses post: the font files may not be transferred to another user or another computer, which means they cannot be packaged with your working files or sent to a client or a printer. What you may do is use the fonts to make things: vector artwork, outlined type, a PDF with the font embedded, a raster export. Those you can hand over, and the client can use them for any purpose. They keep working if your subscription lapses, because the letterforms sit in the artwork rather than on your machine.

We tried to reach Adobe's page again today to quote it directly and could not load it, so the paragraph above stands on the earlier reading and not on a fresh one. If it matters to a job in front of you, read the page yourself before you rely on it.

Where this bites is live, editable text. A client who wants to change the wording in the brand template themselves needs their own licence for the typeface. Say so at handover, and name the typefaces so they can buy the right ones.

Google Fonts and the Open Font License

Fonts on Google Fonts are released under the SIL Open Font License, version 1.1, whose official text is short enough to read in full. The permission is broad: to use, study, copy, merge, embed, modify, redistribute and sell modified and unmodified copies of the font software. It permits bundling and embedding with other software provided the copyright notices and licence terms remain intact.

Three conditions. Neither the font software nor any of its components may be sold by itself. A modified version may not use the reserved font name without the copyright holder's written permission. And the font, modified or unmodified, in part or in whole, must be distributed entirely under this licence and not under any other.

For handover that means: you can put the font files in the folder, the client can install them, and the correct way to do it is to include the licence file that came with the font. It costs nothing and it is the whole compliance.

Adobe Stock

Adobe Stock's licence terms distinguish a standard licence from an extended one, and the difference is about volume and about what the asset is for.

Under the standard licence you may reproduce up to 500,000 copies of the asset in all media, including product packaging, printed marketing materials, digital documents, or software. You may not create merchandise, templates, or other products for resale or distribution where the primary value of the product is associated with the asset itself. The extended licence lets you reproduce beyond the 500,000 copy or viewer limit and create merchandise where the asset is the main value, the terms giving a coffee mug or a t-shirt as the example.

On transfer, the terms say you may transfer the licence to your client or employer, and that you may share the unmodified asset with employees and contractors who have contractually agreed to abide by the licence. So a stock image you bought for a client's brochure can be handed to the client with the licence, and the handover note should say who now holds it.

Unsplash

The Unsplash License grants an irrevocable, nonexclusive, worldwide copyright licence to download, copy, modify, distribute, perform and use images from Unsplash for free, including for commercial purposes, without permission from or attributing the photographer or Unsplash. Two things are not allowed: images cannot be sold without significant modification, and the licence does not include the right to compile images from Unsplash to replicate a similar or competing service.

The page we read does not address trademarks, recognisable people, or implied endorsement, so this page does not either. A free copyright licence says nothing about whether the person in the photograph agreed to sell your client's product, and that is a separate question the licence cannot answer for you.

What we could not verify

Shutterstock, Getty, iStock and the other paid libraries each have their own standard and enhanced terms with different caps and different rules on transfer. We did not read them for this page, so nothing here should be taken as describing them. The same goes for foundry licences outside Adobe's library: Monotype, Klim, Commercial Type and the rest each set their own terms, and the number of users, the domains, and whether a client can be named on the licence all vary.

The handover list

This is the dull part and the useful one. At the end of every project, before the files go, write a one-page note that lists:

• every typeface used, with the licence it was used under and whether the client needs to buy their own for editable text;
• every stock or third-party asset, with the licence type, the licence holder, and any cap on copies or media;
• anything you made with a non-transferable font that is supplied outlined or embedded, so the client knows why the text is not editable;
• your own usage line for the work, if your contract limits where it may go.

Then keep the list as you work rather than reconstructing it eight weeks later from browser history. The contract clause that sits behind it is short: third-party assets are licensed as set out in the handover notes; licences held by the contractor do not transfer; where a licence must be held by the client, it is identified at handover. The clauses post has the wording.

Name the fonts. List the assets. Say who holds what.