Brand Work line · stop 14 of 14 · 16 min · members
File formats, naming, colour space and the extra folder that makes a client come back.
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The moment
Excellent work handed over badly is remembered as a difficult job.
The client did not watch you work. They will not see the process, the rejected versions, or the problem you solved quietly on Thursday. What they experience is a folder arriving.
That makes the folder disproportionately important. A clear, well-named, complete delivery reads as competence. A zip of files called final_v3_NEW is remembered even when the work inside it was good.
None of this is difficult. It is a template you build once and reuse, and it changes how the whole engagement is perceived.
The structure
The client should not have to ask which file is the one to use.
ClientName_ProjectName_2026-09/
01_Final/
4x5/ 9x16/ 16x9/
02_Source/
graded stills, layered files
03_Reference/
the brief, the approved boards
04_Notes/
README.pdf
Everything in 01_Final is approved and ready to use. Nothing else is. That single guarantee removes most delivery confusion.
No version numbers in the final folder. If something is superseded it is not in there. Versions belong in your working directory, not in theirs.
Naming
It will be forwarded, downloaded and renamed by three people who were not on the project.
Names should carry client, project, asset, ratio and date, in a fixed order, with no spaces:
example_june_ex014_hero_4x5_2026-09-04.jpgIt is ugly and it is unambiguous six months later, in someone else's downloads folder, out of context. That is the only requirement.
Use ISO dates so files sort chronologically. Use lower case throughout to avoid the case-sensitivity differences between systems. Both are trivial and both prevent real problems.
Formats
Guessing wrong here generates a request the same afternoon.
Ask at the start what the assets are for, and deliver the formats those uses need — not the ones you happen to have. Social crops, web-optimised versions, print-resolution files, and the master in each case.
Colour space is worth stating explicitly in the README. Assets destined for web should be sRGB; anything else will look wrong in a browser and the client will report it as a colour problem with your grade.
Include the master even when they did not ask. It costs nothing and it is what they will need in a year when someone wants a different crop.
The extra folder
A short document explaining what you did and how to use it.
One page, in plain language:
The last two points are the ones that generate follow-on work. A delivery that ends with a clear next step is an invitation; one that ends with a zip file is a full stop.
Before sending
Five minutes that catches almost every delivery error.
Download your own delivery to a clean location and open it as a stranger would. Is it obvious which files to use? Does every file open? Is anything missing, mislabelled, or duplicated?
Check the count against what was promised. Check the ratios. Open three files at random and confirm they are the approved versions rather than an earlier round.
This is the last opportunity to catch something at zero cost. After it is sent, every error is a conversation.
1:1 · two hours