Protecting logos and brand guidelines in pitches: a freelance designer's guide

You're a freelance graphic designer. A prospect asks you for a few directions on their new logo. You email them three concepts — that's the game, you hope to land the project. They reply that they like the second one but want to "think about it." Silence follows. A year later, you stumble on their website and there's a logo strikingly close to your second concept, slightly polished by someone else.

You know it's your work. You have the .ai files, the email you sent, maybe even intermediate versions. But when you reach out to the client, the answer comes back: "Our internal team had already explored that direction, your proposal just happened to align."

Without dated proof, you're stuck in a he-said-she-said. This article walks through a simple workflow so that situation never becomes a dead end again.

Copyright, trademark, timestamping: putting the bricks back in order

Three concepts come up constantly in designer conversations, and they're often muddled. Let's unpack them.

Copyright is automatic but silent

In France, and broadly across EU member states, copyright arises at the moment of creation, without any formality, as long as the work bears the author's personal stamp. That's the principle in article L111-1 of the French Intellectual Property Code. You don't need to register anything to own the rights on an original logo, brand system, or icon set.

The catch: in a dispute, you have to prove you're the author, and crucially that you were the author before the person on the other side. Without a piece of evidence that's objectively datable, that gets very hard.

Trademark registration gives you a title, not just a proof

Registering a logo as a trademark with the INPI (France) or the EUIPO (EU-wide) is an industrial property step. You receive an enforceable title, valid 10 years and renewable, granting an exclusive right to use the sign for specified classes of goods or services. Indicative cost: roughly €200-300 for a basic French registration.

That's powerful — but largely irrelevant for the bulk of pitch concepts. You're not going to register 30 logos a month at the trademark office when most will end up in the prospect's trash.

Timestamping proves the date, without granting exclusive use

Electronic timestamping freezes the date of existence of a file. Concretely, a mathematical fingerprint (a hash) of the file is computed and anchored in an independent, tamper-resistant mechanism. The result: you can demonstrate that this exact file existed in this form on this date.

It's a proof of anteriority. Not a property title, not a trademark, not a patent. But it's exactly the missing piece on the day you need to show you had the creation before a prospect or competitor did.

The three are not in opposition. Copyright is the legal foundation. Trademark is the heavy weapon for durable commercial signs. Timestamping is the day-to-day tool that makes the first two actually usable in court.

The "pitch without a paper trail" trap

This is the riskiest situation for a freelance designer. You're sending original work — often without a signed contract, without a deposit, sometimes without an NDA — to prospects who will never become clients. That gray zone is wide open to unauthorized use.

The clues people often rely on aren't enough on their own:

• The sent email proves the email was sent, not that the attached file pre-existed.
• File metadata in .ai/.psd can be edited with any tool.
• The folder date on your disk depends on the file system and has no probative value.
• Behance or Dribbble mockups posted after the pitch are dated after the potential leak.

A workflow built for freelance designers

The idea: insert a timestamping step at two key moments — before sending a pitch, and at final delivery.

1. 1
   Finalize the pitch files

   Once your concepts are ready, export each variant: SVG, high-res PNG, and a client presentation PDF if you make one. Keep the source file too (.ai, .fig, .sketch).
2. 2
   Group everything in a clearly named folder

   Create a folder like 2026-05-prospect-acme/proposal-v1/ containing the logo variants, the black/white/color modes, the PDF, the source file, and a small brief.txt (date, prospect, context, your concepts in one sentence each).
3. 3
   Compress to a ZIP archive

   A ZIP freezes everything into a single file. If anything changes later (addition, modification, deletion), the hash changes. The ZIP is your snapshot of the folder.
4. 4
   Timestamp the archive before sending

   Drop the ZIP into LegalStamp. The SHA-256 hash is computed locally in your browser (the file never leaves your machine), then anchored to the Bitcoin blockchain via OpenTimestamps. You get a .ots receipt to keep.
5. 5
   Send the pitch to the prospect

   Now send your prospecting email with the concepts (PDF, JPG/PNG previews). The email itself becomes a second piece of evidence: it timestamps the send on the mail server side, your timestamped archive proves anteriority of the content.
6. 6
   Re-timestamp the delivered final version

   If the engagement materializes, repeat the operation on the final delivery pack (chosen logo, variants, brand guidelines, source files). You get a clean chain: initial pitch → final delivery.

Specific cases by deliverable type

The workflow adapts to what you're protecting. A few practical adjustments:

Simple logo (mark + wordmark) A ZIP containing: the .ai or .svg source, PNG/SVG exports in several sizes, monochrome variants, light- and dark-background versions. Enough for solid proof.

Full brand guidelines Beyond the logo: color palette (with exact values), typography choices (families, weights, hierarchy), grid system, application examples. The brand guidelines PDF and its source files, zipped, constitute strong proof of an integrated conceptual work.

Pictograms and icon systems If you ship a series, timestamp the whole set as one archive (the system itself is the work, not each isolated icon). Include the spec file (grid, stroke weights, usage rules).

Original illustrations The source .psd, .ai, .procreate, or .fig file contains layers and history — it shows you were behind the composition, in a way a flat PNG never could.

UI/UX mockups Export the Figma/Sketch mockup as an archive (.fig files are valuable, they hold components and variants). Add PNG exports of key screens and a flow PDF.

Limits to acknowledge honestly

Timestamping is not a magic wand. Here's what it does not do:

• It does not grant exclusive use rights. If someone tomorrow registers a similar logo as a trademark — and you didn't — you can't stop them from using their mark on their products, even with older proof of anteriority. You can challenge the validity of their registration if you can show your prior original creation, but that's litigation, not an automatic right.
• It does not legally qualify the work. Whether a logo meets the originality threshold for copyright protection is for a judge to assess.
• It does not prove you're the author, only that you held this file on this date. A bundle of evidence (source files with layers, save history, client correspondence, brief, other works in your style) reinforces that conclusion in practice.

LegalStamp is a non-qualified electronic timestamping service under eIDAS. Our timestamp doesn't benefit from the presumption of reliability reserved for qualified trust service providers (QTSP). However, Article 41(1) of the eIDAS regulation explicitly forbids dismissing an electronic timestamp on the sole ground that it isn't qualified. It's a piece of probative evidence that fits into a broader case file.

When to step up to formal trademark registration

Not every creation deserves a €200-300 filing — but some do. A few signals that should make you (or your client) consider it:

• The logo becomes the lasting identity of a brand (your studio, or a client's commercialized brand).
• There's intensive commercial use ahead (advertising, packaging, e-commerce, multi-country rollout).
• The client wants the ability to block competitors from using a similar sign in their sector.
• You're anticipating monetization of the logo (resale, licensing, franchising).

Conversely, for prospect concepts, exploratory work for clients who didn't sign, or internal-use logos with no commercial stakes, timestamping alone remains relevant and economical.

What about LegalStamp in all this?

For a designer sending 5, 10, 30 logo proposals a month, timestamping each send must be a few-seconds operation, not an admin project. LegalStamp lets you drop a ZIP into the browser, compute the SHA-256 hash locally (the file never reaches our servers), and anchor that hash to the Bitcoin blockchain via OpenTimestamps.

You get back a .ots receipt that you file inside the project folder. The day you need it, anyone can verify independently that this file existed on that date — without relying on LegalStamp, our server, or our economic survival.

FAQ

Conclusion

The freelance design business requires showing what you can do, which means sending original work to people who won't all become clients. That exposure is inherent to the trade — but it shouldn't come at the cost of having no recourse when work gets reused without permission.

The reflex to build: finalize → zip → timestamp → send. A few seconds per proposal, and every send becomes a piece of evidence that anyone can verify, years later, without depending on your hard drive or your inbox.

Your style and your work have value. So does the ability to defend them.

Disclaimer: this article is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice. For a concrete case (logo dispute, INPI/EUIPO filing strategy, infringement litigation), have your approach validated by a qualified intellectual property lawyer.