Design Preparation
Part of POD intellectual property checks
Keeping a record of font and graphic licences
Keep font and graphic permissions tied to the artwork versions, products and production workflows that use them.
Keep a licence record linking each font or graphic to the POD design that uses it. Save the applicable terms and proof of access, then note the product and production workflow reviewed. A receipt may show a purchase but not what use was permitted.
Build a record someone can retrieve
Give every licensed asset an internal identifier. Record its name, source, acquisition date, licence or subscription account, and the permission relied on. Attach the relevant terms or written permission, and link the asset to the artwork versions and product types where it appears.
Field / What to record
- Asset and source
- Exact font, graphic or photograph and where it came from
- Permission evidence
- Applicable terms, agreement or written permission and acquisition record
- Use reviewed
- Product, alteration and production route covered by the check
- Design versions
- Exports and listings that contain the asset
- Review
- Check date, reviewer and any question left open
- Status
- Approved for stated use, held, replaced or retired
Keep a dated copy or export of the terms considered for an earlier design. Retain the terms, receipt and written permission until at least the end of the selling life of the products using the asset, plus any applicable licence period. Recheck the applicable terms for a new use.
Store the record where the person handling an IP question can find it, while controlling account and customer information appropriately. The fields are a practical register format, not a legal form required by a provider.
Key retention periods for licence records
- Retention period
- End of selling life of the product + applicable licence period
- Recheck requirement
- For new uses, revalidate terms before deployment
- Storage access
- Ensure IP queries can retrieve records while protecting account data
Record how the font reaches production
Note whether the supplier receives a raster image, outlined lettering, a PDF with protected embedded font data, or live editable text. Record who needs to edit the file and whether any font file is transferred.
Record what the applicable font terms say about merchandise use and about packaging or transferring font files to another user or computer. Keep the relevant terms with the asset record; do not assume that access to a font permits every production use.
If a printer, collaborator or customer needs to use or edit the font, record what the applicable terms permit for that workflow. Terms can differ between fonts, so make a separate entry for each agreement relied on.
Track graphic categories and reuse
For a graphic, record whether it appears within a composed design or on its own. Canva lists Education Content, Branded Content, Pro Content and Free Content, in order from most to least restrictive; when a design includes multiple categories, the most restrictive applies to the whole design.
Canva’s agreement names the Pro Content License as the “One Design Use License”. Record the category and the Canva design that contains the content, not just “Canva”.
When an artwork version changes, keep the earlier entry and mark which version last used the asset. If permission cannot be established, hold the affected version and replace the asset before release.
