The Note That Travels With Finished Work

A handover note is a short document that leaves the studio with the finished piece. It records what the work shows, how it was made, what the client is allowed to change, and what the files are called. Written once, it saves a phone call three years later. A studio that writes this down is doing the same job as photography explained plainly: putting the method where the reader can follow it.

What goes in the note

Four things, in this order: a description of the piece, the method behind it, the limits on alteration, and the file names. Keep it to one side of A4. Anything longer does not get read at the moment it is needed.

The description says what the piece is and what it shows. Not a mood, a fact. "A6 card, 300 gsm uncoated stock, one colour plus black, folded once." The client can check that against the object in their hand.

The method says how it was made, in enough detail that another supplier could repeat it. Press or digital, ink references, paper mill and grade, finishing. If a photograph was involved, the note says how it was lit and framed, because that is the part a reprint cannot guess.

The limits say what the client may change without coming back. Colour of a logo, size of a typeface, position of a mark. Everything else returns to the studio.

The file names are the last line and the one most often skipped.

How should the files be named?

Name them so that a stranger can find them by searching a folder, not by opening each one. The pattern that survives is: client, piece, version, date, format.

harrowsmith-price-list-a4-v03-2026-02.pdf

That name carries five facts. It sorts in a folder listing. It tells you which version is current without opening the file. It survives being emailed, copied to a drive, and restored from a backup.

Avoid the words that mean nothing six months later: final, final2, new, latest, use-this-one. They are the reason a client rings a studio in year three asking which file to send to a printer.

Keep the working files under the same stem, with the format changed. The layered original, the print-ready PDF, the web export. One stem, three endings.

What the client may change

State it as a list, not a principle. A principle invites an argument. A list ends one.

Typical entries: the client may update prices, dates, and contact details. The client may not redraw the mark, change the typeface, or alter the colour references. The client may resize the artwork proportionally, but not stretch it.

Add a line on who holds the master files. If the studio holds them, say so, and say what a reissue costs. If the client holds them, say which folder and which format.

What the note is not

It is not a licence. A licence is a legal document and belongs with the contract. The handover note is a working document for the people who will actually handle the files.

It is not a portfolio caption either. A caption sells the work. The note explains it.

And it is not a substitute for the files themselves. A note that describes a file nobody can find is worse than no note, because it suggests the file exists.

Where the note lives

Three places, all of them dull and all of them durable.

A PDF in the project folder, named with the same stem as the artwork. A printed copy in the box or envelope that goes to the client. A line in the studio's own job record, so that the next person at the desk can find the note without asking the person who wrote it.

Paper matters more than it used to. A printed note in a box of stationery survives a change of email provider, a lost laptop, and a member of staff leaving.

When the note gets revised

Revise it when the trade moves, not when the mood does. A paper is discontinued, a Pantone reference is retired, a printer changes its imposition. Each of those is a reason to issue a new version of the note and to say so in the file name.

Do not overwrite the old note. Keep it. A client reprinting a 2021 job needs the 2021 specification, not the current one.

A short example

A Suffolk workshop commissions a set of care cards for a knitwear range. The handover note runs to half a page.

It states: 90 by 50 mm, 400 gsm uncoated, one colour, rounded corners, supplied as a print-ready PDF with 3 mm bleed. It states the ink reference and the mill. It states that the client may change the fibre percentages and the wash symbols, and may not change the card size or the stock. It states the file names: fenwick-knit-care-card-v02-2026-01.pdf and fenwick-knit-care-card-v02-2026-01.indd.

That is the whole document. It takes twenty minutes to write. It answers the questions that would otherwise arrive by email over the following five years.

Why it is worth the twenty minutes

Because the alternative is reconstruction. A studio asked to reprint a job from four years ago without a note has to measure the original, guess the stock, and hope the colour reference is still current. That work is billed, and the client resents it.

A note turns a reprint into an order. It also turns a client into someone who can brief another supplier without the studio, which is the mark of work handed over properly.

Write it before the piece leaves the desk. The moment after handover is already too late, because the details that matter are the ones you stop noticing once the job is done.