Press kits and brand guidelines: where to find official logos

When you need a crypto logo for a slide, a partner page or a printed banner, the most reliable file is the one the project publishes itself. Many established projects have a brand page or press kit with official files and rules for using them. This guide shows where to look, what you'll usually find, and how to check an icon from a library against the original.

Where projects publish brand assets

There's no standard location, but the same few places come up again and again:

• The website footer. Look for links named Brand, Brand assets, Press, Press kit, Media kit or Newsroom. The footer is usually the quickest place to check.
• Common paths. Try /brand, /press, /media-kit or /brand-assets on the main domain. These are conventions, not rules, so a 404 doesn't prove there's no kit.
• The docs site. Developer-focused projects sometimes keep brand files in their documentation, near the integration guides.
• The project's code repository. Some projects keep a brand or assets folder in a public repository, with SVG files and a short readme.
• Foundation and company sites. When a protocol has both a foundation and a development company, the kit may live on either one. Check both.
• The press contact. If you can't find a kit, the press or partnerships email address on the site can usually send files.

Searching for the project's name plus "brand assets" or "press kit" often surfaces the page. Make sure the result is on the project's own domain.

Official files vs. look-alikes

Logo aggregator sites, image search results and old blog posts are full of crypto logos. Some are accurate. Others are versions from before a redesign, traced by hand, flattened into blurry PNGs, or subtly recolored. Prefer, in this order:

1. files from the project's own brand page or repository;
2. files sent to you by the project's team;
3. a maintained icon library that tracks the official artwork;
4. anything else, and only after comparing it with the logo on the project's own site.

The domain is the main signal. A file served from the project's own website or official repository reflects what the project wants people to use.

What's usually in a press kit

Kits vary a lot. A small project might offer one SVG and one PNG; a large one ships a full brand book. Typical contents:

For an icon in an interface, the symbol in SVG is what you want. Wordmarks and lockups usually become unreadable at 24 px.

Reading the rules

Brand guidelines tend to cover the same handful of topics. They state what the owner expects; whether a given use needs permission is a separate, legal question, and nothing here is legal advice.

Clear space is the empty margin to keep around the logo so other elements don't crowd it. It's usually defined relative to the logo itself, such as the height of one letter or a fraction of the symbol's width, so it scales with the logo. A small interface icon rarely has room for the full clear space, and icon libraries crop it so the mark fills its square. That's normal for icons, but in marketing layouts, respect the stated margin.

Minimum size is the smallest size at which the logo may be used, often given separately for screens (in pixels) and print (in millimeters). Lockups usually have a larger minimum than the symbol, which is one more reason to use the symbol at small sizes.

Color versions tell you which file goes on which background: full color on white or light surfaces, reversed white on dark or on the brand color, black for one-color print. Some brands allow only their own colors for the mark; others allow a single-color version in any neutral.

Misuse examples are the page of "don'ts": stretched, rotated, recolored, outlined, given a drop shadow, placed on a busy photo, rearranged. If you're adapting a logo for an icon, read this page first. The guide on modifying brand logos goes further into which changes are usually accepted.

Partner use appears in larger kits: how integrators may refer to the brand, and sometimes ready-made "Built on" or "Works with" badges.

Comparing an icon library version with the official one

Icon libraries normalize logos so that thousands of them work together: the same square canvas, the mark centered, clear space trimmed, and sometimes a single-color version drawn where the brand didn't publish one. That's useful in product interfaces, but it means a library version isn't always identical to the official file. To check one against the other:

1. Get both as SVG. On Web3 Icons, each icon page lets you download the branded version and lists the colors used in the logo, as on the Ethereum network page. The guide on downloading a crypto logo as SVG walks through the options.
2. Open both in your design tool and scale them so the marks are the same height.
3. Stack them and set the top one to 50% opacity, or use a difference blend mode. Any drift in shape, proportion or position shows up immediately.
4. Compare the color values with the ones in the guidelines.
5. Check dates. If the project rebranded recently, an older file may show the previous mark.

If they match, the library version is fine for interface work and saves you from normalizing sizes yourself. If they don't, or if you're producing marketing, print or co-branded material, use the official file. For print specifics, see preparing crypto logos for print.

When there's no press kit

Many tokens and smaller projects never publish one. In that case:

• treat the logo the project shows on its own website, app and official social accounts as the reference;
• ask the team for an SVG, and mention where it will be used;
• don't build your own version from a screenshot. A traced logo drifts from the original in ways that are hard to spot at a glance and easy for the project's team to notice.

Keep a record

Logos change. For each third-party logo you use, note the source URL, the download date and, if there is one, the version of the guidelines. When a project redraws its mark, that record tells you exactly which files to replace. A shared folder with the official files and a short text note per brand is enough.