The design handoff checklist: from comp to client approval

Design handoff has two failure modes. The first is technical — specs are wrong, assets are missing, the developer is guessing at states that were never designed. The second is approval — the client sees the final build and says it doesn't match what they approved. Both are avoidable.

The checklist below addresses both. It's ordered by phase, not by importance — everything on it is important.

Before the review link goes out.

• Run auto-review on every canvas. Catch contrast failures, hierarchy issues, and copy problems before the client does. Issues found by you are fixes. Issues found by the client are trust erosions.
• Check every viewport. Mobile, tablet, desktop. A design that looks right at 1440px and breaks at 375px is not done.
• Upload your brand kit and run a brand check. If a color is off by a hex value, better to find it now.
• Confirm the brief is still the brief. If the project changed direction mid-flight, the brief needs to be updated before sign-off — not after.
• Set up the approval request. Name the approvers, set the deadline, configure the sign-off mode (all must approve, or any one approver).

During the review round.

• Acknowledge every comment within 24 hours. Not necessarily resolve — acknowledge. "Noted, fixing in the next version" is enough to maintain trust.
• Distinguish design decisions from feedback. If a comment is about a deliberate choice, say so: "This is intentional because X. Does that work for you?" Silence looks like you missed it.
• Never open a new round until the previous one has a sign-off. Round 2 feedback on a Round 1 canvas is chaos.
• When you resolve a comment, mark it resolved — not just fixed. The client needs to see that their feedback landed.

The sign-off step most designers skip.

Most agencies send a final version and ask for an email reply: "Looks good to us!" That email is not a sign-off. It has no timestamp. It names no version. It can be contradicted three months later by a new stakeholder who says they were never consulted.

A formal sign-off is: a named approver, a versioned deliverable, a timestamp, and an immutable record. The approved version is locked. What was approved is documented. If a new stakeholder appears six months later, you have something to show them.

After sign-off.

• Graduate the approved canvas to the Library. It's now a versioned, searchable asset. Not a file in a folder no one can find.
• Archive the feedback round. All comments, resolutions, and approver responses are preserved.
• Export the audit trail if required for compliance or legal. PDF export includes the full history.
• Brief the development team from the approved version, not from memory or Slack notes.