bsky-social-app/ASSETS.md

Asset licensing

The MIT license in this repository covers our source code. It does not cover every file in the tree.

Some of the images, icons, fonts, and brand assets here are licensed to Bluesky Social PBC by third parties, or are our trademarks, or are third-party trademarks. We cannot pass those rights on to you. This document identifies them.

We should have written this down sooner. If you have already forked this repository and shipped one of the assets listed below, we are not treating that as bad faith on your part — the repository did not tell you, and that is our fault. Please work through the If you are forking checklist when you can.

Assets are scoped by directory wherever possible, so that adding a file to a carved-out directory does not require an edit here. Individual paths are listed only where an asset does not sit in a dedicated directory.

The rule: if a file is listed in this document, the MIT license does not grant you rights to it. Everything in Section 6 is redistributable on its own terms, which travel with the files.

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1. Commissioned artwork — licensed to Bluesky only

assets/illustrations/

The landing-screen illustration, in light and dark variants, used by src/view/com/auth/SplashScreen.tsx (illustration-mobile.png and illustration-mobile-dark.png).

This artwork was commissioned by Bluesky Social PBC from illustrator Owen D. Pomery, through his agent Brilliant Artists Ltd. Copyright remains with the artist. Our license is limited to Bluesky's own products and channels, it is exclusive to us, and it does not permit us to sublicense the artwork or to distribute modified versions of it.

If you are forking this repository, replace these files. They are not available for third-party licensing while our license runs, so please do not contact the artist or his agent to request permission — the answer is constrained by our agreement, not by their willingness. See assets/illustrations/README.md.

2. Licensed icon system — not ours to pass on

assets/icons/ (top level), and the icon glyphs in bskyembed/assets/

The user-interface glyphs at the top level of assets/icons/, plus copies of several in bskyembed/assets/, come from the Central icon system by Iconists (David & Storm GbR). Bluesky Social PBC licenses these icons for use in our own products. That license is for our own use. It does not include the right to pass any rights to the icons on to you.

This is not us telling you that you cannot use these icons. It is us telling you that any right you have to use them has to come from Iconists rather than from us, and that you should not assume our MIT license gave you one. Licenses are available directly from iconists.co, and there are good openly licensed alternatives if you would rather not buy one.

This section covers every file at the top level of assets/icons/ except those named elsewhere in this document — specifically logomark.svg, newskie.svg, verifiedCheck.svg, verifierCheck.svg, starterPack.svg, starterPack_stroke2_corner0_rounded.svg, custom_logo_japan.svg, apple_logo.svg, and android_logo.svg. The assets/icons/flags/ and assets/icons/community/ subdirectories are covered by Section 6 and Section 5 respectively.

See assets/icons/README.md.

3. Bluesky trademarks and brand assets

Our name, logo, butterfly mark, logotype, and app icons are trademarks of Bluesky Social PBC. They are not licensed to you under the MIT license or by this document. Use of them is governed by our Trademark Policy and Brand Guidelines.

You may refer to Bluesky by name to describe interoperability or origin — for example, "a client for Bluesky," or "based on the Bluesky app." You may not use our marks as the identity of your own product or service, or in any way likely to suggest that Bluesky publishes, endorses, or supports it.

• assets/app-icons/ — all iOS and Android app icon variants, including the .icon bundles
• assets/favicon.png
• assets/logo.png
• assets/default-avatar.png
• assets/icon-android-foreground.png
• assets/icon-android-monochrome.png
• assets/icon-android-notification.png
• assets/splash/splash.png
• assets/splash/splash-dark.png
• assets/splash/android-splash-logo-white.png
• assets/icons/logomark.svg
• assets/icons/newskie.svg
• assets/icons/verifiedCheck.svg
• assets/icons/verifierCheck.svg
• assets/icons/starterPack.svg, assets/icons/starterPack_stroke2_corner0_rounded.svg
• bskyembed/assets/logo.svg
• bskyembed/assets/logo_full_name.svg
• bskyweb/static/favicon.png, favicon-16x16.png, favicon-32x32.png
• bskyweb/static/apple-touch-icon.png
• bskyweb/static/safari-pinned-tab.svg
• bskyweb/static/social-card-default.png, bskyweb/static/social-card-default-gradient.png
• bskyweb/embedr-static/favicon.png, favicon-16x16.png, favicon-32x32.png
• modules/BlueskyClip/Images.xcassets/AppIcon.appiconset/
• Inline vector path data in src/view/icons/Logo.tsx and src/view/icons/Logotype.tsx

We are not asking anyone to remove these files from the repository. They are here because the app needs them to build. Replacing them is a forker's responsibility, not ours.

4. Community and contest artwork — credited, but not ours to license

These are third-party artworks that appear in the app with attribution. We hold no license that lets us pass rights to them on to you.

• assets/kawaii.png, assets/kawaii_smol.png — logo by @sawaratsuki.bsky.social, shown as an opt-in variant and credited in src/view/shell/Drawer.tsx and src/view/shell/desktop/RightNav.tsx
• assets/icons/custom_logo_japan.svg — the winning entry from the Bluesky Japan logo contest, created by a contest entrant

Replace these if you fork. If you want to use them, that is a conversation with the artist, not with us.

5. Third-party trademarks

These marks belong to other companies. We include them to identify their services in our UI — sign-in buttons, store badges, and links to third-party applications. We are neither granting nor withholding permission, because it is not ours to give. Your use of them rests on your own nominative-use basis or on permission from the mark owner.

• assets/icons/apple_logo.svg — Apple Inc.
• assets/icons/android_logo.svg — Google LLC
• assets/icons/community/ — Leaflet, Offprint, pckt (pckt.svg, pckt-full.svg), Standard.site, and Germ Network (germ_logo.webp)

Apple's and Google's marks in particular carry their own brand guidelines governing size, spacing, and permitted contexts. If you ship a sign-in button or a store badge, follow theirs, not ours.

6. Third-party assets you may redistribute

These are licensed on terms that permit redistribution. Nothing in this document restricts them. Their license text travels with the files, and you must keep it there.

Asset	Path	License	Notice
Inter typeface	assets/fonts/inter/	SIL Open Font License 1.1	OFL.txt
Inter typeface (OG card service)	bskyogcard/src/assets/fonts/	SIL Open Font License 1.1	README.md
country-flag-icons	assets/icons/flags/	MIT, © @catamphetamine	README.md
Material Icons	bskyweb/static/media/MaterialIcons.*.ttf	Apache License 2.0	NOTICE.md

Build output under bskyweb/static/media/ also contains compiled Inter files. They are the same OFL-licensed typeface, emitted by the web build.

One thing to watch on Inter: OFL 1.1 includes a Reserved Font Name provision. If you modify or subset the font, the result cannot be distributed under the name "Inter."

See NOTICE.md for the consolidated third-party notices.

7. Product imagery — treat as not licensed to you

assets/images/

Product illustration and announcement imagery — onboarding value-prop art, chat backgrounds, feature announcement graphics, and similar.

Treat everything in this directory as outside the MIT license and not licensed for your use. Some of it is commissioned work. Rather than have you guess file by file which is which, we are drawing the line at the directory.

If you are forking, replace these or ship without them. See assets/images/README.md.

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If you are forking

You have our blessing to fork this application. To do it cleanly:

1. Replace assets/illustrations/. Commissioned artwork, licensed to Bluesky only. See Section 1.
2. Source your own UI icons. The glyph set in assets/icons/ is licensed to us for our own use. See Section 2.
3. Replace assets/images/. Treat as not licensed to you. See Section 7.
4. Replace the Bluesky marks listed in Section 3 — app icons, favicons, logo files, and the inline logo paths in src/view/icons/.
5. Replace or remove the community artwork in Section 4.
6. Check your own position on the third-party marks in Section 5.
7. Keep the license notices for the assets in Section 6.
8. Change your branding, support links, and analytics as described in the Forking guidelines.

This list is about licensing. The Forking guidelines in the README cover the rest of what makes a fork clearly distinguishable from Bluesky, which matters both for your users and for app store review.

Questions

If something in this repository looks like it should be on this list and is not, or if you are unsure whether an asset is covered, open an issue or email us and we will sort it out. We would much rather answer the question than have someone guess.

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Last reviewed: August 2026. This document describes the licensing position of assets in this repository. It is not a grant of rights, and it does not modify the MIT license as it applies to source code.