The design of your logo or brand is very important for your company since it will allow you to start the path towards building a brand identity. In selecting your lucky brand logo, your designer or agency should provide you with your logo or brand source file in a variety of formats so you can use it anywhere, whether physical or digital.
But once you receive the digital files, you may be wondering “What do I do with these files and why are there so many formats?” Each file format is used for a specific purpose.
Knowing what file formats to use is important because your logo will end up existing in all sorts of contexts, from a business card to a website to a t-shirt. BUT, there are really only two environments in which a logo will exist. It will be printed or digitally rendered.
Vector graphics vs bitmap
Vector and bitmap (raster) formats are the two ways your logo files can be saved from the application your designer used to create it. Professional designers work in professional applications like Adobe Illustrator to create their logo, which is a vector-based program. Photoshop is a bitmap based program. If your logo was created in Photoshop, this will cause you problems in the future, as bitmaps have many disadvantages over vectors, especially when resizing to large formats.
Your lucky brand logo should always be designed in vector format. Why?
Vector images can be scaled (enlarged and reduced) without sacrificing quality because they are created with points, lines, and curves. Vector files are the original source files that can be edited by design applications.
Bitmap images will lose resolution and become blurry when scaled because they are created with pixels. Raster files need to be exported in specific sizes to fit various applications like your website or Facebook. These files should never be edited to alter your logo. Always make your logo changes (such as color variants) to the original vector file.
In what type of file should I have my lucky brand logo?
Your original logo file must be in a vector-based image format. Different types of files are used for specific purposes, such as the use of certain compressed image formats to save space and bandwidth.
There are many different types of file formats. A file format can be identified by its extension: .doc, .txt, .html, .gif, .jpeg. The most common logo file formats are:
It is very likely that the most common formats in which you use your logo are JPG or PNG. Keep in mind that these two formats are not source files, therefore you must ask the designer for a vector format of the source file.
Most common vector formats.
AI – Adobe Illustrator:
An ai file is a vector-based image created in Adobe Illustrator. Designers use this file to create and edit their logo.
You will not be able to view or open this file unless you have Adobe Illustrator software. Usually your designer will export the logo from your final ai file to an svg file and many other formats for you to use.
CDR: Corel draw graphics:
This is a source file created from Corel draw. You will not be able to view or open this file unless you have the software. Typically, your designer will export the logo from your final cdr file to an SVG or EPS file.
PDF – Portable Document Format:
A pdf version of your lucky brand logo may be provided to you. It can be a vector file depending on whether it was generated from Adobe Illustrator or other software. A pdf is a very common file type and can be viewed in a search window, web browser, or Adobe Acrobat Reader.
BUT remember, not all PDFs are vector based because PDFs themselves save bitmap images, you need to reiterate to your designer to save as vectors.
SVG: Vector image format compatible with all platforms.
EPS: Vector image format compatible with all platforms.
Conclusion
It is important to have the right type of logo file for future work. Remember that your lucky brand logo for your business must adapt to multiple formats. For this it is important that your company has a brand book. Your logo designer should provide you with a variety of files to prepare you to use your logo in all of your marketing media. Make sure you get an AI or SVG file from your designer otherwise you will have problems submitting your brand to other ad service providers.
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