A simple explanation of the file types you receive when you receive your logo from a designer

You found a designer, you gave them your brief and after a little bit of back and forth the project was complete and you received your Logo in the form of a zipped folder which contained a number of files. This blog post helps you to know what those are, how they differ and the best use of each file type. Files fall under two categories: Vector files and Raster files

Vector Files

Vector file types have a file extension of .ai .eps or .pdf

A vector file can be scaled to any size without any loss of quality. This is because it’s built up from mathematically precise points. Vector files are the type required to get anything professionally printed, large (banners) or small (business cards), If you require edits to the logo or you need design work carried out by another designer, for example; incorporating the logo into leaflets.

Ai: Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is the program used to create the logo and contains all the elements of the logo. You will need this software in order to open this file type. The AI file is the original, editable, working file.

PDF: Portable Document Format

PDF format is becoming widely favored by most designers as it can be universally viewed on any computer with Adobe Acrobat (or another PDF viewer). It’s also possible to preserve illustrator-editing capabilities when saving in this format, meaning it can be opened and modified in the same way an AI can.

Raster Files

Raster file types have a file extension of .Jpeg or .PNG (there are other raster based image types, but for logo design these two suffice.

Raster files are built up of squares called pixels. This means that as you increase the size of your image, it will become pixelated or appear to be blurred. This is why a logo design should be created in vector format for the best results.

JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group

Jpeg’s are most commonly seen online. They offer very good compression without overly effecting the image quality, meaning the image is very small in file size, so will load quickly.

PNG: Portable Network Graphics

PNG images are lossless, which mean they do not lose quality during editing. Most importantly however they allow for transparency.

Colour

As vector files are intended for print use they are provided in CMYK colour mode. This is the file for standard 4 colour printing.

Raster files are intended for computer use, so are provided in RGB colour mode. RGB stands for Red, Green and Blue, which are the colours used to make up all the colours you see on your screen.