Logo File Formats: What Each One Is For

This is the most common practical problem small businesses have with their logo, and it always surfaces at the worst moment — the printer asks for a vector file the day before a deadline and you do not have one.

The distinction that matters: vector vs raster

Vector files describe shapes mathematically. They can be scaled to any size with no loss — a business card or the side of a building, identical quality. Colours can be changed, elements separated, and the artwork used for cutting, engraving and embroidery.

Raster files are a grid of pixels. They have one fixed resolution. Enlarge one and it blurs. You cannot cleanly recolour it, and most industrial processes cannot use it at all.

Your logo must exist as a vector. Everything else is exported from it.

The vector formats

AI — Adobe Illustrator's native format. The editable master. Keep it even though you probably cannot open it; the next designer will need it.

EPS — the old universal exchange format. Still what many printers, sign makers and embroiderers ask for by name.

SVG — vector for the web. Sharp at every screen density, tiny file size, and it can be styled and animated in code. This is what your developer wants.

PDF — usefully, both. A vector PDF can be opened by almost anyone and placed by almost any print process. Often the most practical thing to email a supplier who has not specified.

The raster formats

PNG — supports transparency, so the logo sits on any background without a white box. The right choice for slide decks, documents and most digital placement.

JPG — no transparency, so it always carries a background. Fine for photographs, poor for logos. If someone gave you only a JPG, you do not really have a logo file.

WebP — a modern web format with better compression than PNG or JPG. Useful for photography on your site; not a substitute for SVG for the logo itself.

What to send whom

• Printer, sign maker, embroiderer: EPS or vector PDF. Ask if they want it in CMYK and whether they need Pantone references.
• Web developer: SVG, plus PNG fallbacks and the favicon sizes.
• Someone putting you in a slide deck: PNG with transparency, generously sized.
• A magazine or partner asking for "high res": vector PDF. It is never wrong.

The colour spaces, briefly

RGB for screens, CMYK for standard printing, Pantone for exact colour matching on physical goods. The same logo needs specifications in all three, because a colour that is right on screen can print noticeably differently. Getting those values fixed once is part of what brand guidelines are for.

What a complete handover looks like

Every colour variant (full, one-colour, black, white), every lockup (horizontal, stacked, icon), in vector and raster, plus favicon sizes and the colour specifications. If you were given fewer than about fifteen files, ask what is missing before you need it.