Vector logo or image file? Why printers ask for SVG or PDF

A vector logo is described as shapes and curves, so you can scale it to any size without it falling apart. An image logo (JPG or PNG) is made of pixels, and past a certain size it starts to look jagged and blurry. Printers ask for SVG or PDF because the same logo has to look right on a business card, on a banner several meters wide, and on a cut vinyl decal.

Pixels or shapes

A raster image (JPG, PNG) is a grid of colored dots. It has a fixed number of pixels. Blow it up past that and the software has to invent the missing pixels, so letter edges turn soft or stair-stepped.

JPG has another issue: its compression throws information away. Mozilla's documentation recommends it for photos and warns that on content that needs to stay sharp, like diagrams, it can produce unsatisfactory results. A logo is exactly that kind of content. PNG doesn't lose information when you save it and handles simple graphics better, but it's still pixels.

A vector file (SVG, vector PDF, AI, EPS) doesn't store dots. It stores drawing instructions: "a curve from here to here, filled with this color." Mozilla describes SVG as a format that can be rendered at any size without loss of quality. The software redraws the shape at whatever size you need, cleanly, every time.

Why it matters in production

Size. On screen, a logo a few hundred pixels wide looks fine. On a banner or a shop window, the same file gets stretched dozens of times over.

Cutting and stitching. Cut vinyl, engraving and embroidery don't "print" a picture. The machine follows outlines, and we get those outlines from vector shapes. A JPG has to be redrawn first.

Color. In a vector file every shape has its own color, set precisely. We can put the logo in a spot color (Pantone) or switch it to a single color for screen printing without guessing where one color ends and the next begins. We covered the gap between screen and print colors in our post on CMYK and RGB.

Which formats to send

Watch out for the trap in the first two rows. The W3C SVG specification says an SVG file can contain three kinds of objects: vector shapes, images and text. The same goes for PDF. If someone dropped a JPG into a PDF or an SVG, the file has the right extension, but the logo inside is still a picture.

For complete print files (a business card, a flyer), printers often ask for PDF/X. It's a family of ISO standards (ISO 15930) built for exchanging files before printing: fonts and images must be embedded in the file, and colors must be defined with a profile, so the printer doesn't depend on whatever happens to be installed on their computer.

How to check what you have, in two minutes

1. Open the PDF and zoom way in, a few hundred percent. If letter edges stay crisp, it's vector. If you see steps or blur, it's an image.
2. Try to select a letter or a shape in your software. In a vector file you can pick out individual shapes; in an image you select the whole rectangle.
3. Open the SVG in a text editor. A vector SVG shows coordinates and drawing commands. If you see a huge block of gibberish characters, there's an image inside.
4. Ask the designer who made the logo. The working files (AI, EPS, SVG, PDF) should belong to you and come with the logo.

If all you have is an image

It can be redrawn. Auto-tracing in design software gives rough results: rounded corners where there shouldn't be any, curves with too many points, slightly warped letters. For a logo that goes on everything you produce, it's worth redrawing by hand, with the font identified or rebuilt. The cost depends on how complex the logo is and whether the original font can still be found.

We then use those vector files everywhere, from vehicle wraps to business cards.