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No More Blurry Logos

When you started your business, you likely had someone create a logo for you. Some gifted designer took his or her time to create just the look you wanted and developed a logo for you to put on signs, letterheads, emails and other communications. This logo is the starting block for your company and has a strong impact on how consumers perceive your brand.

Depending on what you do and how you do it, that logo will need to go places. When it does it is sent in the form of a file. That file could be any one of the following common file types; .jpg .png .eps .gif .tif .psd .ai or .pdf. While all formats are great to have on hand, certain file types work better for different purposes.

When it comes to graphics there are two types of images, bitmap and vector. Most images you come across in your day to day are bitmap images. The most common file format for a bitmap image is .jpg or Jpeg in graphic design speak. Other types of bitmap files are .png .eps and .tif . Bitmap images are most often seen on screens like your computer or TV and the important thing to remember when it comes to bitmap images is that size does matter. To get even more technical a bitmap images utilize pixel data to create the actual image so when you enlarge a bitmap file you can actually see the colored squares that makes it up. This gives bitmap images a blurry look when they are improperly magnified and that in technical advertising terminology is ‘no bueno’.

Vector images are a little more complex. I only say that because a vector image utilizes mathematics and points in digital space to create images that don’t rely on pixel data (bitmaps). The most common and house favorite vector file image is an .eps. There are other less popular vector files (.psd and .ai) that work just fine but for some reason don’t get invited to as many parties as .eps. The great thing about vector files is that they can be manipulated without any loss of image integrity. Simply put you can change the size of a vector file without the image becoming blurry. Vector file formats are preferred by designers, printers and people who think puppies are cute.

Lastly… anytime you have a logo developed for you, whether it’s your business or a product, the company or person that develops that logo should provide you that logo in a variety of formats so that you can readily share it as necessary. It’s important that you not only understand your file formats but that you keep them somewhere safe so that you can easily access them when needed.

Want or need to know more? Our graphic design department at ReThinc Adverising is friendly, pretty and smart. Not necessarily in that order.

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