Which Logo Files You Should Receive, and Why Vector Is Not Optional

Why the file list matters more than it looks

Files get discussed last and encountered daily once the project ships.

This is the stage where it emerges that the mark cannot go to a printer, sit on a dark site, or be engraved. The problem is not the quality of the design; it is the completeness of the handover.

Vector is the core

Vector describes the mark with formulas rather than pixels, so it scales without loss from a favicon to a facade.

A handover needs an editable source, SVG for the site, and PDF or EPS for print. The first is for the next designer, the second for the developer, the third for the printer.

With none of them, the mark exists only at the size somebody once exported it at.

Versions, not a single file

One file does not cover real carriers.

You need light and dark versions: a mark that reads on white often disappears on black. You need a single-colour version for engraving and one-colour print.

And a compact lockup, if the mark has to fit both a site header and a square avatar.

Raster for social

Transparent PNG is needed wherever vector is not accepted: social platforms, marketplaces, other people's systems.

A sensible set is a few sizes for avatars and previews, plus a favicon. These are derivatives of the vector, not a substitute for it.

Rules are deliverables too

Minimum size and clear space belong in the handover.

Without the first, the mark gets placed too small and collapses into a blob. Without the second, it gets pushed hard against text.

Those two parameters take half a page and prevent most later application errors.

How to check a set

A simple test: open the vector and scale it to sign size. Clean edges mean it really is vector.

Then put the mark on a black ground. If it vanishes, there is no dark version.

Then shrink it to sixteen pixels. If the details merge, there is no compact lockup and it will not work as a favicon.

What to do when the files are already gone: Vector is the only format that prints at any size…

This happens more often than it sounds: the mark was made years ago, the supplier is unreachable, and all that survives is a PNG pulled off the website.

Rebuilding vector from raster is separate work. The mark gets retraced, and the result almost never matches the original exactly: radii, weights and spacing all have to be decided again.

Which is why one complete handover costs less than paying twice to draw the same mark. If the sources are already missing, it is worth rebuilding the vector before an urgent print job forces the issue.

Naming files so they can be found

A set of thirty files is useless if nobody can tell a year later which one is needed. The file name is part of the handover and deserves discussion alongside formats.

A workable scheme is simple: brand, element, version, ground, size. Something like "viton13-logo-horizontal-dark-1024.png". That name reads without its folder and without explanation, and alphabetical sorting groups the versions on its own.

What does not work: "final", "final2", "final_v3", "new logo". Six months later those names mean nothing even to the person who wrote them, and a year later somebody picks a file at random and uses the wrong one.

It also helps to arrange the set into folders by purpose rather than by format: "for the site", "for print", "for social". People search by the task they have, not by the extension.

And put a one-page text file beside it: what is where and what each thing is for. That takes ten minutes and removes most future questions.

What happens when the set reaches a supplier

A set does not live with you but with the people you send it to: a printer, a developer, an advertising agency, a marketplace. Each has requirements, and they do not coincide.

A printer needs vector and a colour profile, sometimes a particular format. A developer needs SVG plus raster exports at several screen densities. A marketplace needs raster at an exact size and often on a white ground.

If the set was assembled properly, each of them takes what they need and asks nothing. If it was not, the questions come to you, and answering them takes longer than assembling the set did.

It is worth holding a version for cases where the requirement cannot be bent: a square lockup for avatars, a version with a background for platforms that do not support transparency.

Those constraints are known in advance, and covering them once inside the set is cheaper than handling them by hand every time.

Where sets usually break

The first place is updating the mark without updating the set. The mark gets corrected, the new file lands in one folder, and older versions survive in ten other places and keep going out to production.

The second is exporting raster into vector. Automatic tracing of a raster image produces curves that look similar and behave differently: far too many nodes, wobbling lines, and visible unevenness once printed.

The third is transparency. A PNG with a transparent ground placed on a coloured surface sometimes shows a pale halo along the edge: the residue of the white ground it was exported over. It takes a second to spot and only a re-export to fix.

The fourth is colour. A file prepared for screen looks different in print, and the other way round. The same green on a monitor and on paper is two different greens unless the profile is set.

All four surface after something reaches production, which is why checking them on receipt costs less than discovering them at the printer.

Storage and versions

A set has a habit of spreading across email, messengers and desktops. Within a year five variants exist and nobody knows which is current.

The remedy is banal and works: one location declared the source of truth, and a rule that only files from there go into production. Everything else is a copy that can be deleted without regret.

It helps to date the version folder rather than every file inside it. Then moving to a new version means replacing one folder instead of thirty names.

And it is worth agreeing who may update the source. Without such a person, after a few iterations it holds files of varying freshness, which is worse than having no source at all.

This is the dull part of the work, and it is what decides whether the set is still useful in its second year.

A short check on receipt

Five actions, a minute each, close almost every problem a set can have.

Open the vector and scale it to sign size — the edges should stay clean. Put the mark on a black ground — it should still read. Shrink it to sixteen pixels — the detail should not merge.

Send the PNG through any messenger and look at the preview, where halos along a transparent edge become obvious. And open the text file describing the set: if there is none, ask for one.

If all five pass, the set works. If they do not, returning it now costs less than discovering the problem at the printer.

Then record in writing what you accepted: the list of files by name. That settles arguments about what the handover contained before they can start.