Understanding File Formats

A quick intro­duc­tion to the two major types of file formats you’re likely to run across, and what to use when.

Vector (EPS): Vector files are infin­itely scale­able. You could take an EPS and print it on a grain of rice, then scale it up and print it on a bill­board without any loss of quality. If you need to print your logo, whenever pos­sible, use an EPS. Any print shop should be able to handle an EPS.

Raster (GIF/PNG & Tiff): Raster files lose quality when scaled — as a result, these files are provided at three dif­ferent sizes. If you need a dif­ferent size, scale down whenever pos­sible. If you need some­thing larger or sub­stan­tially smaller than the files provided, open the included EPS file in any image pro­cessing pro­gram and create a larger ver­sion dir­ectly from this. GIF/PNG files are provided for use on web­sites and on any on-screen present­a­tion — they are com­pressed for speed of down­load without any loss in quality. Tiff files are provided for print pur­poses — use these if you can’t use the EPS and need to print your logo.

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