I've run into a recurring problem that I thought might be worth talking about. The problem is that people come to me for design work and when asked for their logo, all too often it turns out that all they have is a low-res version, often a .gif file, which for many uses is not adequate. The solution to this situation may require recreating the logo in a format that's usable for the required purpose.
How does this occur? The problem seems to have two contributing factors:
- First may be poor management of their company art work.
- Second, they may not have received the formats they should have.
In the first case, assuming they have all the formats they should have, they have simply lost track of where they are. Logo formats are company assets and should be managed well, as these are the tools that are used to promote companies in the marketplace. Large companies often have someone designated to handle these kinds of things, while small and medium sized companies rarely do. An easy way to handle this is to simply keep these kinds of assets on a CD or DVD and make sure people know about it. If a company has gone a step further and has original files for things like stationery or even a Standards Manual that explains proper usage of things like logos and fonts, all of these assets should be located on the same CD or DVD, for quick and easy reference.
The second situation comes up when a company hires someone to produce a logo for them, but fails to get the logo in multiple formats or essentially a format for any possible use. They may be thinking they can go back to the designer and get other formats later, only to discover the designer is no longer available, but most likely they didn't even think about other formats at the time. What bothers me most about this situation is that the designer who designed the logo should have anticipated their possible needs and provided the other formats, or at the very least, asked if they might have other needs. I always provide my clients with multiple formats on a disk and also archive all the work I do for them in case it's ever needed again. (I don't charge for this - it's just part of the service I provide.) Unfortunately, some designers produce logos with little understanding of the possible needs a client may have and therefore produce logos that are impractical for many purposes. Logo design should be a well thought out process, but often it's not.
What formats should you have?
My recommendation is to have a minimum of one high-res (300 dpi) raster format and one high-res vector format. Common raster formats include, .psd, .jpg, .png, .eps, .tiff and common vector formats include .ai and .eps. I won't get into the distinctions between raster and vector here, but be aware that a raster image may be scaled down (smaller) but not larger (some exceptions exist) and a vector format can be scaled up or down without loss of quality. There are other considerations to be sure, but with those two formats, you can get to any other format you may need, though you may need to have help to do this.
So if you're going to have a logo made, I encourage you to take some time to think about all the possible uses you may have for the logo so that you can be sure to get the formats you'll need. And if you're a designer, help your clients think this through.
