Which logo files you should receive.

What you must own

PNG, JPG and WebP are raster files. Each one is a fixed grid of coloured pixels. A PNG exported at 512 pixels wide holds 512 pixels across and no more; ask for it at 2,000 and software has to invent the difference, so the edges go soft, then blocky. That is why a logo pulled off a website looks wrong on a banner, and why nobody can rescue it.

SVG, EPS, AI and most PDFs are vector files, and a true vector holds no pixels at all. What they store is geometry: the coordinates of every point, the curve between them, the weight of every stroke. Nothing is rendered until it is displayed or printed, and then at whatever resolution the device can manage. One file is correct on a favicon and on the side of a building.

The vectors are the original; every raster is a photograph of it. Everything on a logo design project is built outward from those masters, so keep them somewhere that is not one person’s laptop.

Every format, and what it is for

Eight formats cover almost everything a company will need. The last column matters as much as the others: most file problems are a correct format used in the wrong place.

The PDF row catches people out. PDF is a container. A print-ready vector and a wrapped 300-pixel screenshot arrive with the same extension and the same icon.

The versions of the mark

One logo is not one file. A mark that exists in a single arrangement fails the first time it meets a space the wrong shape, and someone will then stretch or crop it. Six versions cover what comes up.

• The primary is the full lockup: mark and name in their default relationship and proportions. Use it unless there is a reason not to.
• The horizontal sets the mark beside the name, for wide and shallow spaces like site headers, email footers and sponsor rows.
• The stacked version puts the mark above the name, for narrow or square spaces where the horizontal would shrink until the type is unreadable.
• The icon, or submark, is the mark on its own, for avatars, app icons, favicons and packaging. Have it redrawn for small sizes, not cropped out of the primary.
• The one-colour artwork is solid black and solid white, with every gradient and hairline resolved into flat shape. Engraving, embroidery, foil and stamps all work from it.
• The reversed, or knockout, version is for dark backgrounds and photographs, drawn so the gaps and counters still read once the tones invert.

Each should arrive as vector and as raster exports at a few sensible widths. Which one to reach for is a question for the brand guidelines: the file set says what exists, the document says when to use it. Finished examples sit in the portfolio (opens in a new tab).

Colour: screen and print

Screens emit light and mix it additively; ink absorbs light and mixes subtractively, and the two ranges do not overlap neatly. A vivid screen colour often has no exact four-colour equivalent, so somebody has to pick the closest honest ink match and check it on paper. Left to an automatic conversion, it prints flat and sits slightly wrong beside its own website.

Pantone is the third case. Spot inks are mixed to a set formula and printed from their own plate, so the colour never has to be assembled from four process inks. That is how packaging and merchandise stay identical across suppliers and years. You may not need one, but you should be told your nearest reference before a supplier picks it.

Ask for the values in writing, as plain text somebody can copy. HEX, RGB, CMYK and any Pantone. Someone will need to match your colour in a tool that never opens a logo file: a slide template, a shopfront, a shirt.

The delivery checklist

Use this against any designer's handover, ours included. Treat a missing item as a fair question. Most gaps are oversight, and the ones that are not are worth finding early.

• Vector master of the primary lockup, construction intactAI · EPS
• Web-ready vector of every lockupSVG
• Print-ready artwork of every lockup, in CMYKPDF · EPS
• Horizontal, stacked and icon-only versionsVector · PNG
• One-colour black and one-colour white artworkVector · PNG
• Reversed version for dark backgroundsVector · PNG
• Raster exports at several widths, transparentPNG · WebP
• Favicon and app icon setSVG · PNG · ICO
• Colour values in writing: HEX, RGB, CMYK, PantoneDocument
• Clearspace, minimum size and misuse rulesPDF
• Typeface named, and logo type converted to outlinesVector
• Written assignment of ownership, source files includedDocument

Ask for it named plainly, so a new hire in three years can find the right file without asking anyone. A folder of twelve things called logo-final-v3-USE-THIS is one your team quietly stops opening, and then someone pastes a screenshot into a deck.

Red flags

Four things should stop you signing off a handover. Each is recoverable if you catch it before the final payment, and expensive afterwards.

• You were given only PNGs or JPGs. You own pictures of a logo, not the logo. This is standard at the cheap end, where the vectors are held back as a paid upgrade. It is one of the things that separate the tiers in what a logo actually costs.
• Nothing assigns the rights to you in writing. In most jurisdictions copyright stays with whoever created the work unless it is explicitly transferred. Paying the invoice is not the transfer, and that becomes a real problem the day you apply for a trademark.
• The "source file" is a Photoshop document. PSD is a raster editor's format. It may hold vector shape layers, but the document is pixel-based and fixed at one resolution, so it cannot be a master. A logo delivered as a PSD was painted rather than drawn.
• The curves are ragged. A mark auto-traced from a scan or a JPG carries hundreds of unnecessary anchor points. Zoom to 1600%: straight lines should be straight, corners sharp, curves smooth. Wobble means somebody traced it, and it shows on anything large or embroidered.

Two checks take a minute. Drag the SVG into a browser tab and zoom until the mark fills the screen; it should stay crisp. Do the same with the PDF. If either blurs, you have a raster file wearing a vector extension.

None of this requires you to become a designer. It requires you to open the folder before the last invoice is paid, and to ask in writing about anything missing. The shorter versions of these questions are answered in the FAQ. If a folder has landed on your desk and you cannot tell what you are looking at, write and describe it. We will tell you whether you have a logo or a picture of one.

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