File Formats for Logo Design and Marketing Related Material

Till date much has been written about logos and design and I thought it is about time we discussed a bit more in relation to logo design and other marketing related material. Not many of us know exactly that a design for logos comes in various different file formats and you can use them as per your special requirements. Moreover, it is not just a logo that is necessary for marketing and publicity of a business.

A successful business firm requires having some additional items along with a professional logo design for the purpose of marketing and publicity. These items are provided together with a logo design or separately by commercial logo design services and include the following;

  • Stationary
  • Website
  • Web Banner – Static
  • Web Banner – Animated
  • Brochures

Logo design companies usually provide file formats having the following extension codes;

.JPG, .GIF, .PNG, .PSD, .TIF, .PDF, .EPS and .AI for logo design

.JPG, .PDF, .EPS and .AI for stationary – (business card, letterhead etc.)

.PSD and .JPG for website

.PSD and .JPG for static banners

.FLA and .SWF for animated banners

.AI and .JPG for brochures, pamphlets, fliers, etc.

JPG or JPEG, GIF and PNG are the most commonly used formats around the world while PSD, AI and PDF are also widely used by logo design firms. Here is a brief description of these file formats for a quick reference.

JPG or JPEG – Joint Photographic Experts Group

JPG or JPEG is a method of compression used for photographic images. The level of compression is adjustable and is used for various scales of resolution according to the desired size and image quality however, the actual resolution of the image is quite limited.

GIF – Graphic Interchange Format

This file format is a low resolution format that uses 8 bits per pixel which allows a single image to reference a palette of not more than 256 individual colours. GIF images can be compressed to decrease the file size without affecting the visual quality of the image.

PNG – Portable Network Graphics

PNG is a bitmap based file format that was developed to upgrade and substitute GIF type of file format. It is able to support 24 bits per pixel and is definitely better than GIF.

TIF or TIFF Tagged Image File Format

The TIF or TIFF type of file format is mainly used for storing photographic images and sketches. It is an adaptable format that can handle both images and data contained in a single file and which include definition, size, image-data arrangement and applied image compression. TIF is a high quality file format usually used for desktop publishing and commercial printing purposes.

PDF – Portable Document Format

The Portable Document Format generally referred to as PDF is used to display images and two-dimensional documents independently without the need of any particular application software, hardware, and operating system. A single PDF file contains complete details of a fixed-layout two-dimensional document which consists of text, fonts, images, and 2D vector graphics and is used to compose the documents.

EPS – Encapsulated PostScript

Encapsulated PostScript or EPS is a vector based file format which allows greater scalability, file compression and file conversion. It is considered to be an efficient, high resolution file format now widely used by professional logo designing experts and commercial printing houses.

PSD – Photoshop Document

The PSD file format is the most extensively used format which houses pictorial images and high resolution graphics in layered positioning. It is the most popular type of file format among graphic designers and commercial publishing and printing firms.

AI – Adobe Illustrator Artwork

The AI file format which stands for Adobe Illustrator Artwork, is yet another highly used vector based file format for graphics and images. It represents single page vector based drawings and illustrations and employs a layered technique similar to that of PSD. The AI format is more commonly used by professional logo designers among the graphic designing fraternity.

FLA – Adobe Flash and SWF – Shock Wave Flash

FLA is a type of file format that can be applied to both vector based and raster graphics. It is predominantly used for animated graphic designing. The FLA file format also supports dual streaming of videos and gaming applications. With reference to context, Flash is used to design animated banners and other web based advertising material.

The extension .SWF comes with the source file of flash animations and serves as the leading editable file format for representing animated vector graphics on the internet. To make it simple, your animated banner is made in Shock Wave with the source file having the extension .SWF and displayed in Flash Player with the display file having the extension .FLA.

I believe this much information would be quite adequate for a layman with regards to logo designing, graphics and web animations. This article will also be helpful to young business entrepreneurs who are having their business logo designed by logo design companies.

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End Note: The author of this post is a senior consultant at Logo Design Consultant. Questions / responses are MORE than welcome.