There are two families. Vector formats — AI, EPS, and often PDF and SVG — store your logo as shapes, so they work at any size and are what printers and sign makers ask for. Pixel formats — PNG, JPG — store a fixed grid of dots, and are for screens and small print only.
If you only remember one thing: send suppliers an EPS or PDF, use PNG on screen, and never rely on a JPG for anything that needs a transparent background.
The vector formats
AI — Adobe Illustrator
The working file your logo was drawn in. Fully editable, which makes it the master copy. You will rarely open one yourself, but you should always have it, because whoever works on your brand next will need it. If a designer will not hand over the AI file, ask why.
EPS — Encapsulated PostScript
The universal print and signage format. It has been around a long time, which is exactly why every supplier can open it. If someone asks vaguely for “the vector file” and you are not sure what they want, EPS is the safest thing to send.
Everyone can open a PDF, which is its strength and its weakness. A PDF is a container: it might hold true vector artwork, or it might hold a photograph of your logo. Both look identical on screen and only one is any use at size. A PDF exported from a proper design tool is usually fine; a PDF someone made by dropping a JPG into a document is not.
SVG — Scalable Vector Graphics
The web’s vector format. Sharp on any screen at any zoom, and tiny in file size, so it is what your website should use. Two cautions for print: an SVG can have a bitmap image hidden inside it, and it has no native way to specify print colours, so some printers would rather have an EPS.
The pixel formats
PNG
The right choice for screens. It supports genuine transparency, so your logo can sit on any background colour without a box around it. Keep a large one — at least 2,000 pixels wide — because you can always scale a PNG down and never usefully up.
JPG
Built for photographs, and poorly suited to logos. It cannot store transparency at all, so there is always a solid rectangle behind the mark. It also uses lossy compression, which smears flat colours and puts faint noise around crisp edges — and that damage accumulates every time the file is re-saved.
Which to use when
| Where it is going | Send this | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Sign maker or vehicle wrapper | EPS or AI | Scales to any size, and their software will definitely open it. |
| Commercial printer | PDF or EPS | Standard print workflow, with colour specified correctly. |
| Embroiderer | EPS or AI | They will digitise from it. Clean vector shapes make that far more accurate. |
| Your website | SVG, or PNG | Sharp on any screen, with a transparent background. |
| Social media profile | PNG | Square, transparent, and sized for the platform. |
| A document or presentation | PNG | Reliable, transparent, and no font dependencies. |
What a complete logo suite looks like
Vector master artwork; horizontal, stacked and icon-only versions; full colour, single colour and reversed white; transparent PNGs at several sizes; a favicon; and a short sheet telling any supplier which file to use for what. Set up once, it removes this problem permanently.
The formats that are not logo files
Suppliers regularly receive logos inside Word documents, PowerPoint slides, Publisher files and screenshots. None of these are artwork. In each case the logo has already been resized and recompressed by the software it was pasted into, so what comes out is a degraded copy of a copy. Send them anyway if it is all you have — they are perfectly good reference for redrawing — but they cannot be produced from.
Common questions
Which single file should I keep if I only keep one?
The vector master, usually the AI or EPS. Everything else can be generated from it. Nothing can be generated from a PNG.
Is a bigger file always better quality?
No. File size tells you very little. A heavily compressed 5MB JPG can be worse than a clean 200KB PNG, and a perfect vector EPS might be only a few kilobytes because it stores instructions rather than dots.
What is a favicon?
The tiny icon in a browser tab. It needs to be a simplified version of your logo, because at that size a full wordmark is unreadable. It is usually the icon element on its own.
Why does my logo look different in Word than on my website?
Usually because two different exports are in circulation, or because one of them is a version with a white background that is invisible against a white page and obvious against anything else.