When artwork is created for your company it can often come in many different formats which can often lead to confusion if you’re not part of the graphic design world. You may wonder what to do with them, how to open then, why there are so many different formats and what’s this word ‘vector’ that everyone uses.

Due to the speculation on what each format is and why there are so many it often becomes a challenge to get the right formats when it comes to web publishing and print.

So, what are the most common file types?

• PNG (Portable Network Graphics) – is lossless file format designed as a more open alternative to Graphics Interchange Formats (GIF)
• SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) – this is an XML-based vector image format for two dimensional graphics with support for interactivity and animation.
• EPS (Encapsulated Postscript Vector Graphics) – this is a file extension for a graphics file format used in vector based images in Adobe Illustrator. This file can contain text as well as graphics.
• PDF (Portable Document File) This is the most common file format and most companies accept this type of file as it works well with both Windows and Apple software. It is a file format that aims to accurately represent a document onscreen, regardless of which computer system the file is viewed on.

So as you can see above the word vector is used a lot, you may be wondering what a vector is and why it’s required so frequently.

A vector graphic is a computer-made images that is made up of points, lines and curves that are based upon mathematical equations, rather than the designated amount of pixels. This means that no matter how large or small or how close you zoom in on the image, the lines, curves and points remain smooth. Creating the perfect finish to any graphic or design and that’s why it’s such an important file type.

It’s so important to ensure that you gain the right sizes for your actual image so if a magazine publication requires a certain size make sure you follow the requirements or you could end up with the wrong sized image in your trade publication – more often than not lead to blurry unusable images.

Here at Onefoursix, we also ensure that all our digital content is at the right file sizes. For example social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter require images to be a certain size to fit into the post we are making, therefore we have to scale each social media image to the specific frame requirements otherwise it will look out of place. This is often something people can forget can be different for each platform. For example, the wrong size for LinkedIn can make the image look dramatically smaller which isn’t the look you’re often aiming for.

Once you’ve got a bank of images, especially logos correctly formatted – it makes your job a lot easier to be able to use them for the correct item.

If you want to know more about how correct file formats can benefit your companies image get it touch here today.