Why do companies request a Vector File?

Many printers will require you to provide either high resolution images or Vector files. Without a vector file, some printers (for example, engravers, screen printers or signmakers) may not be able to produce the final printed product. Other printers that request it (for example, digital or litho printers) require a Vector as the image ("Raster") you have supplied will not print well at the size it needs to be printed.

A Vector is scalable. Mathematical formulae are used by graphics programs to scale a Vector to any size without losing quality.

A Raster image on the other hand, is NOT scalable. The more you increase it, the more pixelated "fuzzy" it will get. An example is a photograph, if you open it up and keep on zooming in - it will get worse and worse the more you zoom in.

The reason why rasters look pixelated as you zoom in is due to pixels (tiny squares) being used to form the image. Vectors are not formed by pixels, but by lines which are scaled as the vector is scaled. This means you can print vectors at any size without them losing quality. This also means that file sizes are usually very small compared to a raster of the same image.

Other major advantages of Vectors is that you can change the colour very easily and modify/remove components very easily without having to redraw it all again from scratch. Examples of why you may want to change the colour are that, for example, imagine you had a black logo that you wanted printed on to a black t-shirt. This wouldn't work as you wouldn't be able to see the logo! However, you could take a few seconds to change the colour to any other colour you like.

If you have a logo or an image that you need to converted to a Vector File format then please visit our homepage.
(Prices start from just £19.99)