Posts Tagged ‘artwork’

The scenario
Clients often supply us with jpegs and bitmaps (such as company logos) for use in artwork. Unfortunately, there are some instances where we are unable to use these. It’s not us being awkward (honest!)… it’s all down to maths (apparently).

Vector vs Raster
Artwork created in a professional design package (such as Adobe Illustrator or Quark) is created using a mathematical relationship, so that no matter how much you enlarge it, the image remains consistent. The files created are technically known as vector graphics. Jpegs and bitmaps however use something called raster graphics (a collection of square pixels). When you enlarge these, the image suffers from ‘pixelation‘.

Raster and vector graphics tend to serve two different purposes. Raster graphics are often found in PowerPoint presentations and on websites. Their low quality and file size makes them ideal for this purpose. When it comes to print design however, there are very few instances (that we can think of anyway) where raster graphics are preferable to vector artwork. Here’s a quick (and very general) rule of thumb for when we can (and can’t) use those pesky jpegs:-

Rule of thumb

• We can generally use jpegs for websites and e-mails (where file size takes precedence over quality).
• In smaller print (eg. a small leaflet) we can sometimes use jpegs (subject to the file size and quality).
• In larger print (eg. a poster) it’s unlikely that we can use jpegs (but there are certain exceptions).
• In all instances, we will of course let you know which of your source files are suitable… so if in doubt, please ask!

What if I am unable to supply ’scalable vector’ artwork?
Dont’ worry, it’s not the end of the world! Many designs can be re-created from scratch, but please bear in mind that this will add cost (and time) to your project. The more complicated a design, the longer it will take to create (so it’s usually worth hunting down that CD with the original artwork!). We’ll discuss our preferred source file formats in another article… in the meantime If you would like any further guidance on the source files we require, please do not hesitate to contact us.