The Importance of a Print Ready Copy of Your Logo
May 11th, 2008“Hello, may I help you?”
“Yes, I’d like to order some business cards.”
“Great, do you have existing artwork for your cards or would you like to speak with our Graphic Designer to create the artwork for your cards?”
“I do have existing cards, but I would like to add my website and email address. So, can you take what I already have and use that?”
“A sample of your current card is helpful to verify paper stock and layout, but what we really need is digital artwork. Do you have a digital version of your card or at least of your logo? If not, we will have to recreate the entire card from scratch.”
“I have a digital version of my logo on my website. Will that work?”
“While that is a digital image of your logo we can not use it to print your cards. Unless you have a print ready or hi-res file it looks like we’ll have to start over.”
Unfortunately this is a conversation that happens all too often. As a business owner your logo is an important part of your brand identity. Your logo should be on everything from your business cards to your product labels. A logo makes it easy for your customers to recognize anything that comes from your business. Whether that is an invoice or a product. So, why is it that something this important is one of the most overlooked items business owners neglect to keep on hand?
Time and time again we are asked to produce print media for companies using their logos and very rarely is this request followed up with a print quality or high resolution artwork. When asked for a digital file of their logo most business owners refer us their existing business card or website.
While a logo may look fine on a website, it is not a high enough quality image to use for print media. Typically web images are 72dpi (dots per square inch) which is great for keeping file size small for faster loading web sites, but not great for printing. Printing an image using website quality artwork results in printing that is pixelized and blurred. The minimum dpi that is acceptable for a good print is typically 300dpi at size.
Now before your eyes start to glaze over with the terminology, lets just break it down to it’s simplest form. The next time you talk to your graphic designer or printer ask them to send you a high resolution print ready digital copy of your logo. It will keep you in control of your brand identity, help your next project come together faster and best of all your printer will thank you.
This post was inspired by a comment from Becky McCray of Small Biz Survival. Be sure to add your comments and suggestions for future Print Media 100 topics.
