Home › Field notes › Artwork File Requirements for Logos: Format, Outlined Type and Colour

Modular Bag Pro · 2026-10-11 · 2,537 words · 12 min read

Artwork file requirements for logos come down to one test: can the file be turned into a screen, a plate, an embroidery tape or a laser path without being redrawn, and a bitmap cannot. Supply vector artwork with type converted to outlines and a named colour standard, and the logo moves into sampling within 6-10 working days on routine work and 12-15 where a new plate or mould is cut, against bulk of 35-50 days and MOQ 500 units per reference. The boundary is that minimum stroke width and minimum text height are set by the chosen process and confirmed on a strike-off, not by the artwork file.

Vector Versus Bitmap: What the Production Process Actually Needs

A vector file stores a logo as geometry: points, lines, curves and fills, described mathematically. A bitmap stores it as a grid of coloured squares. The difference is not aesthetic, it is functional. Every process used to put a logo on a bag — screen printing, heat transfer, embroidery, woven label, laser etching, metal or rubber badge — needs geometry. A screen needs a shape to expose, an embroidery machine needs a path to follow, a laser needs a line to trace, and a woven label needs a pattern to set up on the loom. A grid of pixels provides none of those.

The failure is predictable and specific. A bitmap enlarged to banner size produces stair-stepped edges and soft corners. Converted automatically to vector, it produces a shape with hundreds of redundant anchor points, uneven curves and closed counters where there should be open ones — technically a vector, practically unusable without manual cleanup. Either route ends at the same place: a redraw.

Resolution figures are frequently quoted as if they solved the problem, and they do not. A high-resolution bitmap is still a bitmap; it has more squares, not more information about where the edge is. The only file that answers the question a print or embroidery process asks is one in which the edge was defined as a curve in the first place.

Selection rule: Supply logo artwork as geometry — vector paths with type converted to outlines — and treat a bitmap of any resolution as a redraw job rather than as an acceptable substitute.

File Formats Compared: AI, EPS, PDF, SVG and What Each Carries

Four formats carry usable vector information, and they are not interchangeable. An AI file is the native form of the most widely used vector editor and carries the most: layers, colour definitions, spot colour swatches and editable paths. An EPS is an interchange form, older and more universally readable, which carries geometry and colour but is less reliable with layers and transparency. A PDF preserves vector geometry and is the safest universal handoff because almost every downstream application opens it without translation. An SVG is a web-native vector form; it carries geometry well and is useful for on-screen and cutting applications, though colour management in it is less disciplined than in print formats.

What each format does badly matters as much as what it does well. Transparency, gradient meshes and live effects survive a native file and are frequently flattened or dropped in interchange formats, which is why a PDF exported for print should be checked by reopening it rather than assumed correct. Embedded raster elements stay raster inside a vector file, so a "vector" PDF containing a placed photograph of the logo is still a photograph.

The practical handoff is two files: a native AI or layered PDF as the master, and a PDF or EPS as the working copy sent to production. Sending only the master risks translation problems downstream; sending only a flattened copy means a later edit starts from scratch.

Verdict: Hand over a native vector master plus a verified PDF or EPS working copy, and reopen the working copy before sending it, because an exported file that has silently flattened a gradient is a defect discovered at the plate.

Outlining Type: Why Live Fonts Break at the Print Stage

A logo set in a live font carries a dependency: the file records which typeface was used, not the shape of the letters. Open that file on a machine without the font, or with a different version of it, and the text reflows, substitutes or disappears. That is not a hypothetical risk — it is the single most common cause of a logo arriving at the artwork stage looking subtly wrong, with different letter spacing, a substituted face, or characters replaced by boxes.

Converting type to outlines removes the dependency by turning each glyph into geometry. The letters can no longer be edited as text, which is precisely the point: a production file should be a fixed shape, not an editable one. The correct sequence is to outline last, keep an un-outlined master alongside it, and send the outlined file to production.

Two details are worth stating on the specification. Small text inside a logo — a tagline, a registration mark, a web address — needs to be checked after outlining at the size it will actually be produced, because a face that reads well at 100 mm can close up completely at 12 mm. And knockouts, where the letterform is reversed out of a solid block, need more clearance than solid type, because any thickening at the print stage eats into the counter of the letter before it eats into the outside edge.

Bottom line: Convert all type in a production logo file to outlines, keep a live-text master for future edits, and check small text and reversed-out letterforms at final production size rather than on screen.

Colour: Mode, Colour Standard and Naming a Brand Colour

Colour travels badly between modes. RGB is a screen model built from emitted light; CMYK is a print model built from reflected ink; a spot colour is a premixed ink identified by a reference in a commercial matching system. A logo defined only in RGB has to be converted before it can be printed, and the conversion is a decision, not a calculation — some screen colours simply fall outside what process inks can reproduce.

The specification should therefore name the brand colour in a physical reference system and state the printing condition. A reference in a commercial matching system gives the production side something to mix toward; a coating or a dyed substrate shifts the result, so the target is confirmed on the actual material rather than on paper. Where a logo sits on a dyed nylon shell, a coated shell and a woven label, it will not read as one identical colour across all three, and the specification should say which of the three is the reference.

Screen printing, heat transfer, embroidery thread and woven yarn each have a different achievable gamut, which is why a single named reference is a target rather than a guarantee. The working method is a strike-off: the colour is produced on the real substrate by the real process and approved physically. That strike-off is then retained alongside the approved sample, and becomes the standard a repeat order is matched against.

Takeaway: Name the brand colour in a physical matching system, state which substrate is the reference, and approve the result on a physical strike-off rather than on a screen, because coating and dye shift the reading of every colour.

Minimum Stroke Width and Text Height: Set by Process, Not by Artwork

Minimum viable stroke width is a process capability, not a design preference, and it is why the same logo can be produced cleanly by one method and badly by another. A screen holds a line down to a fineness set by the mesh; a heat transfer holds what the film and cutter resolve; embroidery holds a satin column only above a width where the thread can lie; a woven label holds what the warp and weft can express; a laser holds what the beam and the substrate permit. None of those limits lives in the artwork file, which is why a file can be correct and still unproducible by the chosen method.

The same applies to text height. A wordmark reads at one size on a hangtag and disappears at another on a webbing tab, and the threshold is set by the process and the substrate rather than by the design. Reversed-out text needs more height than solid text at the same legibility, and text sitting on a textured or coated surface needs more again.

Our production team confirms these floors during sampling rather than asserting them in advance, because the number depends on the combination of method, substrate and size rather than on any single figure. Screens and tooling for that setup are quoted at USD 300-2,500 for each design, and a design that fails at the strike-off stage costs a second setup rather than a file edit.

Judgement: Confirm minimum stroke and text size on a physical strike-off for the exact method and substrate, because the limit belongs to the process and a file that looks correct on screen can still fail at production size.

Why Bitmap Artwork Causes Sampling Rework

A bitmap handed to production triggers a redraw, and a redraw costs calendar time in three places at once. First, the tracing itself: a designer has to reconstruct the geometry, decide where the true edge was, and clean up the anchor points an automatic conversion produces. Second, the approval loop: the redrawn vector has to go back to the brand for sign-off, and that loop is buyer-side time rather than production time. Third, the knock-on to tooling: screens cut at USD 300-2,500 per design and plates or moulds are committed after approval, so a redraw discovered late delays the setup as well as the artwork.

The arithmetic is unkind because the delay lands inside the sampling window. Sampling occupies 6-10 working days on routine work and 12-15 where a new plate or mould is cut, and a redraw loop of a week is a week added inside that window rather than alongside it. Bulk then starts later, at 35-50 days, and the whole backward schedule to a launch date shifts.

The second cost is fidelity. A redrawn logo is a reconstruction, and the reconstruction is only as good as the reference and the judgement applied. Thin serifs get thickened, counters close, spacing shifts, and the brand ends up with a mark that is close to the original but not the original. That divergence is permanent: it is inherited by every subsequent artwork file, every label run and every catalogue image.

Spec rule: Treat bitmap artwork as a stop at the quotation stage rather than a problem to be solved downstream, because a redraw adds buyer-side approval time inside the sampling window and permanently introduces fidelity drift.

Handoff Checklist: What to Send With the File

A file on its own is not a complete handoff. Five items travel with it: the vector master, the outlined production copy, the named colour references with the substrate each applies to, the placement and size for each application position, and the restriction notes. Restriction notes are the item most often omitted and the one that prevents disputes — minimum size, no-go backgrounds, clear-space rules and any lockup that may not be altered.

Sending the file and the checklist together at quotation is what keeps the 24-48 hour quotation turnaround achievable; a logo supplied as a bitmap inside a presentation deck cannot be costed until it has been redrawn, which is a quotation delay rather than a quotation.

Programme Sequence, Inspection and Terms Behind Logo Application

Logo application follows the same gates as the rest of a programme. At quotation the file is checked for vector geometry and outlined type, and tooling is quoted at USD 300-2,500 per design. At sampling — 6-10 working days for a first sample, 12-15 where a new plate or mould is cut, carrying a sampling charge of USD 50-150 that is credited back against the order — the logo is produced by the intended method on the intended substrate and approved physically. At pre-production the approved strike-off becomes the reference, and at inspection the applied logo is checked alongside the construction.

On the production side, the 4,950 m² SGS-verified production floor carries 149 machines across 7 production lines, worked by 137 people at a rated 200,000 units monthly. Logo application — print, embroidery, badge or woven label — is scheduled on those lines as a station in the assembly sequence, which is why a logo rework discovered after bulk starts is a line-side operation rather than a desk edit.

Inspection treats the logo as part of the product. Drawn to ISO 2859-1 at level II, the release inspection applies 0 critical, 2.5 major and 4.0 minor, and print faults on a logo — misregistration, incomplete coverage, colour outside the approved strike-off tolerance — sit in the major class. Coated and laminated constructions carrying a printed logo are separately characterised to ASTM D751, which is the relevant reference for the substrate rather than for the artwork.

Terms close the loop. Payment is T/T, 30 percent down to release materials and tooling and the remaining 70 percent before the goods leave, quoted FOB Xiamen, and freight cube is booked at about 28 CBM for a 20GP and 68 for a 40HQ. Where a logo needs to be applied across several modular components, the placement plan belongs in the same document as the rest of the build — the approach described under custom modular backpack programmes and in the note on writing a tech pack for modular bags. File questions route through our contact page.