What type of vector format is appropriate for a graphic designer to give me when the work is completed?

Question

I contracted a graphic designer to create a business logo vector for me. They were supposed to give me one with a white background and one with a transparent background. What I ended up getting is a .ai for the one with the white background, and a .eps for the one with the transparent background.

The problem is the .eps's background is not transparent at all when I open it in gmail, it's white. I've tried converting it to a .png using zamzar to see if it would show up as transparent after the conversion, but it did not.

The graphic designer is at a lost for what the problem is, and is not helping at all.

I feel like giving a client a .ai as a finished product is like giving a person who contracted someone to build a house for them just the blueprints and leaving them on their way.

What should I do so that I end up with the two vectors that I wanted (one with a white background and one with a transparent background), being that both need to get converted into .png's and I don't have adobe illustrator.

Answer 1

The .ai format should be sufficient....
.eps could possibly be a bit more universal.....
However, PDF may be best.

The problem here is ... "when I open it in gmail" --

• 99.9% of email clients have no clue what an .ai or .eps file actually is, that includes Gmail. If anything email clients may guess and what to display, if they can display the file at all. Using any email client to view .ai or .eps files is never going to be a solid solution. You might try opening the .ai file with Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat. (By default, .ai files are both Illustrator files and PDF files. Defaults can be changed, so this may or may not work, but it's worth a shot.)

Minimally, the designer should supply you with an .ai file as a "master" file, then a couple .pdf files (still vector) for your background choices. All he/she really needs to do is draw a white box in the .ai file behind everything and then save as a .pdf to give you a file with a white background.

• Note that PDFs will always display with a white background. That's just how PDFs work. So, in many respects, you'll have to take the designer's word on which PDF does or does not have the white background. (You can, if feasible, open the PDF with Photoshop, that will make the presence of a background visible if its there.)

If you need a .png, ask for that as well. It only takes a couple seconds to save as a png from an Illustrator file (with or without a background).

Recapping... ask for...

• .ai without background
• .ai with background
• .pdf without background
• .pdf with background
• .png without background
• .png with background
• Then eps files if you specifically want those, but with the above supplied, eps is somewhat unnecessary.

All of this should take 1 maybe 2 minutes to generate from a final logo file in Illustrator.

Not to confuse matters, but color (RGB/CMYK/SPOT) may also play a part in what files you may want.

See additional information here:

Logo Pack - What should I include?

Advice when hiring a freelancer for creating a company logo

What file type should I use for a logo when exporting from Adobe Illustrator?

Industry standard file format deliverables for logos?

Answer 2

PNG isn't a vector format, it's a raster format. If you asked for vector formats, your designer gave you two already. AI and EPS are both vector formats but they don't work on the web. If you didn't specify that you wanted a vector format for use on the web, I don't see how your designer could have guessed that's what you need.

If you want a vector format that will work on websites, the only real option is SVG. However, not all email clients might support it, but most browsers do. This should be easy enough to do. Illustrator can easily export images as SVG. It will take your designer only a couple of minutes.

Answer 3

The graphic designer is at a lost for what the problem is.

Ok, the first point is: define what the problem is.

• More specific where do you need to use the logo.

• Does the contract mention specific outputs to these applications? Have you talked to him about this?

It is not hard to do at all... but if you define your needs. If not, you will have a couple of dozen logos and you will be equally lost on which one to use.

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I feel like giving a client a .ai as a finished product is like giving a person who contracted someone to build a house for them just the blueprints and leaving them on their way.

No. The blueprints are to be used by an experienced contractor. The blueprints are if you asked to design a logo.. a house, design. not to construct the house.

The same, an AI file is meant to be used by (an experienced) designer to be applied, let us say on a website or a brochure, and not to be used by the client to be magically applied or be viewed on his email.

Any application is also a design process.

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So, simply ask a specific version of the logo for a specific application.

You can also, for example, a high-resolution PNG transparent logo, but users can potentially use wrong this logo, resampling it, squashing it, pixelating it or converting it into a jam.