A sign maker needs vector artwork — an EPS, PDF, SVG or AI file in which your logo is stored as mathematical shapes rather than pixels. That is what lets it be scaled up to the side of a van or a shop fascia without going soft or blocky.
A PNG or JPG is not vector, however large it is. Neither is a screenshot, a Word document, or an image copied from your website or Facebook page. If those are all you have, the logo has to be redrawn as vector artwork before it can be produced at size.
Why they keep asking for the same thing
A pixel image is a fixed grid of coloured dots. Your logo might be 800 dots across, which is plenty for a website, but a sign maker producing a three-metre fascia has to stretch those same 800 dots across three metres. The dots get bigger. Nothing new appears. That is why enlarging a logo in Photoshop never rescues it.
Vector artwork stores the shapes themselves — this curve, that angle, this colour — so the machine works out the detail fresh at whatever size it is producing. One file works on a business card and on a motorway-side sign.
What to send, in order of preference
| Format | Vector? | What a supplier will say |
|---|---|---|
| .EPS | Yes | The long-standing print and signage standard. Almost universally accepted. |
| .AI | Yes | The original Illustrator working file. Ideal, because it is fully editable. |
| Sometimes | Accepted, but a PDF can contain either vector artwork or just a photograph of your logo. Worth checking. | |
| .SVG | Sometimes | Fine for screen and increasingly accepted for print, though it has no native support for print colour and can hide bitmaps inside it. |
| .PNG | No | Usable only at small sizes. Can at least hold a transparent background. |
| .JPG | No | The most common thing supplied and the least useful. Cannot hold transparency at all. |
Three things that catch people out
The white box
A JPG cannot store transparency, so your logo arrives sitting on a solid white rectangle. On a coloured van or a dark sign, that box shows. It has to be genuinely cut out, which is a manual job — not something achieved by turning the opacity down.
The font that changes
If the lettering in your file is still live, editable text rather than being converted to outlines, your supplier’s software will substitute whatever font it does have. Businesses usually discover this when the printed job turns up in a typeface they have never seen. Artwork should always leave with the type outlined.
The PDF that is not really vector
Someone exports your logo to PDF from a design tool, and the PDF contains a photograph of the logo rather than the shapes. It opens, it looks right on screen, and it fails the moment anyone scales it. This is one of the most common reasons artwork gets sent back.
Not sure which of these you have?
Our free file checker opens your logo inside your own browser — nothing is uploaded — and tells you whether it is genuine vector artwork, whether there is a hidden bitmap or live text inside it, and how large it can safely be produced.
What to do if you have not got vector artwork
This is the normal situation, not a failure on your part. Most businesses only ever received whatever the last person sent them, and if the logo came from a template site, an AI tool or a cheap marketplace, a proper vector version may never have existed.
The fix is to have the logo redrawn by hand as vector artwork. Note that word: redrawn. Automatic tracing tools follow the compression noise and soft edges in your original, producing shapes made of hundreds of unnecessary points with slightly wavy edges. They look acceptable at thumbnail size and visibly rough at sign size, and they cannot recognise your typeface, so lettering ends up as blobby approximations rather than clean type.
It is also worth asking a second question while you are at it: is this logo the one you want on the side of a new van for the next eight years? A supplier rejecting your artwork is often the first honest signal a business gets that its identity has fallen behind the business itself.
Common questions
Can I just make the image bigger before I send it?
No. Enlarging a pixel image adds size but no detail, so the result is a larger, softer version of the same picture. Some tools smooth the result, which reduces the blockiness but also loses the crisp edges a logo depends on.
My logo is on my website. Can the sign maker just take it from there?
Images on websites are deliberately compressed to load quickly, so a web logo is usually one of the worst copies in existence. It can be used as a reference for redrawing, but not as production artwork.
Is an SVG good enough?
Often yes, but not always. An SVG can have a bitmap image embedded inside it, which makes it a picture in a vector wrapper. SVG also has no native support for print colour specification, so some printers prefer EPS or PDF.
How long does redrawing a logo take?
A straightforward mark is usually quick. Complex lettering, fine detail or a poor-quality source takes longer, because the work is drawing rather than converting. The honest answer depends on what you have, which is why we ask to see it before quoting.
Will I own the redrawn artwork?
Yes. Once the work is complete and paid for, the final approved files are yours to use across your business and to hand to any supplier you choose.