One of the things we get asked often is what types of files do we need to create your marketing materials or websites. It’s a pretty valid question and generally our clients are super eager to get us anything they can to start their project so I thought this would be something to share here.
If you’re looking to get print materials created, ‘high resolution’ and ‘vector’ are the key words. Your logo, any pre-build graphics or illustrations or icons likely have been created in a vector format with file extensions .ai and .eps. These files types are the ones to send as they product the best print results with quality.
For photos, there can be a bit of discrepancy depending on the size of the output. If we’re doing a brochure images should be 300 DPI and have a physical size suitable for something 8.5×11”. If you’re looking for large format like a bus shelter or a bill board the images need to be even higher resolution and physical size. I like to always say the bigger the better when it comes to photos as you can always downsize.
When it comes to your website or social media files do not have to be high resolution. In fact, web image output should only be 72dpi and be optimized for smallest file size while maintaining the most image quality possible. For online the files to look for are .jpg, .png and .gif. We like to be provided both .jpg and .png as the .png typically has transparency so icons and logos can be placed on top of colours and images without a white box behind them like you get with .jpg.
Photos for online will always require resizing so I still like to suggest sending your high resolution images then they can be downsized to suit. If you do not have high resolution images there is still a good chance they can still be used. As long as the images are still of a decent physical size they often will do the trick.
Just a few final things to note when sending images for print or web. If an image is blurry we cannot make it crisp, if an image is super tiny we cannot make it larger and if the image needs significant editing be prepared to pay or find a different image.
Hope this helps to get a feel for what to send to your designer for your next project.