How to Turn a Logo into a Vector Graphic

1. Why a logo has to be vector

A logo shows up everywhere: website headers, business cards, packaging, banners and engraving. A bitmap logo (JPG/PNG) gives itself away as soon as it is enlarged — jagged edges in print, a blurry mess on a large screen, and engraving machines that cannot read pixels at all. A vector logo is described by paths, so it stays sharp at any size and print and engraving software can read those paths directly. "Logo vectorization" is therefore a required step in delivering brand assets. Licensing deals usually ask for vector source files too, since bitmaps are rarely enough.

2. Preparation before you convert

• Find the largest original: the higher the resolution, the more accurate the traced contours. Dig through old files and ask colleagues, and avoid compressed thumbnails from chat apps;
• Prefer a clean background: a white or solid background makes background removal much easier later on;
• Count the colors: work out how many colors the logo actually uses and keep the color count close to that number when converting, so recoloring is painless;
• Have the brand color values ready: note the HEX values so you can calibrate the result afterwards.

3. Turn a bitmap logo into an SVG with PolySVG

1. Open the logo to vector tool and upload the logo bitmap;
2. Switch to the logo preset: it is optimized for marks with few colors and crisp edges, giving clean color blocks without the redundant layers of photo-style tracing;
3. Fine-tune the color count and smoothing: keep the color count close to the real number of colors in the logo and raise the smoothing a little to remove pixel jaggedness;
4. Turn on background removal: the engine detects the dominant border color and drops the background, giving a transparent vector logo;
5. Download the SVG, or go straight into the editor for refinement.

The whole process is free and requires no registration.

Two kinds of logo need special handling. For a mark with gradients, vectorization produces noticeably more color layers, so lower the color count a little and accept a slight banding. For a mark with tiny text, the edges of the letters often blur, so check them separately after conversion and repaint them with the brush or ask a designer to redraw the lettering.

4. Refining in the editor: specks, broken strokes and brand color

Automatic vectorization is rarely perfect on the first try, and the usual repairs happen in the online SVG editor: delete specks — select the small leftover color blocks from the background and delete them; paint with the brush — trace along broken strokes, and the strokes are vectorized into new paths automatically; calibrate colors — click each path and enter the brand color value to remove the shift introduced by the conversion. If the background still will not come away, you can also follow the automatic-plus-manual workflow in the background remover tool.

5. Delivery and archiving

Archive the SVG as the brand source file, and use exported PNGs for everyday previews and documents. If the printer asks for EPS or AI, open the SVG in Illustrator or Inkscape and save it in that format; the differences between formats are covered in The differences between SVG, EPS and AI. To learn more about the value of a vector logo, read 6 advantages of SVG.

Run three checks before delivery: zoom to 400% and look at whether the edges are clean; place the logo on a dark background to confirm the transparency is complete; and verify the brand color values with an eyedropper. The dark background can be a rectangle you draw temporarily and delete afterwards. Once all three pass, the vector logo is ready.

Reminder: vectorization traces the pixels that already exist and cannot recover detail that was lost. If the original is too blurry, find a higher-resolution version or redraw it with the pen tool.