Checklist for Exporting Production-Ready Logos, Tested on a Real SVG

This checklist follows one real logo from Logo Diffusion to a finished set of files: Tokyo Suns, a badge from the Logo Diffusion gallery. We ran it through Vectorize with the HQ vectorizer, opened the SVG it returned and took it apart. It held 57 paths in 4 colors, the lettering was already shapes, and two things needed fixing before the file could go to a printer or a developer: the background, and a version for dark backgrounds. The steps below are the checks we ran, in order, starting with the logo itself, before you spend credits converting it.

1. Check the logo before you export it

Read the name letter by letter at full size. In the exported SVG the letters are drawn shapes, not type: the Tokyo Suns file has 57 paths and no text element at all. A wrong letter can't be retyped there, so fix it in the image first, for example with the Magic Editor, which changes a logo from a text instruction (5 credits at the default Base quality).

showing a sun wearing a baseball cap and holding a bat, integrated into a baseball diamond. Main Text: Tokyo Suns.

Then count the colors you see. Each one becomes its own hex code in the vector file: one more code to match in a brand guide, and one more ink if the logo is printed in spot colors. Tokyo Suns reads as cream, black, yellow and orange, and step 3 shows the file agreed.

2. Vectorize it and pick Stacked or Cut out

Open the logo in Vectorize. The Default vectorizer costs 5 credits and returns a Stacked SVG. The HQ vectorizer costs 8 credits on paid plans and returns two SVG files from one conversion, Stacked and Cut out. The free plan includes 2 vectorizations a month with the Default vectorizer.

Use Stacked for websites, documents and most print. Use Cut out when each shape has to stand on its own: a vinyl cutter, colors separated for screen printing, or recoloring one part with nothing hidden under it. Our guide on how to export a logo as an SVG file walks through the Vectorize screen step by step.

3. Open the SVG and clean it up

Drag the file into a browser tab or a vector editor and look inside. Our Stacked file of Tokyo Suns was 32,872 bytes and held:

• 57 paths in 4 fill colors, each a hex code: cream #fffcef, near-black #100f10, yellow #fdbb17 and orange-red #fb5027. Copy these into your usage note now.
• No text. “TOKYO” and “SUNS” are shapes, so there is no font to send with the file and nothing to convert to outlines.
• A cream rectangle covering the whole canvas. That is the old background, and it turns the logo into a cream square wherever you place it.
• The lettering, the cap and the gloves in the same cream as that rectangle, #fffcef.

For a transparent logo, delete the background rectangle and nothing else. It is the first shape in the file and the only one that covers the whole canvas. Don't select by color: the letters share its code, so deleting every #fffcef shape takes TOKYO SUNS with it. Keep the viewBox attribute on the svg tag: it lets the logo resize with its container on a web page.

4. Make a version for dark backgrounds

Place every version on white and on black before you file it. On white, Tokyo Suns works as it is. On black it loses its edge: the outer shape of the badge is near-black, #100f10, so it runs into the background.

The fix is a white outline around the whole logo. We gave the Magic Editor one instruction, at the default Base quality (5 credits):

Put this logo on a solid black background and add a thick white outline around the outside of the whole logo, following its outer silhouette all the way round: the sun rays, the bats, the cap and the badge. Keep everything inside the outline exactly the same: the colors, the shapes and the text.

The outline follows the whole silhouette, the sun rays and the bats included, and every color inside it stays as it was. Run this version through Vectorize too (step 2) and save it as its own file.

5. Export the PNG files

Social profile pictures, slide decks and some email tools take only image files. Background removal (2 credits) gives you a transparent PNG of the logo. Look at its edges on a dark and a light background: a leftover fringe of the old background shows up on the opposite color. If you need a bigger PNG, Upscale doubles the pixel size (2x, 5 credits; 4x is not available on Basic), and the small lettering is worth a second read afterwards.

6. Prepare the print files

Hex codes are screen colors. Print shops work in CMYK or Pantone, so convert the colors in your vector editor, or send the printer the hex codes from your usage note and ask for a matched proof. PDF and EPS export are coming soon in Logo Diffusion. Until then, open the SVG in a vector editor and save the PDF or EPS from there, with the background rectangle deleted unless the logo should print on it.

7. Package and name the files

Use one folder per logo and one subfolder per use. Put the brand, the version, the color and the file type in every file name, so nobody has to open a file to know what it is:

tokyo-suns-logo/
├── svg/
│   ├── tokyo-suns-color-stacked.svg
│   ├── tokyo-suns-color-cutout.svg
│   └── tokyo-suns-outline-dark-bg.svg
├── png/
│   ├── tokyo-suns-color-transparent.png
│   └── tokyo-suns-outline-transparent.png
├── print/
│   └── tokyo-suns-color.pdf
└── usage-note.txt

The usage note says which file goes where, lists the hex codes, and gives the smallest size you tested the logo at and the clear space to keep around it. The logo size guidelines list the sizes each platform asks for. If the package needs a symbol on its own or a lettermark, Logo System in the Magic Editor makes wordmark, lettermark, emblem and symbol versions of the same logo.