Vector versus Raster...what's it matter?

Truth is, it matters a lot. From the massive marketing and advertising world to your local tiny shirt printing company...it is a world of difference. When dealing with graphics, you either possess a raster image or a vector image. A raster image can be created with software from Microsoft Paint found right on your Windows PC, or on the widely used (and often abused) Adobe Photoshop. To sum it up, you paint/draw/copy/paste/type until you see what you want on the screen and then you save it. That is where it ends for raster artwork. It is done.

Let's say you personally designed your company's logo on Paint or Photoshop. Looks good when you printed it out, right? Sure it does. Now let's say you want to expand your business and advertise on a huge billboard to gain clients. Think you can send that image to the billboard company and all be fine? Nope. What about printed out on a t-shirt? Probably not. You probably noticed that when you try to scale or resize the logo you created...it loses detail, becomes pixelated, and looks blurry.

That is when vector graphics come to the rescue. While often the difference can not be noticed by the naked eye (as long as the sizes are the same)- the logo looks exactly the same, font the same, colors the same...so why is the vector image better?

The vector image is made up of mathematical equations for each line, stroke, and fill in the logo. Once the logo is created, size has no limit. You can scale the image down to 1/2" x 1/2" or blow it up to 10 ft x 10ft...the clarity, or "resolution" will stay the same. If you wanted to blow it up 1 mile x 1 mile, you could do that as well- it is possible with vector graphic design. Software that allows you to create vector artork includes CorelDraw, Adobe Illustrator, and some others. Adobe Photoshop will not create vector artwork.

Need a visual?

Okay. Let's say you wanted to get a program made for your baseball team and you need the logo for your baseball league. You look online, and all you find is this:


You think, "Awesome, I found it...but it's a little small, so I will resize it." Then you get this:
What a joke you will be if you print that and allow hundreds to thousands of people see it. Even worse if you are the marketing coordinator. You need it in vector format, not only because it will look well- but a printing company NEEDS it in vector to print...it is what their machines understand since behind it all, there is nothing but equations and formulas forming points. Printing companies usually charge a hefty setup fee to convert a raster to vector and even then- they could screw it up because most don't have the proper skills.

You send that aggravating raster image to Apex Media and I give you:

Again, you can resize this image to fit on the side of commercial bus...or fit on a button the size of a quarter. No matter the size, the clarity and "resolution" will be the same.