Custom Golf Tournament Logos are the lifeblood of any charity or corporate golf event.  If you are planning a golf tournament or outing, two things will come up in your committee meetings: advertising your tournament; and, creating the custom signs and logo products identified with the event.

From the listing on your web site, to the newspaper advertisements, to invitations, to the signs that welcome guests as they drive up on the event day, to the goody bag and tee prize items, you will need to know about logos.

Imagine you work in an art department mailroom that supports an 18 billion dollar per year industry like the promotional products industry.  The promotional products industry is all about logos. 

Your job is to ensure that the various departments applying the logo artwork to thousands of items ranging from pens, to leather garments, sporting goods, literally anything you can think of.  Your job is to make sure they get their mail (artwork) in the correct size, and format. 

You would be responsible for the mail getting to the right people so that when it was reproduced, it looks good on the item they apply it.  I know this is not typically the mailroom’s obligation to ensure the mail is readable, but bare with me.

To further complicate this, imagine there are different file types sent in, for the many different ways the artwork would be applied (silk-screen, embroidery, hot-stamp, pad-printing, heat-transfer, etc.).  In other words, add language translation to your job description in the mailroom.

Routinely, you receive anything from napkin-drawings of company ideas, to a two-inch computer generated JPEG replica of a company logo that in the written instructions says, “Need this ASAP in six foot by 12 foot banner”.  No problem, right?  Wrong!  In fact, this has become a big problem for the industry that serves all promotions, including corporate and charity golf.

What’s the problem you say?  Well, without getting into too much technical detail, the way files are created by a PC are divided into categories.  In graphics, there are two different types of files that describe images: raster art and vector art. 

Raster art (also known as bitmap art) is a collection of bits representing pixels (dots) that describe the image, whereas vector art has formulas involving points, lines, curves, and polygons to describe the image. 

Any image could be one of these two file formats, or both, (and the napkin drawing will have to be recreated from scratch).  However, there are differences in the way these images can be manipulated based on which file type it is—ORIGINALLY.

In fact, the number of pixels in a raster or bitmap image is fixed, meaning that if you increase the size of the image, no more pixels are added to describe the image—they are enlarged.  This is the reason the picture starts to lose its quality when you re-size it (edges look jagged when increased in size, etc.).

If you send a promotional company a two-inch high a JPEG (raster image) logo that needs to be six feet high, by the time the blow it up to 6 feet, it will be unrecognizable.  On the other hand, if the original artwork is vector art, the image is faithfully resized mathematically, keeping the same look throughout its transition in size.

When promotional companies receive graphic files to apply to a product, they must assess several things before accepting the file as is, or determining if re-drawing it is necessary.  They look at the file type, file size and size of artwork when opened, resolution (how many dot’s per inch, etc.), color information, and quality of the image onscreen.  Perhaps most importantly, what are the instructions for what the client expects from the artwork sent?

You might be thinking if this is the case, why isn’t there only ONE file type that we all use for these purposes.  Well, the promotional industry is attempting to standardize, the way files are generated and sent for generating logo items.  In addition, there are times where Raster art can be acceptable, (such as a PDF sized for its intended use).

However, there are benefits of having raster and vector art, and hybrids such as PDF available to us on a daily basis. 

The benefits of raster files are portability and usability.  Portable, meaning you can go from devices such as cameras, scanners, to PC’s.  Usability meaning that files can be opened with common programs like Windows picture viewer or a web browser and across platforms (PC  or Mac), all without having to have the high-end graphics software that created the artwork loaded on your computer.  Also, photographs, gradients, and shading appear better suited for rasterizing, assuming that a photo is what you are after.

The benefits of Vector art are that it can most easily be scaled and have the image preserved at 100% of its original quality.  Crisp, clean edges will look better, and stay preserved if resizing.  In some cases, raster information can be included in the vector art, which in certain instances may be valuable.

If a photo is required with your text logo, then imbedding the vector art in the raster graphic may be best.

Most all promotional industry professionals prefer vector art, combos like PDF’s, to raster art, or they may apply conversion, and/or redraw charges. 

It also happens that vector art lends itself to transposing to the industry specific language(s) that drive embroidery and die cutting machines, etc.  Screen-printing, engraving, appliqué die cutting, sublimation, and pad printing all require vector art.

If you can only provide Raster art, or PDF files of your logo, one thing is paramount. It needs to be in the size that it is going to be reproduced onto the item.  You also want at least 300 DPI (dots per inch) so the quality will be good.  In this case, most prefer PDF or TIFF (tagged information file format). 

In general, if you send a 2-inch size bitmap (raster) logo and expect a 6-foot logo banner, get ready for a phone call.

You need not fear if you are left with the task of getting the artwork together, even if you know nothing about it.  There are companies that specialize in converting images, or more commonly, re-drawing them.  However, the first place to start is with your promotional products distributor.

The truth is that all artwork must be adjusted or “made ready” for the application process (getting it on the item by way of embroidery, silkscreen, etc.), which is why there are setup charges in most all cases.  Knowing the correct way to prepare the image on your end will save you time and money in the end.

In summary, Raster may be Faster (for you), but Vector may be Correct’er, if you want a Custom Golf Tournament Logo.

Enjoy Golf!

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