Vector Files: A word of caution

[Mike Jackson]

Though this post doesn't necessarily relate to dipping a paintbrush in a can of paint, it does fit the topic of "sign making, fabrication, design" in the list under the large green banner above.

For the most part, we hear Vector files are capable of being enlarged as much as you want without affecting file size or edge quality. However, you have to watch out if you reduce a normally good graphic down to a very small size and then bring it back up.

I've experienced this a few times personally, but I don't think the phenomenon is well known. Recently, a designer in South Carolina had designed the lettering to go on a trailer for a local client. He didn't want to take the trailer back to South Carolina and he didn't want to fly the people up here to do the job, so we were contacted. We saw a few faxes and emails to get a general idea. Before I gave the final price on the sign, I had the designer send the files up to me by email. I was able to contact the designer and told him what I needed and the files arrived as scheduled. One set of files were for some magnetics for the other trucks and one set were for the big trailer. I opened both files and zoomed in. They looked fine, except for the need to weld a few letters together.

I gave the bid and got the job. When I had to actually produce the project, the lettering in the magnetic part was perfect. The edges of the lettering for the trailer were choppy and deformed when zoomed in really tight. The designer had reduced the file of the original artwork down to a size that would fit in a normal 8.5" x 11" fax form and then saved it at that size. We were sent the small version. When I enlarged those elements back up to the normal trailer sized lettering, they were unusable. I ended up taking elements from the magnetic sign file and replacing the corrupted ones and I had to buy two ITC fonts to finish out all the rest of the text.

I experienced the same problem on one of our CD projects. Without knowing there could be a problem, I organized quite a few pages of images and then reduced them to fit the pages in the booklets. Once I tried using them at the larger size, I could see problems with the edge quality and it appeared some points had shifted slightly. I ended up reworking a large chunk of the ornaments.

As a general rule, I think you are fine reducing text down to 1/2", but if it ever gets down to about .2" tall, be careful. Most font outlines are reduced to .667 or 1" for the process of font making, so that benchmark must be safe. Some of the small text on the trailer artwork had probably been reduced down to closer to .1" tall to fit on the fax form.

Mike Jackson