Insurance Journal Ad & Marketing

Blurry Logos Look Bad! Here’s How to Keep ’em Crisp in Print

By | November 5, 2012

A catchy headline, a compelling message, and a clear call to action are all vital components of an effective print ad. However, it’s equally important that your print ad is visually appealing. A blurry logo looks very unprofessional!

Here’s what you need to know to keep your logo looking crisp in print: “High resolution is a good solution. Vector is even better.”

1. High Resolution is a Good Solution

Logo files that end with .jpg, .tiff, .gif, or .png are called raster images. Raster images are made up of a grid of tiny colored squares called pixels, which combine like a mosaic to form your logo.

The more pixels there are in an image, the higher the resolution. (To find out how many pixels your image has, just right click the file, select Properties or Get Info, then look for the image dimensions.)

If a logo doesn’t have enough pixels to fill up the area in which it’s printed, it will look blurry. For a nice publication such as Insurance Journal, your logo should be at least 300 pixels for every inch of space it will cover on the printed magazine page. This is known as pixels per inch (or ppi).

For example, if your logo will be printed 2″ wide by 1″ tall on the magazine page, then the logo file that you send to the designer will only need to be 600 pixels wide by 300 pixels tall. However, if you want your logo to be printed larger at 6″ wide by 3″ tall, then your logo file will need to be 1,800 pixels wide by 900 pixels tall.

2. Vector is Even Better

If you don’t want to bother with raster images and pixel dimensions and ppi calculations, don’t worry. There’s a better way. A vector logo will always look crisp–no matter how big or small it’s printed!

Vector files usually end in .eps or .ai. If you don’t have a vector version of your logo handy, you should be able to get it from the designer who originally designed your logo.

That’s it! Now your logo will look clean, crisp, and professional in your next magazine advertisement.

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