You finished the logo. Now the download dialogue offers two files, and everyone you send them to wants “the logo” — as if there were only one. There are two, they do different jobs, and sending the wrong one is how brands end up blurry on a storefront.
Here is the practical version of the difference, plus what to send to whom.
PNG: the pixel picture
A PNG is a grid of coloured pixels. At the size it was exported, it looks perfect. Blow it up past that size and you see the grid — jagged edges, soft detail, the classic “stretched logo” look. PNGs are ideal when the exact size is known and fixed:
- Social media avatars and profile images
- Presentation slides and documents
- Email signatures and invoices
- Anywhere the platform tells you the pixel dimensions in advance
Modern PNGs also support transparency, so your mark can float on any background without a white box. Export at the largest size you will plausibly need — 1024px is a safe default, 2048px covers print requests.
SVG: the drawing instructions
An SVG is not a picture of a logo — it is a recipe for drawing one. It stores shapes, coordinates and text: “a circle at this point, a polygon with these corners, this word in this font.” Render it at business-card size or billboard size and the result is mathematically perfect both times, because the recipe never gets bigger — only the output does.
- Print, signage, vehicle wraps, embroidery
- Anything a printer, sign-maker or promotional-products vendor asks for
- Future edits in Illustrator, Figma, Inkscape or Affinity Designer
- Favicons and app icons that must render at many sizes
SVG files are plain text and tiny — a logo SVG is usually smaller than its PNG cousin. Ours also embed the font, so the file renders correctly even on a machine that does not have the typeface installed.
The comparison table
| PNG | SVG | |
|---|---|---|
| Scaling | Fixed — blurs past export size | Infinite — always sharp |
| Transparency | Yes | Yes |
| File size | Larger | Very small |
| Editable later | No | Yes — shapes and text |
| Best for | Avatars, slides, web images | Print, signage, source file |
| Compatibility | Universal | All modern browsers & design tools |
Who gets which file
Your developer
Send the SVG. It is smaller, sharper on every display density, and can be inlined into HTML or recoloured with CSS. If their stack demands raster, ask for the exact pixel size instead of guessing.
Your printer
Send the SVG. Printers ask for vector files because they need to output at 300 DPI and beyond. If a printer insists on PDF, any vector tool can convert the SVG in one step.
Social platforms
Send a square PNG at the platform’s recommended size — usually 400–1500px. PNG, not SVG, because most social networks re-encode uploads and do not display SVG.
Your future self
Archive both. Keep the SVG as the master, plus the highest-resolution PNG, in a folder with a one-page note on colours and minimum sizes. In three years, that folder is the difference between a five-minute update and a re-design.
Rule of thumb: SVG for anything that might get bigger, PNG for anything that will not.
The good news: with a vector-first maker, both files come out of the same canvas in the same sitting. Export the PNG set you need today, keep the SVG for everything tomorrow brings — both are one click away.