Time for action — vector versus rasterized images
Now we need to figure out what elements go where and which graphic types will work best. Determine what type of graphics each of our design elements should be to best suit our needs (and the design) and make sure we have the files in that format.
- Photographs naturally have a lot of colors and gradients, and are often taken in a fixed size from a digital camera. That said, the files are rasterized bitmaps and can be in any number of file formats—including
.tif, .jpg, .gif, or.png, and are larger in size. Photographs don't lend themselves to being vector graphics.
- Logos should be portable, so that they can look clean at any size and resolution. The graphics themselves are often simple with less color variation and therefore lend themselves to being vector graphics as opposed to bitmaps. We'll use a graphic-based on one in the Openclipart.org collection, which will be explained later, as an example for a company logo. You can use files of the SVG, AI, or EPS format.
- The company name/title and copy will be text, which is a font and vector graphic. It can still be scaled to accommodate both the boldness of the company name and also be a body copy for the brochure:
What just happened?
We took each piece of the design puzzle and determined the best file types for each element. We collected our files and got them ready for the design phase, which is up next.
