Welcome to MARCO's Art 101 tutorial series!
In this episode we talk about Vector Art and Bitmap Art.
To put it plainly, you want Vector art for the best imprint on your promo items. Vector art allows you to enlarge your artwork without losing quality. On the other hand, Bitmap which is also called Raster art, will lose quality as you enlarge it.
A quick explanation of this without going into the technicalities is because bitmap uses a map of bits, or lots of pixels which are replicating curves and shapes. When you enlarge it, you see all of those dots.
Vector art uses real curves made of mathematical equations, which as you expand them retain their quality.
Often, you may have a fairly large bitmap image, so you don't realize the problem right away. So lets say you need a large imprint, like on this retractable banner. If you had raster art and tried to enlarge it to fit, you would lose so much quality for a poor looking image. If you had vector art, you could enlarge it as much as you want for a great looking promotional product!
To sum up, vector art retains quality as its resized but bitmap loses quality as you resize. If you really want to use your bitmap art, make sure it has a resolution of at least 300dpi before submitting your artwork to MARCO and we can create vector artwork for you.
You've seen what Vector art looks like, so the next question you may be asking is how to tell if you have vector art. If you don't have certain software, this can be a challenge. However, to quickly identify if you don't, just check if your file extension is one of these files (.jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .bmp, .png, .psd, .tiff, .tif, .doc, .docx). If you have one of these file types, you don't have vector art. Now here are some file types that can contain vector art (.ai, .eps, .pdf, .cdr). If you have one of these extensions - use that one, because chances are it is vector. Its important to understand, vector art is more than a file extension - simply resaving your art does not convert it. For info on how to convert your art, just watch our video on converting artwork!
However, you don't have to strain yourself with converting. MARCO has trained graphic designers who will do it for you! Just talk to your customer service rep about having your artwork converted.
That's a quick explanation of what vector art and bitmap art both are and why you need vector.
Thanks for watching. Join us in our next episode, [ Ссылка ] as we talk about artwork colors and how to get an accurate printing of your artwork!
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