Send a vector file — .ai, .eps, .svg, or a vector .pdf. Those four engrave cleanly at any size. A .jpg, .png, or a logo pulled off your website will usually work for simple marks but often needs rebuilding first, which adds days to your order. If you only have a JPG, send it anyway and I will tell you honestly what it needs.
I'm Veronica Ramirez, owner of Palm Coast Customs in Estero, Florida. Artwork is the single most common cause of delay on a business order, and it is entirely preventable. Here is what I need and why.
Why a Laser Needs a Vector
A laser does not print. It follows a path.
A vector file describes your logo as mathematical curves and lines — this shape, this position, this size. The Thunder Nova 51 reads those paths and drives the laser head along them. Scale a vector to any size and the curves stay perfectly sharp, because the math is recalculated rather than stretched.
A raster file — JPG, PNG, GIF — is a grid of pixels. There are no shapes in it, only colored squares. To engrave from a raster, that grid has to be interpreted into paths, and interpretation is where quality is lost. A 400-pixel-wide logo blown up to three inches on a tumbler produces soft, stair-stepped edges.
There is a second issue that catches people out: a laser engraves in one tone. There are no grays and no gradients — every point is either engraved or it is not. A logo with a subtle gradient has to be converted into solid shapes, and someone has to decide where the boundaries go.
The Formats That Work
.ai — Adobe Illustrator. The best case. Fully editable, true vector. If your designer built your logo, this is what they built it in.
.eps — Encapsulated PostScript. Older vector standard, universally readable. Extremely common in brand asset packages.
.svg — Scalable Vector Graphics. True vector, web-native. If your web developer has your logo, they likely have an SVG.
.pdf — but only if it is vector. This is the one that trips people up. A PDF can contain either vectors or a photograph of a logo. If someone scanned a business card to PDF, that is a raster in a PDF wrapper and it carries none of the benefits. Send it and I will check.
.dxf or .dwg. Occasionally show up from architectural or fabrication sources. Both work.
The Formats That Cause Problems
.jpg. The most common thing I receive and the most problematic. JPG compression adds artifacts around hard edges — a faint halo of noise around every letter. On screen it is invisible. Traced into engraving paths, it becomes fuzz.
.png. Better than JPG because it has no compression artifacts and supports transparency, but still a pixel grid. A high-resolution PNG of a simple, bold logo often traces well enough to use. A low-resolution one does not.
A logo copied off your website. Almost always 200–500 pixels wide, because that is all a webpage needs. It is the single most common file I get and the least usable.
A screenshot. Please do not. Screenshots compound every problem — low resolution, compression, and often a background baked in.
A photo of a business card or a sign. I understand why it happens when the original is lost. It cannot be engraved directly, but it is a perfectly good reference for rebuilding.
How to Find Your Original Logo
Most businesses have a usable file somewhere and do not know it. In rough order of likelihood:
- Your designer or agency. Whoever created the logo has the source file. One email usually solves this.
- Your sign company or print shop. Anyone who has produced a banner, vehicle wrap, or printed materials for you needed vector artwork to do it.
- Your web developer. Frequently has an SVG.
- Your brand or style guide. If one was made for you, the asset package is usually attached.
- Your embroidery or apparel vendor. Embroidery digitizing starts from vector art.
If none of those turn anything up, the logo can be rebuilt. That is real work — someone redraws it as clean vector paths — but it is a one-time cost, and afterward you own a file that works for engraving, signage, embroidery, and print forever.
What Makes a Logo Engrave Well
Beyond the file format, some logos are simply better suited to engraving than others.
Engraves beautifully:
- Bold, solid shapes
- Clean wordmarks with reasonable letter weight
- Single-color designs
- Simple icons with clear separation between elements
Engraves poorly:
- Fine text below roughly 8pt at final size — it fills in
- Hairline strokes — they can vanish entirely
- Gradients and drop shadows — no tonal range to work with
- Photographic elements inside the logo
- Tightly nested detail that closes up at small sizes
Many businesses have both a full logo lockup and a simplified mark. Send both. The simplified version is usually the better engraving, and I will tell you which one I would use and why.
What Happens After You Send It
- You email the file with your order details.
- I open it and confirm whether it is true vector and whether it will engrave cleanly at your intended size.
- If there is a problem, I tell you immediately — before it costs you time — along with what would fix it.
- I lay out the design on the actual product at actual size and send you a digital proof.
- Nothing is engraved until you approve that proof.
If your file needs work, you will hear about it on day one rather than day six. That is the entire reason this post exists.
Send me whatever you have, even if you are not sure it is right. Checking it takes me a few minutes and it is the cheapest possible way to protect your timeline.