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Design

Posted by Kristina Nelson
Kristina Nelson
4,196 Points

What to do with all my illustrator layers when I finish my logo?

Hi,

I've been making a logo in Adobe Illustrator. I have many layers that make up the logo. Now that I"m finished, what do I do if I wanted to eventually mail this to a client?

1) Do I rasterize the layers? Group them? Flatten them? Merge them?...

2) And what do I save the ai file as if someone was to use it for a logo for their website and print material? And for t-shirts?

Thanks much,

Kristina

4 Answers

Al Lu
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Al Lu
UX Design Techdegree Student 15,698 Points
Al Lu
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Al Lu
UX Design Techdegree Student 15,698 Points

1)You don't have too. You can send him JPG (Save for web in illustrator). If he didn't pay you yet, send only JPG maybe with a watermark.

2) Give him everything. AI, JPG/PNG, PDF and EPS or whatever he needs.

How many layers you have in the project?

Kristina Nelson
Kristina Nelson
4,196 Points
Kristina Nelson
Kristina Nelson
4,196 Points

Well, do I need to group my layers to resize it? I have over 10 layers and many brush stroke layers.

Roufa Therrien
Roufa Therrien
10,153 Points
Roufa Therrien
Roufa Therrien
10,153 Points

Kristina,

I would keep an .ai file which contains all of the original layers for your own records. If your client asks for revision, you will then still have a file that's ready for editing.

As Alon suggested, you would send a flatter file for your client in whichever format seems best suited for his or her initial review. Depending on the contract, the client or you would eventually keep the file with the original layers. A repeat client (the best!) would likely entrust you to keep the complete file in case it needs to be updated in future projects.

There is no need to resize a file if it is saved in a vector format (.ai, .eps, .svg). Anything which is used for print or t-shirts should eventually be exported at a higher resolution. The printer should be able to give you more details.

Roufa

Kristina Nelson
Kristina Nelson
4,196 Points
Kristina Nelson
Kristina Nelson
4,196 Points

So, taking your two's advice, I went about trying to save my artwork keeping all the layers. However, I came across this problem - the client wants the logo file to contain no raster elements. But I used a bristle brush for several of the layers so...

When I tried to save it as eps, Adobe Illustrator states, "The document you are currently saving contains multiple Bristle Brush paths with transparency. A large number of such objects can make the document too complex to print or save to EPS...You can reduce complexity and retain appearance by selecting Bristle Brush paths and rasterizing."

Since my client wants no raster elements, what should I do? Is there a way around this?

Adobe Illustrator also mentioned in the WARNINGS section when I tried to save the file that the artwork needs flattening. But will that negatively impact the artwork?

Thanks again,

Kristina