The client sent a JPG.
They need a vector.
The most common billable request in a studio inbox, and the one most likely to come back as a complaint from the printer. Here is the workflow that survives the press — including the honest answer about when auto-tracing is fine and when it is malpractice.
Judge the source before you pick a method
Almost every argument about auto-trace versus manual redraw is really an argument about the source file. Settle that first and the method chooses itself.
Auto-trace is genuinely fine when…
The source is high resolution, flat-colour, and sharp-edged — an export from someone else’s vector, or a large clean PNG. The traced paths land on the real edges, the node count stays sane, and a manual redraw would produce the same shapes an hour later. Charging for that hour is padding, not craft.
Redraw manually when…
The source is small, JPEG-compressed, screenshotted, gradient-heavy, or has been resaved a dozen times. Tracing that gives you edges that wobble, hundreds of nodes describing compression artefacts, and colour fills sampled from antialiasing. No amount of cleanup rescues it — you are tracing the damage, not the logo.
Four steps, in this order
Assess
Open at 100% and at 1600%. Count the distinct colours. If the edges are crisp at 1600% and the palette is a handful of flats, trace it. If not, redraw.
Vectorize
Trace to editable paths — Clearly’s vectorizer returns real editable vectors rather than a flattened image, so cleanup happens on paths, not pixels.
Clean
Cut the node count, snap the flats to the brand palette, close open paths, and outline every glyph. This is where a traced file becomes a professional one.
Deliver
SVG + vector PDF + transparent PNG, plus one-colour and reversed variants. Name the files properly — the client will forward them to a printer you never speak to.
Three checks before it leaves your machine
Each of these has cost a studio a reprint at some point. They take a minute together.
Zoom to 1600%
Real vector edges stay clean at any zoom. Traced artefacts appear as micro-stairsteps along what should be a smooth curve. If you can see the original pixels in the path, the printer will see them at A0.
Count the paths
A wordmark that arrives with 400+ paths has traced the compression, not the letters. A clean redraw of the same mark is usually under 40. High node counts also break cutting machines and slow every downstream tool.
Count the colours
A print logo is a few flat fills. If the swatch panel shows ninety near-identical shades, those came from antialiased edges and every one of them becomes a separate plate, spot colour, or cut layer in production.
What actually goes in the folder
logo.svg — web, apps, anything responsive. Outlined type, no embedded fonts.
logo.pdf — the file printers ask for by name. Vector, not a rasterised export.
[email protected] — transparent, for the client’s slide deck and everyone who cannot open the first two.
logo-1c.svg — single colour, for embroidery, stamps, and one-colour print.
logo-reversed.svg — knockout for dark backgrounds. It gets requested every time.
The rest of the production chain
PNG or JPG to editable SVG
The conversion itself — real editable paths, not a traced image wrapped in a box.
Logo vectorization, specifically
What changes when the artwork is a mark rather than an illustration.
Bring the vector into Figma
Import methods, path editing, and why an SVG sometimes looks different once placed.
What studios actually ask
01Is auto-tracing a client logo acceptable professional work?+
02How do I know if a traced logo is actually print-ready?+
03What files should I deliver to the client?+
04The client only has a logo from their website. Can I still do this?+
05Do I need to match the original fonts?+
Vectorize the logo, then finish it properly
Upload the raster, get real editable paths back, and clean up on vectors instead of pixels.