What size to export a logo at

24 September 2026 · Pathside guides

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The only two sums you need

For a screen: pixels = the width of the space × 2. The doubling is for high-density displays, which almost every phone and most laptops now have.

For print: pixels = the printed width in inches × 300. Printers work in dots per inch, and 300 is the usual standard for artwork. (In centimetres: cm ÷ 2.54 × 300.)

Common slots, worked out

• Website header logo, sitting in about 200 px: export 400 px wide.
• Email signature, 150 px: export 300 px.
• Social profile picture: 800 × 800 covers every platform's requirement today.
• A5 flyer, logo across 2 inches: 600 px.
• Roll-up banner, logo 12 inches wide: 3600 px — though for anything this size, send the vector file itself and let the printer scale it.

Why "as big as possible" is the wrong answer

An export at four times what you need is four times the file, slower pages, and rejected email attachments — with no visible improvement, because the screen cannot show detail it does not have room for. Exports are cheap: do another one at the right size rather than one enormous one for everything.

When to send the vector instead

Any printer, sign maker or embroiderer would rather have the .ai, .pdf or .svg than a PNG. Vector artwork scales to any size without a decision from you, which is exactly what they need for a banner, a vehicle wrap or a cut vinyl sign. Export a PNG when the destination cannot take vector — a web page, a chat, a form.

A word on transparency

Export PNG, not JPG, whenever the logo needs to sit on a colour. A JPG has no transparency and will arrive with a white box around it, which is the single most common reason a logo comes back from a printer looking wrong.

Why 300 dots per inch, and when you need less

300 dpi is the traditional standard for printed artwork, chosen because it is past what a typical reader notices at arm's length. It applies to things held in the hand: flyers, business cards, brochures, packaging. Things viewed from a distance need far less — a roll-up banner is fine at 150 dpi, a billboard at 20 — because the viewing distance does the work. When in doubt for a large format, send the vector and let the printer decide.

Exporting for a specific platform

Platforms crop and resize whatever you give them, so the useful rule is to send a square image comfortably larger than their stated minimum and let them shrink it. 800 × 800 covers profile pictures across the board today. What matters more than the pixel count is the padding: a logo that touches the edges of its square gets cropped into by circular avatars.

The size nobody asks about: the file itself

Email attachments, website page weight and messaging apps all have limits, and a needlessly large export hits them. If a PNG of a flat logo is over a megabyte, it is either much larger than it needs to be or it contains an embedded photograph. Re-export at the size you actually need rather than compressing something huge.

A rule of thumb worth keeping

Export for the slot, not for the future. It is one minute of work to export again at another size, and no minutes of work to store one enormous file that is wrong everywhere.