Working with digital files

Working with digital

It is important to understand the basic differences between "Vector" & "Raster" graphics with digital files. Raster graphic files are made of lots of tiny pixels and Vector digital files are made up of a lot of anchor points that individually are mathematically resized when you zoom in, This can be seen in the example below.

Some basic rules of thumb for Raster is that they are pixel based, best for photographs, are more accessible and sharable and they are large file sizes.

For Vector they are made up of mathematical curves and lines, best for logos, type and geometric designs, less accessible and sharable and they have smaller file sizes.

The screenshot below gives a more detailed overview.

When planning to prepare files consider file size, image size and purpose. Whether it is for print, web, film or video and the resolution. 

so consider whether you need raster or vector, if the recipient has native software (same as you're using) and if it needs exporting & formatting due to its compatibility & size 

File Storage

Below is the screenshot of my organised file for a current course I am doing. This is stored in google drive and i have made separate folders so that different sections of work and resources can be separated and easily found when looking for it. 

There are multiple ways to store, access and share your files including dropbox, cloud storage,  google drive, iCloud, internal or external USBs or hard drives and you can also have internal servers within a company or organisation. 

organisation is important for easy access and retrieval, making a organised logical/hierarchal folder structure will be useful and save you time in the future.

File Naming

Naming your files correctly in a constructed way is important so that your files are easy to find and identify by yourself and those you share it with. Below is an example of adding the date with underscore or hyphen and this will mean that you can sort files by year, month and then date. note that special characters are not to be used.

Below is a screenshot of a method used for file storage, so you know who produced it, the title of the work or project, the version of it and the date.

File Formats 

If you're an experienced designer then you probably know of at least most of these formats. Its important to be familiar with them so you can streamline your work. I am listing the main different graphic file formats, along with some added detail. So you know a bit more about when and where to use them.

PDF is very stable and retains all the fonts and formatting 

JPEG - is used mainly for pictures and web formats, if you upload pictures to social media it will nearly always be in JPEG format. It takes up less space, so is quick to upload and download and can be shared easily between colleagues and clients. One big disadvantage is that every time you save and or edit the picture it compresses and the picture will appear to look more blurred than before. so do as little editing as possible.

GIF - This format is used or known by all of us, its used for texting and on social media platforms. It stands for Graphics Interchange Format. All short and digital animations are GIFs, combining series of pictures that run on a loop and its tiny file size allows it to run and load instantly. 

They however only support 256 colours and once created are virtually uneditable, so you would create a new one every time.

PNG - Very similar to JPEG, used in the same way and as popular. It was set up to replace the GIF format but it now has a major standing of its own. They're easy to use and can be formatted or edited and it has 24bit RGB colour and supports transparency so allows for more detail than GIF and more flexible than JPEG. 

PSD - This is a photoshop document, it can ONLY be edited in photoshop. They can also be transferred other adobe software and can be exported to the final project.

Used for all creative work for social media, other platforms and creating printable material. they can be edited easily and they can be worked on repeatedly and not lose any quality. 

PDF - Widely used in offices around the world to share amongst each other and clients. Files can not be edited but they can be shared across any software or application. commonly used for documents, printing off when shared and anyone, anywhere can open a PDF and view it or print it off.

SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is commonly used for graphics content on the internet. most modern web browsers support SVG files and this means many use them on their websites. you can download these files and use them as you like.

There are many more file formats out there.