What logo files does a corporate merchandise supplier need?

A corporate merchandise supplier needs three things before anything can be produced: a vector version of your logo (an .ai, .eps or layered .pdf file), a one-colour version of that same logo, and your brand Pantone codes. Hand those over and a Bangalore merchandise order moves fast — mockups in 48 hours, a physical sample in about five days, bulk delivered in roughly ten days from artwork approval. Hand over a small PNG pulled off your own website, which is what most first-time buyers find, and none of that clock has started. Here is what each file is for, who inside your company has it, and how many days each missing piece adds.

Why will the PNG from your website not print?

A PNG is a grid of pixels at one fixed size. A vector file is a set of mathematical outlines that scale to any size without losing an edge. That matters enormously on merchandise, because the same logo has to sit cleanly on a mug at about the width of a business card and on a hoodie back at roughly ten times that.

Enlarge a small PNG to hoodie-back size and the curves turn into visible steps. Screen printing makes it worse: the process needs each colour separated onto its own screen, and separating colours out of a compressed, anti-aliased PNG gives fuzzy, speckled edges where the logo meets the fabric. Then there is the white-box problem — a JPG or flattened PNG usually carries a solid white rectangle behind the logo, which will happily print as a white rectangle on a navy T-shirt.

What is a one-colour version, and why does embroidery need it?

A one-colour version is your logo redrawn as a single flat colour — no gradients, no drop shadows, no two-tone lettering. You need it for two reasons, and both save money.

Embroidery is thread. A machine stitches solid blocks of one colour at a time, and every extra colour is another thread change on every single garment. Gradients and soft shadows cannot be stitched at all — they get approximated, and someone will make that call for you if you have not made it yourself. Fine lettering below a certain size fills in with thread. Polos, caps and jackets are almost always embroidered, so if any of those are on your plan, the one-colour version is not optional.

The second reason is cost. A single-colour screen print is the cheapest decoration there is, and it is the basis of the published entry price on cotton T-shirts — from around Rs.180 per piece at 100 units, falling to about Rs.130 at 500. Every extra print colour adds a screen and a pass, so put the one-colour mark on the bulk items and save the full-colour treatment for the premium pieces.

Which Pantone codes do you send, and what if the colour cannot be hit exactly?

Send the Pantone spot codes from your brand guidelines, including both the coated and uncoated variants if your guidelines list them (written as a number followed by C or U). Coated and uncoated are the same ink behaving differently on different surfaces, and merchandise spans both — a glossy ceramic mug and a brushed cotton tee will not read identically, whatever anyone promises.

Fabric shifts colour too. The same ink on a white tee, a grey marl tee and a polyester tech fabric gives three slightly different results, because the base shows through to different degrees. This is the most common reason an order gets rejected at sample stage, and it is why the sample stage exists: OfficeSmart does a spot-colour match against your code and delivers a physical sample to your Bangalore office before anything goes to bulk. For multi-colour designs the technique follows the complexity — screen print where the colours are flat and few, DTG where the artwork has photographic detail.

One more version to prepare while you are at it: the dark-garment version. A logo designed for white paper often has dark outlines or navy text that vanishes on a black hoodie, and light ink on dark fabric needs a white underbase to stop the colour going muddy. Decide now whether your logo goes all-white on dark or keeps its colours over a white block — deciding at sample stage costs you a round trip.

How small can the logo go — a pen versus a hoodie back?

One artwork file will not serve your whole shortlist. Ask for the print area of each item before you finalise the design, and check these:

• Pens and lanyards: a narrow strip a few millimetres tall. Wordmarks survive; a logo with an icon stacked above the text needs a horizontal lockup.
• Mugs and bottles: curved surfaces, so wide artwork distorts at the edges. A squarer lockup sits better.
• Left chest on apparel: roughly the width of a playing card. Tagline text under a logo is the first thing to become unreadable.
• Hoodie and T-shirt backs: the largest area you get, and the only one where a full-colour design pays for itself.
• Notebooks: usually foil or debossed single-colour — another place the one-colour version earns its keep.

Who inside your company actually has the master files?

The files usually exist; they are just not where people look first. Work down this list:

• The brand or marketing lead — ask for the brand kit folder, not for 'the logo'. Asking for the logo gets you a PNG.
• The design agency that did your identity or last rebrand. Most Bengaluru companies used an outside studio, and the studio kept the working files.
• Whoever built your website — they were handed print-ready assets at handover more often than not.
• Your business-card or banner printer: anyone who has printed collateral for you was sent a vector file to do it.
• The latest pitch deck, as a last resort — a high-resolution logo placed in a deck is at least a usable starting point for a redraw.

If the agency relationship has ended and nobody kept the source files, you are not stuck. A logo can be redrawn as clean vector from a good high-resolution image. It is a one-time job worth doing properly, and what matters is starting it the week you decide to order, not the week before you need stock.

What does an incomplete artwork handover cost you in days?

The published calendar starts at artwork, not at your purchase order: 48 hours to mockups once artwork and Pantone codes are in, a physical sample around day five, a seven-day production run, roughly ten days in total from artwork approval to delivery. Every day spent hunting for an .ai file sits in front of that — invisible on the supplier's timeline, very visible on yours.

The compression option is real but expensive: the fastest turnaround on record is six days for an emergency conference order, and rush orders carry a 10-15% surcharge. Paying that because your brand team could not find a file is the worst reason to pay it. Bangalore adds its own tax here — a physical sample has to physically travel, and if your office is in Whitefield or Electronic City and the colour misses, the re-sample is another cross-city round trip that weekday traffic does not make quicker.

What should go in the first email to your supplier?

Send all of this at once rather than in five replies over a week, and mockups come back inside two days:

• Vector logo files — .ai, .eps or a layered .pdf. Attach the full-colour, one-colour and dark-background versions if you have them.
• Pantone spot codes for every brand colour, coated and uncoated where your guidelines list both.
• Your item shortlist with quantities. MOQ runs at 100 units per design for most items, 50 for premium pieces like jackets and backpacks.
• Apparel size split if you are ordering garments — the range runs XS to 5XL and the ratio is yours to decide.
• Placement preference per item, or ask the supplier to propose one on the mockup.
• Your hard date, and whether it is a real deadline or a preference — that decides whether the rush surcharge is on the table.
• Delivery split: one office, several Bengaluru offices, or individual employees across cities.

Artwork and mockup handling are already inside the published per-unit price, so a complete brief costs you nothing extra. An incomplete one costs you the calendar.

What if you genuinely have no usable artwork at all?

Say so in the first email instead of sending the best PNG you could find and hoping. A supplier told 'we have no vector file' will quote the redraw and schedule around it. A supplier sent a 400-pixel PNG builds a mockup that looks fine on screen and finds the problem at sample stage — a week later and a round trip further away. Naming the gap on day one is the cheapest thing you can do.