Why SVG is the Best Format for Logos and Icons

If you have ever hired a designer for a logo and received only a JPG file, you have been short-changed. Logos and icons should always be provided and used as SVG. Here is why.

Logos need to work at every size

A logo appears on a browser favicon (16×16px), a business card (roughly 500px wide at print resolution), a trade show banner (potentially metres wide) and everywhere in between. A PNG looks sharp only at the exact resolution it was created for. SVG is mathematically perfect at every size.

The retina display problem

Modern devices have high-DPI (retina) screens that display at 2× or 3× the CSS pixel density. A 200×50px PNG logo will look blurry on a retina MacBook. To fix this you need a @2x PNG (400×100px), double the file size. An SVG logo automatically looks perfect on every screen density, with a single file.

Easier brand consistency

SVG logos are defined in code. Changing the brand color from #0d1619 to #1e293b is a one-line CSS change. Want a white version for a dark background? Add a CSS class. This makes it trivial to maintain consistent branding across a large website without managing dozens of PNG variants.

SVG icon systems

The modern approach to web icons is an SVG sprite, a single SVG file containing all your icons as <symbol> elements. You reference them with <use href="#icon-name">. This replaces icon fonts (which have accessibility problems) and individual PNG icons (which multiply HTTP requests). One request, infinite icons, perfect quality.

Performance numbers

• A typical icon as SVG: 0.5–3 KB
• The same icon as a PNG @2x: 5–25 KB
• An SVG sprite with 50 icons: ~30 KB (one request)
• 50 individual PNG icons @2x: ~500 KB (50 requests)

Interactive and animated logos

Because SVG is markup, you can animate any part of your logo with CSS or JavaScript. For example, a loading spinner that morphs into a checkmark, a logo that draws itself on page load, an icon that changes color on hover. All trivial with SVG, impossible with PNG.