How to Prepare a Logo for 3D Printing

A logo that looks crisp on a website can come out muddy as a keychain if the file isn't suited to how multi-colour 3D printing works. The good news is that the fix is usually simple, and you can check the result in the preview before you pay. This guide explains what happens to your logo between upload and print, and how to give it the best start.

What happens to a logo when it's printed

A screen can show millions of colours, and printed paper blends tiny dots of ink. A multi-colour 3D print can't do either. Each colour in the finished piece is a solid region of a single colour of plastic, up to eight of them. So when you upload a logo, the designer does three things:

1. Groups the colours. Every pixel is assigned to one of a small number of colour groups (you choose how many, from 1 to 8).
2. Matches each group to a real spool. Each group is paired with the closest of our spool colours. You can override any match, for example if your brand navy comes out as purple.
3. Cleans up what can't be printed. Anything finer than the printer can lay down, such as a hairline outline or a tiny dot, is merged into its neighbour.

The preview you see shows the result of all three steps, made by the same software that prepares the print file. What you see there is what prints.

The best file to upload

• PNG with a transparent background is ideal. The logo is cut out cleanly, and only the logo prints.
• A logo on plain white works almost as well: the plain background is removed automatically.
• At least 600 pixels across. Small images from an email signature or a social media avatar have blurry edges that become jagged when they're turned into solid regions. If all you have is small, export a larger version from the original design file.
• Vector files (SVG, AI, EPS, PDF) need exporting to PNG first. Export at 1,000 to 2,000 pixels across for the cleanest edges.

Logos that print beautifully

The logos that come out best share a few traits:

• Flat colours. Two to six solid colours, with no gradients. Most good logos already look like this.
• Bold shapes. Thick strokes and chunky letters survive the trip to plastic. At keychain size, a line about 1 mm wide or thicker prints reliably.
• Clear separation. Colours that are very similar (two greys, say) may be grouped into one. That's often fine; if it isn't, raise the colour count or pick different spools.

What changes, and how to handle it

Gradients

A gradient (say, a blue fading to purple) becomes two or three flat bands. If the gradient is central to your brand, increase the colour count so the bands are narrower, or use a flat version of your logo, which many brands keep for embroidery and stamping.

Thin text and taglines

The small tagline under a logo is usually the first thing to suffer. Text needs to be a certain height for its strokes to be printable; for most fonts that's 2 to 4 mm. Either print the logo bigger, or delete the tagline from the picture and add it back as separate text in a bolder font, which the designer checks for you.

Outlines and thin borders

A hairline outline around a logo may disappear. Instead, use the designer's outline option, which adds a printable ring of any width around your picture, or a raised border around the whole shape.

Photographs inside logos

A photograph becomes a bold, poster-like graphic with flat colour areas. It can look great, but it won't look like a photo. Try a few colour counts and see which reads best.

Choosing the right size

Detail scales with size. A logo that is muddy at 30 mm can be crisp at 60 mm, because every line is twice as wide. As a rough guide: simple marks and monograms are fine on a 30 to 40 mm keychain; logos with text need 50 mm or more; detailed crests deserve a 100 mm plaque. The preview updates as you resize, so you can find the smallest size that keeps the details you care about.

Colours: what to expect

We print in real coloured plastic, not ink, so we can't mix a custom Pantone colour. Each colour in your logo is matched to the nearest of our spools, and you can see every one on our colours page. Screens also differ: the same red looks a little different on a phone and a laptop. If an exact colour matters, check the spool names, and remember you can override any match.

Permission to print

We print your own logos happily. If a logo belongs to someone else (a sports league, a brand, a character), we need to know you have permission. Every order is checked by hand, and we refund anything we can't print for rights reasons. See our content policy.

A quick checklist

1. PNG, transparent or white background, 600+ pixels across.
2. Flat colours; turn gradients into flat colours if you can.
3. Delete tiny taglines from the image and add them as text.
4. Pick a size where the preview keeps the details you need.
5. Check each colour's spool match before ordering.