Knowledge Base

How to Format Your Logo for VMC Compliance

Updated on June 2, 2026

Overview

By the end of this article, you will have produced a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC)-compliant brand logo, saved in the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Tiny Portable/Secure (SVG Tiny PS) profile that an email client can display next to your sender's name. The article explains why vector format and SVG Tiny PS are required by the Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) specification that underlies VMC, lists the Logo Requirements, and walks through three steps to Create a VMC-Compliant Logo using a vector graphics editor such as Adobe Illustrator and a plain-text editor.

Why Vector Format and SVG Tiny PS Are Required

Most logos created in pixel-based tools such as Adobe Photoshop are not compliant with VMC requirements. The VMC standard requires vector format so the logo stays clear and scalable across the wide range of devices and display sizes used by email clients.

VMC also enforces the SVG Tiny PS profile to guarantee logo authenticity and security. SVG Tiny PS is based on SVG Tiny 1.2 with stricter portable and secure rules, ensuring the logo file is uniquely yours and safe for an email client to render.

Logo Requirements

The logo must be trademarked.

The logo must be in vector format. Pixel-based images are not allowed.

The logo image must be square; the final display is circular, so center the design within the square canvas.

The file format must be SVG Tiny PS (SVG Tiny 1.2 with Portable/Secure modifications).

The logo must have a solid background color (not transparent) to ensure consistent display across email clients.

The file size must not exceed 32 KB.

Create a VMC-Compliant Logo

The procedure has three stages: design the logo in a vector editor, save it as SVG Tiny 1.2 in Adobe Illustrator, then edit the saved file by hand to convert it to the SVG Tiny PS profile that VMC requires.

Step 1: Design your logo

Use a vector graphics editor such as Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, or Figma.

Design the logo entirely in vector. Do not include raster or bitmap elements.

Avoid gradients, shadows, and complex effects that the SVG Tiny 1.2 profile does not support.

Use solid fills and basic geometric shapes.

Set the canvas to a square (1:1) aspect ratio — for example, 256 by 256 or 512 by 512 pixels.

Center the design within the square canvas, because email clients display the logo inside a circular crop.

Set the background to a single solid color, not transparent.

Step 2: Save as SVG Tiny 1.2 in Adobe Illustrator

Open the vector logo file in Adobe Illustrator.

Choose File > Save As.

Select SVG as the file type and click Save.

In the SVG Options dialog, select SVG Tiny 1.2 from the SVG Profiles dropdown.

Set Image Location to Preserve.

Click OK to save the file.

Guide VMC

Step 3: Modify the SVG file for SVG Tiny PS

Adobe Illustrator cannot export SVG Tiny PS directly, so a few manual edits to the SVG file produced in Step 2 are required.

Open the SVG Tiny 1.2 file you exported from Illustrator in Step 2 in a plain-text editor such as Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, or Atom.

Locate the attribute baseProfile="tiny" and change it to baseProfile="tiny-ps".

Remove any x="0px" and y="0px" attributes.

Remove the attribute overflow="visible" if it is present.

Add a <title> tag containing your brand name near the top of the SVG file, immediately above the first <g> tag.

Save the modified SVG file.

VMC gudie

Change some attributes in the SVG Tiny ps file for VMC

These edits convert the file from SVG Tiny 1.2 to the SVG Tiny PS format required by VMC.

If you prefer not to edit the SVG file by hand, you can use an online converter such as the BIMI SVG Logo Converter from EasyDMARC, which produces an SVG Tiny PS file from a standard SVG input.

BIMI SVG Logo Converter - BIMI tools | EasyDMARC