Vector Stamp
The stamp-effect recipe every Illustrator tutorial teaches — stained glass, mezzotint, rasterize, image trace — as one tool with every lever exposed and 100% vector output.
A rubber stamp is a specific kind of imperfect: the edge dissolves into grain rather than stopping, the ink took better in some places than others, and the cells of the die left a faint patchy texture in the solid areas. Filters approximate that with pixels. This tool works the same distress out on a field and then traces the result with the Image to Vector engine, so what you export is a compound path of bézier curves — every fleck, every worn edge — that scales to a billboard and opens in Illustrator as ordinary points.
Start from your own artwork — a PNG, JPG or SVG — or type a stamp with a main line, a second line, arced text top and bottom and an oval, circle, rounded or box frame. Then work the levers: ink load, bleed, edge wear and roughness, uneven pressure, the stained-glass cells and their walls, the mezzotint grain as dots, lines or strokes, and finally the trace itself. A seed fixes the grain, so a saved stamp reopens as the same impression and a reroll is a new one from the same die.
100% vector output
The SVG holds one compound path with an even-odd fill — no embedded image, no filter, no mask. Recolor it with one click, cut it on a plotter, embroider it, or edit its points.
Every lever, not a preset
Ink load, bleed and choke, edge wear and roughness, uneven pressure, blotch, cell size and wall ink, light intensity, grain amount, shape and size, plus the tracer's own smoothness and simplify.
Type a stamp from nothing
Main and second lines on the centre, arced text along the top and bottom of the frame, five frame shapes with a double line. The classic office stamp in a minute.
Seeded, so it comes back
The grain is under a seed. Save the stamp to your account and it reopens exactly; press reroll and you get a fresh impression of the same die.
How to use it
- Start with type, or drop your mark The tool opens on a typed stamp so you can see the levers work before you commit artwork. Drop a PNG, JPG or SVG on the stage — or click the Source tab and choose Your artwork — and the same levers apply to it.
- Set the ink before the grain On the Ink tab, Ink load is how much the pad gave the die; Edge wear is how far in from the outline the ink thins. Get the silhouette reading right at Grain amount 0 first, then bring the grain back.
- Cells are the patchiness, grain is the texture The stained-glass cells give a rubber stamp its faint crystalline patchiness in the solids; the mezzotint grain is what the eye reads as texture. Coarse dots at Ink load 0.8 is the classic. Wall ink pushed fully negative is a cracked stamp.
- Clean up, then export the SVG Smallest dot and Smallest hole on the Trace tab decide how many flecks survive — every one is a path in the file, so raise them for a cutter or an embroidery digitiser. Then File › SVG, and the stamp is a single editable compound path.
FAQ
Is the Vector Stamp maker really free?
Yes. Every lever, every export and both file formats are free, with no sign-up and no watermark. Your artwork never leaves your device — the whole engine runs in your browser.
Is the output really vector, or a traced bitmap?
Really vector. The distress is worked out on a pixel field, but that field is never exported — it is traced with the same hole-aware bézier fitter as the Image to Vector tool, and the SVG contains only path data. Zoom to 3200% in the preview and you are looking at the curves that will be in the file.
Which Illustrator steps does this replace?
Effect › Texture › Stained Glass (cell size, border thickness, light intensity), Effect › Pixelate › Mezzotint (dots, lines or strokes), then Object › Rasterize, Image Trace and Expand. Each is a section in the panel with more range than the dialog had, and the result is one path rather than an effect stack.
What should I feed it?
A logo or silhouette on a transparent background is ideal. Flat black-on-white artwork works through the darkness threshold. An SVG is rasterised at high resolution first. Photographs are not the right input — cut the subject out with the background remover first, then send it here.