Hello Gents,
Just to give my 2cents thoughts on this. Image or font is, in essence, saying raster or vector. Raster is an output. Vector is both an input and an output. That vector can take many forms, a font “suitcase” (as once called) being one of them.
Many companies — as for instance IBM in our IT world, have had — for decades, their logo available as an individual font.
But the gold copy of their logo is always a vector drawing in a dedicated container. That is the one that is in the safe and against which legal cases are instructed.
Keep in mind too that a logo has a life, and changes. Look at all the brands you commonly see, they have significantly changed over the years — a general trend being: simplification. Your master copy will evolve; hence also the importance of vector.
And speaking of legal aspects, relying on a “foreign” font, even if it is freely available, is not a good approach. If you want to use a specific glyph in a font, then extract it, rotate it, do whatever you want with it, but keep it separate if it is going to be a logo.
(Obviously you need to be cleared legally when using an existing glyph — but this is out of scope here)
What housing format for the gold copy ? PDF is generally considered the most “interchangeable container” today supported by all major vector drawing software — forget the software specific formats.
What output formats ? A myriad, as many as you need and can support. Predefined raster images in various sizes and formats (PNG, JPG, …), scalable vector formats (PDF, SVG), fonts (TTF, EOT, WOFF, …), ...
Remember also that a logo is only one component of an organisation’s visual statement. Another important consideration is the official colour palette. And your logo must be output in all colours of that palette… and ONLY those colours.
Less relevant today, but still always present in the visual statement are output media considerations — that is grayscale outputs, 2 or 3 colour prints, etc.
More fuel for thought if required.
Cheers
Jean-Michel