The Ultimate Logo Placement Guide: Finding the Perfect Placement for Logos on Shirts and Garments
Choosing the right logo placement for a piece of branded merchandise is more important than you’d think. Whether you’re a member of the creator economy (such as an influencer or streamer), hoping to draw attention to your name, or you’re a growing business, highlighting your logo is crucial.
Around the world, countless companies use their logos across a host of garments, from shirts and hoodies to sweatshirts and polos. The key to success revolves around not just choosing the right logo design, but ensuring your image captures attention on every shirt you create.
Mastering the logo placement process will improve your chances of creating custom clothing that resonates with your target audience, and boosts brand awareness. After all, the better your logo looks on a t-shirt, the more likely your customers will be to buy and wear your merch.
Today, we’re going to look at some of the most common and popular placement options for logos on t-shirts and custom clothing, to help you make the right decision for your collection.
Logo Placement on Front of Shirts
With countless printing and merchandising options to choose from, there’s virtually no limit to where you can choose to position your logo on custom clothing. However, for most companies, printing a logo on the front of a shirt tends to make the most sense. The front of a shirt is where most customers will expect to see crucial visual elements, like logos and patterns.
Additionally, printing your design on the front of a shirt improves your chances of gaining more attention. Logos on the front of a garment aren’t as easily hidden by jackets and coats.
While there are a few different ways to position your custom logo on the front of a t-shirt, the most common options include:
Full Front Design
The “full front” design option involves taking up the majority of the fabric real-estate on the front of a t-shirt with an eye-catching logo. Notably, you don’t necessarily have to cover every inch of white space. Most full-front designs place a large image in the center of the shirt’s chest area.
Full-front designs work best when your logo has a unique, engaging aesthetic. If you want to ensure your brand will capture attention, placing a large image in the area other people are most likely to see makes a lot of sense. Just make sure you’re using a printing method that isn’t going to harm the breathability of the fabric, or make your shirts less comfortable to wear.
Oversize Front Design
If you think a full front design isn’t making enough of an impact on your custom shirt, you could always consider turning the sizing up a notch. An oversize design is great for capturing the attention of your audience with compelling patterns and visuals. You might even choose to surround your logo with blocks of geometric color, flowers, and other graphics.
The exact amount of fabric you’ll cover with an oversize design will depend on the printing provider you choose. Some custom printing companies will be able to cover the entire front of your shirt with a beautiful image. If you’re going to be using an oversized design, remember the quality and resolution of your chosen image needs to be fantastic.
Left Chest Design
If you don’t want to take up quite as much space on your shirt with your logo print, you might consider placing your design on one side of the garment. While you can opt for both left and right-side designs with most printing companies, the left-hand option is the most popular. We’re used to seeing pockets and other decorative elements on the left-hand side of clothing.
Studies also show placing logos on the left can improve brand recognition. One study found that consumers are 89% more likely to remember a logo if they see it on the top left of a garment.
A small logo on the top left of your shirt is a great way to create a subtle and professional aesthetic for your garment. However, it’s worth remembering that because these prints are smaller, you may not be able to use as much detail in your image.
Pocket Design
Similar to a front-left design, a pocket design places your logo within a smaller space on the front of your shirt. If you’re creating professional-looking polos and shirts that already have their own pockets, leveraging the pocket itself to showcase your brand image is a great choice. It’s a fun and playful way to highlight your company.
Pocket designs ensure you can take advantage of the memorability that top-left logo prints benefit from. Plus, you can rest assured that your overall image will look classy and sophisticated. Once again, you’ll need to ensure your logo looks great in a smaller size before you choose this option. If your logo is more complex, you might need to opt for a bigger print.
Logo Placement on Back of Shirts
While placing your logo on the front of a shirt can be a great idea in some cases, it’s not the only option you have. The back of the shirt also gives you a lot of fantastic space to work with when you’re drawing attention to your brand image. What’s more, because designs on the back of a shirt are less common, they may be more memorable to your target audience.
Your options for printing custom logo designs on the back of a shirt will vary depending on the company you choose to work with. Once again, there are lots of great styles to choose from, but some of the most popular include:
Collar/Small Upper Back Design
If you want to draw attention to your brand with a subtler design, then a collar or small upper-back print could be the perfect solution. A smaller logo on the upper back of a shirt often looks classy and sophisticated. However, it can also be used to give your garment a unique, edgy vibe.
Since it doesn’t draw as much attention as some other printing options, this logo placement is ideal if you want to appeal to customers searching for simpler shirts. Alternatively, if you want to showcase the unique personality of your brand in an engaging way, a collar print is a great choice. These printing options are particularly ideal if you have a wide, but short logo.
Wordmarks and monogram designs work well on the small amount of space collars have to offer, and can even be created in contrasting colors to help draw attention.
Upper Back Design
If you’re looking for a way to really make your logo stand out on the back of a t-shirt, an upper back design might be the right choice. Essentially, this means placing your logo at the top of the back of the shirt, in the center area. Most logos will typically stretch between the shoulder blades.
This is the location on a shirt where people are most likely to see descriptive terms like “Staff”, or an event hashtag at a corporate conference. The upper back area benefits from a great deal of visibility, so it’s great if you really want to make your brand image shine.
Lower Back Design
Another excellent placement option for printing your logo on the back of a t-shirt, is the lower back area. Though this positioning doesn’t have the same visibility as an upper-back print, it can be excellent for companies who want to convey a more subtle, minimalistic image.
Prints on the bottom of a shirt are also more unexpected and unusual, which can be ideal if you want to identify your business as a creative innovator in a specific space. This surprising but eye-catching placement option is ideal for wide logos, like wordmarks.
Full Back Design
If you really want to make the most of all the available space on the back of your custom shirts, then a full back design could be the best solution. Similar to a full front design, this option allows your logo to take center stage in the middle of the garment.
Generally, you’ll place your artwork or design at the level of the shoulder blades, so your image looks balanced and professional as people move around. A full back design often works best if you have a more decorative logo, with a lot of complex elements. Make sure you’re uploading high-definition graphics when sending your designs to your printing company.
Other Common Logo Placement Options
Alongside placing logos on the front or back of a shirt, companies also have a range of other options to get creative with their branding. Today’s leading printing companies can create a host of different styles of custom orders, which allow you to place your logo almost anywhere you can think of.
Here are some other great logo placement ideas for your custom shirt design.
Sleeve Logo Placement
Great for simplified and minimalistic logos, a sleeve logo placement is a subtle and sophisticated option for drawing attention to your brand. Logos in this location look best when they’re relatively small and straightforward. Avoid using any complicated designs here.
In most cases, it makes sense to place your logo about an inch away from the hem, so it looks balanced, and professional on the garment. However, some printing companies will be able to work with you on the creation of more unique shoulder designs.
Wraparound Design
Thanks to evolving printing technology, some of the top POD companies in the market, like Nova Tomato, can even transform your logo into a full wrap-around design. A wraparound design allows you to take full advantage of all-over print technology to really showcase your brand.
You can really get imaginative with this logo placement option, and even add extra decorative elements to your apparel. Nova Tomato is a leader in all-over print design, and even offers access to an AI-enhanced design tool, to ensure you can get your positioning and placement just right.
Diagonal Design
Another way to experiment with all-over print design options is to consider positioning your logo in a diagonal line across the front or back of your shirt. This could be a great option if you have a wide or long logo, like a wordmark, which doesn’t take up a lot of space in terms of height.
A diagonal placement is a great way to rapidly capture the attention of your target audience because it’s not nearly as common as some other printing options. A diagonal print could be a great way to create a dynamic and visually interesting shirt.
[Banner : Best fonts for T-shirts + summary of the article in 20-30 words]FAQs
Still have questions about logo placement for your custom shirts? Here are some of the most common queries we encounter when working on bespoke designs here at Nova Tomato:
Where Do You Place a Logo on a Shirt?
Thanks to evolving printing technologies, there’s really no limit to where you can place a logo on a custom shirt. Printing on the front of a shirt is common, but you can also experiment with sleeve-based prints, printing on the back of the shirt, and even taking advantage of your shirt’s collar.
What Is the Rule for Logo Placement?
While the rules for logo placement on shirts can vary depending on the situation and the printing provider you work with, most experts agree that logos work best when they’re placed on the top left of a garment or page. Make sure you get the sizing and colors right too.
Should a Logo Be on the Left or Right Side of a T-Shirt?
You can technically place a logo on either side of your custom shirt, but studies show that positioning your emblem in the top left of a shirt is generally the best strategy. A logo on the top left of a t-shirt will generally be more memorable, and may appear more professional.
