Choosing the right t-shirt

Written By Gerald Beck

When it comes to picking a t-shirt for your particular needs the amount of options can sometimes feel overwhelming. There are thousands upon thousands of different options when it comes to colors and designs. It ultimately comes down to what the t-shirt is going to be used for and what your particular needs are.

I've broken it down into 4 main categories.

  • Fundraiser

  • Business

  • School

  • Retail

Fundraiser

The biggest mistake I come across when people are looking for a shirt for their fundraiser is that they want some elaborate print on a high quality tri blend shirt. This is a pretty big mistake because it is going to cut into the amount of money you can raise for your fundraiser.

While I'm not saying to just choose a plainwhite t-shirt that says, "Support my Cause" on it I do want people to take into account how much it’s going to cost to get the shirts made. People for the most part do not buy shirts for fundraisers because of the awesome design and high quality shirt its on. They buy it because they support the cause and what the fundraiser represents.

So here's my suggestion:

T-shirt

Print

  • One to three color front print and if there is a back print keep it to 1 color

Business

Businesses for the most part have free range of whatever they want to do because they are usually not selling these shirts for profit but having employees wear them or give them away for promotional purposes. One thing however that I would suggest avoiding is putting all of your contact information all over the shirt and definitely not on the front of the shirt.

Be honest with yourself would you feel comfortable enough staring at the front of someone’s shirt long enough to get the phone number or email address written down? If you can do that you might as well just ask the person about the shirt they are wearing rather than staring at them awkwardly. If there is going to be contact information put it on the back of the shirt so that people can see it from behind and try and keep it to just a phone number, email address or website.

There's really no need to put your entire physical address on the shirt people will get that information when they contact you.

For promotional use:

  • T-shirt

  • Print

    • Front: 1 to 2 color Company Logo

    • Back: 1 color with company slogan and minimal contact information

For employees:

School

Schools are a bit harder to pin down when it comes to choosing a shirt or print. This is because schools are full of different types of programs and different kinds of people. What will work for one program wont necessarily work for another.

For example an art or theater program would most likely want a more elaborate design and high quality shirts because it is for a smaller group of artistic people. These shirts would most likely be purchased by each individual kid and not be sold to other students.

Then there are the more generic school shirts for athletic programs and school spirit that would be given out or purchased to raise money. For this reason my suggestions for schools is broader and the shirt styles I suggest come in a variety of different colors as well.

T-shirt

Print

  • Whatever your heart desires

Retail

This category represent those that make their own designs and wish to sell them online or in a local store. This category is pretty much open season because it ultimately depends on what kind of brand the creator wants to be. Plenty of people make lots of money on low quality shirts with funny sayings on it.

Lots of people do well with creating their own elaborate designs on high quality shirts. So for this category I'm just going to suggest a few shirts that I personally like and know work well.

Lower End

Higher End

All of these suggestions are simply to make the process easier for you. This does not mean that what I've discussed here are the best or only options. I simply wanted to create a starting point so that people would not feel overwhelmed when looking at the thousands of options to choose from when it comes to t-shirts.

If you have decided on what style of t-shirt you’d like or have more question reach out to us and we can get the process rolling.

Gerald Beck