Team and group shirts: names, numbers, rosters

There is no surcharge for putting twelve different surnames on twelve shirts. That is the opposite of what most shops have to tell you, and the reason is worth explaining.

Why variable printing is free here

Screen printing makes a physical stencil per design. Twelve different names means twelve different stencils, each one burned and lined up by hand and then cleaned off afterwards, which is why personalisation on a screen press either costs real money or gets politely refused.

We send a file to a printer. The twelfth file costs exactly what the first one did. So a roster of twelve names, or a hundred, prices the same per shirt as a hundred identical shirts — and still earns the same volume discount.

This applies to anything that varies: surnames, numbers, job titles, individual nicknames, a different city on each shirt.

How to submit a roster

A simple list is all we need, one row per person, with three columns: the name exactly as it should print, the number if there is one, and the garment size.

Exactly as it should print matters. Capitalisation, hyphens, apostrophes, accented characters — we print what you send. O'Brien and OBrien and O'brien are three different shirts and we have no way to know which one the person answers to. Have somebody who knows the team check the list before it comes to us.

A spreadsheet, a pasted list in an email, a photograph of a handwritten sheet if that is genuinely all there is. We will read it and send back what we understood before anything is printed.

Layout decisions

Most team orders are a shared design on the front and the individual part on the back. The front is your logo or team name and is identical across the order. The back carries the name and number.

Numbers want to be large and simple. A number that has to be read from across a field at 10 inches tall in a bold face works; the same number at 4 inches in a decorative face does not. Names sit above or below the number, usually above, in something plain.

Keep the whole thing inside the 14 by 16 inch print area. We do not print on sleeves, which comes up with team orders more than any other kind.

Sizing, which is the real risk

This is where team orders go wrong. A personalised shirt in the wrong size is not a shirt somebody else can wear, so one bad row on the roster is one wasted shirt and one unhappy person.

Collect sizes in writing with the names, from the people themselves rather than from the coach's memory. Send everyone the link to the specific product page so they are choosing against real measurements. Our tees run S to 2XL unisex, and the sizing article covers how the fitted and classic cuts differ.

Order a couple of spare blanks without names on them. Somebody joins late every season.

Lead time

Each personalised shirt is a separate job on the floor, and somebody has to match the right print to the right garment and the right size. Standard fulfilment is one to two business days; if the date is tight, say so when you send the roster.

Rosters with names need checking before printing, and that round trip takes whatever it takes on your end. Send the list early even if the sizes are not final.

Blanks that suit it

For a team that will wear the shirts hard, Gildan Ultra Cotton at $11.20 takes repeated hot washing better than a lightweight tee. For something people will wear off the field as well, the Next Level 3600 at $15.00 looks like a shirt rather than a kit.

Twenty pieces takes 10% off, fifty takes 17%, a hundred takes 25%, personalised or not. The bulk article has the detail.