Custom embroidered caps are a great way to promote your brand. They’re highly visible, famously durable, and they just look good.
However, before you submit your design and choose a cap, there are a few things you should know. This simple checklist will help eliminate any potential headaches from the ordering process while also ensuring your custom embroidered caps look great.
1. How to pick the right colors for your custom embroidered caps
Pictured: Premium 5 Panel Trucker
It’s no secret that some colors look better together than others, but how do you pick the right combination? A simple solution is to apply color theory. Here are a few tips you can keep in mind when picking a fabric color to go with your logo.
- Don’t use too many colors — this could make your design look busy and confusing.
- Pair complementary colors — colors located directly across the color wheel from each other naturally look good together (e.g. blue and orange).
- Match the colors’ tones and saturation — while orange and blue are complementary, a neon blue and pale orange may still look mismatched.
- Use monochromatic designs for a clean look — if your logo is a dark green, you can embroider it onto a light green hat for a visually cohesive appearance.
2. How to pick the right style for your custom embroidered caps
Pictured: Premium Performance Trucker Cap (left) and Washed Cotton Dad Cap (right)
It may be subtle, but different cap styles can convey different messages about your brand.
More structured caps, like the snapbacks typically worn by baseball players and other athletes, will look relatively more sleek and professional. Meanwhile, less structured hats like “dad caps” will look more casual and laid back.
These differences do not necessarily make one style better than the other, but it is still important to consider which one is more appropriate for your brand.
3. Where your design is placed on custom embroidered caps
Pictured: Tuck Strap Closure Unstructured Cap
Custom embroidered designs can typically only be placed on three parts of the cap:
- The front
- The back
- The sides
It is important to work with your custom embroiderers to determine the appropriate design size for each of these sections, since it will vary from cap to cap.
4. The size of your logo/design on custom embroidered caps
When you apply your logo to a cap, it’s going to be relatively small regardless of the chosen location. This is especially important to remember when embroidering the logo.
Because embroidery relies on adding stitches into the fabric, you should avoid design elements that are too thin or too tiny (such as small letters). If you choose to include them, they could be lost when applied to the cap.
This happens because there may not be enough stitches to accurately render the design’s finer details.
You can check if your design would still look good on a cap by making it a few inches wide and asking yourself “will this still be understandable from a reasonable distance?”.
Or better yet, you can ask your embroiderer! That leads us to our next point:
5. Your custom embroiderer knows best
If you have any questions about your design and how it would look on a cap, you should always ask your embroidery company.
A reputable shop with many projects under their belt, like BYOG, will know exactly what types of designs will work and which ones won’t. Our design and embroidery experts would be happy to work with you in creating the perfect custom embroidered cap!
