Guides
Everything we end up explaining twice
These are the answers we have typed enough times to be worth writing down properly. No sales copy — just what a coach or an administrator needs to know before committing a budget. About 21 minutes of reading in total, and you will not need all of it.
Written because we kept typing them
Every one of these started as an email. A coach asks how long an order really takes; an administrator asks what file we need; somebody asks, two weeks after delivery, why their navy looks different in the match photographs than it did on the mockup. The same answers, typed again, in a form only the person who asked ever sees.
Written down properly they do more than save us the typing. A program that reads the timeline before enquiring collects its roster first and orders three weeks faster; one that reads the artwork guide sends a file we can actually use. Nothing here is trying to sell anything — the selling happens after you decide, and these exist to make the deciding faster.
They also carry the parts most suppliers leave out, because most suppliers are not the ones making the garment. What sublimation cannot do, what a fabric choice costs you elsewhere, why a reorder is close rather than identical — the same reasoning that runs through the six ways we decorate a garment, applied to the questions that come up before an order rather than during one.
Which one you need, and when
- Before you enquire — the production timeline, so the date you have in mind is a date we can work to.
- Before you design — the fabric guide, because a fabric decided after a design is a design revisited.
- Before you send artwork — what a file needs to carry, and what we redraw for free.
- Before you order — sizing a squad, which is twenty minutes that prevents the commonest complaint there is.
- After it arrives — washing, which roughly doubles how long a kit lasts, and reordering when it does not.
Preparing artwork
4 minWhat a file needs to carry before it reaches production, and what we can fix for you if it does not.
Production timeline
3 minHow long a custom order actually takes, stage by stage, and which stage teams underestimate.
Sizing a squad
4 minWhy label sizes lie, how to measure a team quickly, and what to do about the players between sizes.
Choosing a fabric
5 minWhat the weights and knits actually do on the body, and which one belongs in which sport.
Washing team kit
2 minFour rules that make the difference between kit lasting one season and lasting three.
Reordering mid-season
3 minWhat we keep on file, what a mid-season addition really costs in time, and how to plan for it.
Questions we get asked
What are these guides for?
The practical questions every program asks — how long an order really takes, what an artwork file needs to carry, how to size a squad without measuring everybody. Writing them down once was cheaper than answering them thirty times.
Which one should I read first?
The sizing guide, because a wrong size list is the most expensive mistake available and the hardest to fix after cutting. The artwork requirements are a close second if you have a logo to supply.
How are these different from the blog?
These are reference, written to be re-read when you have a specific question. The blog posts take a decision and come down on one side of it, and you read one before deciding rather than while doing.
Do I need to read them before ordering?
No. Tell us the sport, the roster size and your colours and we will walk you through it. The guides exist so you can check something at eleven at night without waiting for us.
Are they specific to one sport?
They apply across all five, because sizing method, artwork, timelines and washing behave the same everywhere. Where a sport genuinely differs, the sport pages carry it instead.
Can I share these with our committee?
Please do. Several of them exist to be forwarded to whoever is actually approving the spend, which is frequently not the person talking to us.
Are the timelines in them realistic?
They are the real ones, including the parts that depend on you rather than on us. A timeline that only counts factory days is a timeline that will be wrong for every program that takes a week to approve a proof.
Do the guides cover price?
No, because price depends on garment, method and quantity, and a number written into a guide is out of date the moment anything changes. They explain what drives cost; a quote gives you the number.
How often are they updated?
When something we do actually changes, not on a schedule. A guide rewritten for the sake of a date stamp is a guide you can no longer trust to say the same thing twice.
What if my question is not in here?
Ask it. Most of these started as a phone call, and a question asked twice usually turns into the next guide.