Custom made hats make a powerful statement, especially when combined with a workplace uniform. Hats are the ultimate accessory—often acting as the focal point of an outfit. Before you order a set of custom logo hats for your organization, however, you need to know how to design a hat that displays your logo to best effect.
How to Design a Hat
First things first—custom hat design is very different from customizing a shirt or jacket. A hat offers a much smaller surface for your logo. Detailed logos that looked great on t-shirts may look overly busy, cramped, or indistinct on hats. This is most problematic with embroidered logos: the size of the embroidery threads limits how much detail you can include.
The solution, whenever possible, is to keep your custom hat design simple. Clear lines and a minimalist design work best with custom logo hats. A logo with crisp, clean lines and clearly defined colors is ideal—think of the Nike “swoosh” or the easily recognizable Coca-Cola logo.
Choosing a Hat Type
Not all hats have the same dimensions. Custom baseball hat design has more space for a logo than, say, a golf visor. Some hats have higher profiles than others, and can display larger logos, while 5-panel hats have low height and are therefore better suited for smaller logos. Using hat design templates can help you decide if a hat style matches your customization needs.
Positioning a Custom Hat Design
Hat design templates can also help you decide where to position your logo. Logos on the front of a hat should be centered. Positioning the logo to either side of the center can give the hat a lopsided look, but positioning the logo close to the visor in the center of either the right or left panel can give a unique look if done right.
The sides of a hat are suitable for small logos, your company initials, or other small details.
Decoration Options on Custom Made Hats
Embroidered hats and custom printed hats are the two most common types of customizations for headgear, but they’re far from the only ones available. Custom hat design on fully custom hats such as the MAX Hat or the MV3 Series can include such decoration options as:
- Flat Embroidery is directly embroidered onto the hat, and slightly raised above the hat surface.
- 3D Puff Embroidery is raised up to give the logo a distinct three-dimensional appearance. Like flat embroidery, the logo is directly embroidered onto the hat.
- Emblem embroidery refers to an embroidered label stitched onto the hat, rather than embroidering the hat surface directly.
- Woven labels are labels produced on a loom and then stitched onto the hat surface.
- Sandwich Visor Text is used to repeat a company name, message, or very simple image along the border of a visor.
- Sublimation Patches are printed photorealistic patches which are then stitched onto hats.
- Leather Patches are rugged, durable patches with logos or text printed directly on them.
- PVC Patches are made from flexible plastic secured to the hat with adhesives.
- Printed / Taped Inside Seams add text to the inside seams of the hat.
- Liquid Metal uses a liquefied rubber to produce a three-dimensional metallic finish.
- Reflective Patches are exactly what they sound like—a highly reflective patch that catches the light.
Preparing Your Logo
Once you have your logo finalized, you’ll have to send it to the company providing the custom-made hats. For embroidered logos, an in-house digitizer ensures the logo translates well from your artwork to the finished embroidery. A “sewout” of the logo will be created for your approval. Once you give the company the go-ahead, production can begin. At Triple Crown Products this means an experienced embroidery team completes each hat according to our strict quality standards. Or if you are using a custom program like MAX or MV3, you will start by receiving either a sample hat or image of your hat as a pre-production sample.
Customize with Triple Crown Products
At Triple Crown Products, we offer a variety of options to help you customize a hat to meet your exact specifications. Whether you’re looking for a minimal effort customization or a completely original hat design, we’ve got you covered.
Option 1: In-stock Headwear Program
For a quick, clean customization, our in-stock headwear program gives you the ability to select specific hats from our inventory and add your personal touch. Logo customization is more restricted with this program, allowing only for changes to the front or side of the hat.
Option 2: Completely Custom Headwear Program
If you want completely customized headwear, this is the option for you. With this program, you are able to select some of our most popular brands including MAX and MV3. You’re in control when it comes to the look and feel of the hat. From profile to colors and logo design and placement, your imagination is the limit when it comes to creating your completely custom headwear.
Custom hat design is an involved process, and one we like to make as pain-free for our clients as possible. If you’re considering a run of custom printed hats but are unsure where to begin, our interactive hat quiz can help you choose the hat program that best aligns with your logo, your budget, and your needs.