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Logo Embroidery and Print Services
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FREE UK Delivery on orders over £150
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Expert Garment and Branding Advice
Logo Embroidery and Print Services
FREE UK Delivery on orders over £150
Expert Garment and Branding Advice
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Polo Shirts for Work Uniforms
Polo shirts are a knitted fabric form of shirt with a collar and placket with 2 or 3 buttons, generally worn as part of a smart, casual uniform as an alternative to a less casual, regular cotton t-shirt or a smarter, corporate shirt.
Choosing work polo shirts for staff can be time consuming, primarily due to the extensive choice of styles, fabrics and polo shirt colours available. The polo shirt range has been improved significantly by manufacturers over the years which now allows you to make perfect buying decision for you and your employee uniforms.
When buying polo shirts for your business we believe that buying decisions should be supported with three key elements:
1. Are polo shirts suitable for purpose? – Which polo shirt is perfect for the environment and conditions that your staff are working in or under?
2. Are uniforms comfortable for the wearer? – Your workforce should feel comfortable and protected whilst wearing polo shirts and carrying out any given task within the workplace.
3. Do your polo shirts fit within your brand image? – Staff should be uniformed inline with your brand identity. Choosing correct colour, style and fabric choices along with any additional logo embroidery or printing is very important. Personalised polo shirts aligned to your brand image will make a huge impression on your customers and will allow you to promote your brand.
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Polo Shirt Types and Styles
Work polos are available for men, ladies and children. UK distributors supply an excellent range of styles including long sleeve polo, ladies fitted polos, men’s slim fit, heavyweight, budget or lightweight polo shirts. Popular garment manufacturers include Gildan Clothing, Fruit of the Loom, Kustom Kit, Asquith and Fox, Premier Workwear, Russell Work clothing and AWD Just Cool.
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POLO SHIRT FABRICS AND KNIT TYPES
Pique Knit – A pique knit polo shirt is the most common manufacturing process. This more open, textured weave increases the weight of fabric and allows a better flow of air through the garment. This improves it durability and give a great quality feel.
Jersey Knit – A Jersey knit polo shirt is manufactured with a more closed, smooth finish and a slight stretchy like feel, generally lightweight and generally more crease resistant and is similar to general t shirt material.
The 3 most popular fabrics for polo shirts are cotton, polyester and a mix of polyester and cotton.
Cotton Fabric
Cotton is a manufactured with natural fibres and is soft, comfortable and durable which contours nicely to the body. Cotton fibres are naturally dyed, therefore can fade through time and as 100% cotton polo shirts are made of natural fibres you may get slight shrinkage following wash.
Polyester Fabric
Unlike cotton fabric, polyester is made of synthetic fibres which are strong and when knitted together does not shrink, crease or fade. 100% Polyester polo shirts are popular for its moisture wicking properties which will help keep your body cool and draw moisture away from the body, through the garment and onto the front where it can dry quickly under natural conditions. A disadvantage of the polyester polo shirt is that it does not absorb fluid and can leave odour smells. Also 100% polyester fabric normally clicks easier than cotton fabrics.
Polyester and Cotton Fabric Mix
We highly recommend the most popular fabric for polo shirts which is manufactured using a polyester and cotton fabric mix (Normally 50/50 or 65/35 mix). This polycotton fabric provides both durability and a soft quality finish. The polycotton polo shirt are perfect garments for finishing with printed or embroidered logo branding and suitable for most uniforms.
Fabric Colours
Polo shirt manufacturers supply a vast range of fabric colours, some have colour ranges in excess of 100+ hues. New colours are regularly released every season from all major workwear and clothing companies. Distributors and manufacturers can provide pantone references or swatch cards to display each polo shirt fabric colour and help with choosing your polo shirt colours inline with your brand image.
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POLO SHIRT KEY FEATURES
Twin Needle Stitching
Is two lines of identical stitching, this strengthens the hem and gives the finish a premium look.
Placket
The placket is the opening of polo shirt neck where the buttons are attached and fasten through holes.
Cuffed Sleeves
Most long sleeve polo shirts have ribbed and cuffed sleeves which are slightly eleasticated, however short sleeved are either open hemmed or cuffed, depending on the style.
Fabric Weight GSM
Polo shirt fabric weights are measured in GSM (grams per square metre of fabric) A lightweight fabric would be 165gsm, medium weight 245 gsm and a heavyweight over 300gsm
Yoke
A yoke is a stitched pattern, normally an semi oval shape on the back below collar.
Side Vents
Vents are an option that can be found stitched into polo shirts, under armpits which helps with airflow.
Taped Neck Seams
An additional seam of fabric is stitched around the inside of neck line which helps strengthen and keep collar shape.
Moisture wicking properties
This is a property which helps keep your body cool and dry, removes moisture (sweat) away from your skin through the garment and will dry on outer layer. Most polyester polo shirts have wicking properties.
POLO SHIRT BRANDING
Logo Application
Once you have chosen the right polo shirts for your uniform and staff, you then need to consider if and how you will apply company branding. Polo shirts embroidered or printed with company logo are the most popular item of clothing to be personalised, however each method of personalisation offers different finishes and careful consideration is required to ensure a great investment is made and logo application benefits your brand.
What is Polo Shirt Embroidery?
Embroidery is the method of stitching a logo or design directly onto fabric with threads and a needle using commercial embroidery equipment. Your digital logo file is converted into embroidery format using specialist software. We can embroider a maximum of 15 threads per logo and thread colours can be matched using pantone colours. Logo definition can also be achieved using stitch directions and styles. Digitizing your logo is a very important part of the process and allows us to meet any brand guideline requests before application to garment.
Embroidered logos can be simple, detailed or complex and the gives a very durable finish. An average logo size will be within 4 or 5 inches wide, some small and some bigger with 7,000 stitches being an average logo size.
Your embroidery pricing is based on stitch count and quantity of logo applications.
What is Polo Shirt Printing?
There are various methods of applying a logo on polo shirts with print including screen printing (layers of inks applied to polo shirts through a mesh screen), digitally printed and cut logo transfers (your logo is printed onto specialist vinyl, then cut into custom shape and then heat applied onto garment), direct to garment printing (basically we digitally print your logo onto a treated garment).
All print processes have positives and negatives, however print advice can be supplied from Banksford before any logo application.
Logo Placement on Polo Shirts
The most common and effective placement of embroidered or printed logos vary. What is the purpose of adding branding on polo shirts, how will your audience view your uniforms.
A common request when branding uniforms would be, can I add logo on bib apron chest and a logo on left chest of polo shirt. As you may noticed this would be a waste, our response would be of course we can, however can we suggest adding logo on bib apron chest but how about adding your logo on sleeve of polo shirt instead?
Popular logo positions on polo shirts can be a multiple of options including right or left chest, polo shirt collar, back yoke near collar and or either sleeve. Getting logos applied in correct positions is very important.
We hope this guide on choosing polo shirts has been useful and as polo shirt branding can be a complex process, here at Banksford we are here to help and ensure honest advice is supplied along with visuals and garment specifications are provided for approval before any logos are printed or embroidered onto polo shirts.
