A garment order stands or falls on the size breakdown

"We need about thirty shirts." That is a complete sentence for the client and an incomplete order for you. Thirty is a budget, not an order.

What follows is what is almost always missing, in the order in which it costs money.

A total says nothing

A total does not break itself down. Thirty shirts might be eight M, twelve L, six XL and four S, and it might be something else entirely. You cannot order the blanks or schedule the press until that table exists.

The client does not have it either. That is the real problem: they are not withholding the breakdown, they have simply never asked their own team for it. And they will only ask on the day you do, which adds the week it takes a club to get thirty people to reply.

Ask for it at the order, not at the approval. The difference between the two is a week you spend waiting instead of producing.

Two details that save a second order:

• The cut. Men's, women's, children's, or all three in one run. An L is not the same L across cuts, and a mixed club answering "L" without saying which one has you printing the wrong garment.
• The end of the range. If the supplier stops at XXL and one person needs a 3XL, it is better to find out now than on delivery day.

Who supplies the garments

Two different jobs hide behind the same word. Either you supply the blanks or the client brings them, and the consequences are nothing alike.

If you supply, the lead time includes sourcing, the reference is yours, and the fabric quality is your answer to give. It costs the client more and it is simpler for everybody.

If the client brings, you inherit a batch you did not choose. It may be mismatched, already washed, or in a fabric that refuses the transfer you had planned. And if you spoil a piece on the press, it is the client's piece you spoiled, not yours.

In that second case, one extra question settles half the disputes: how many spare pieces there are. A batch supplied with no margin turns the smallest mistake into an argument.

The print is decided before, never during

Three things freeze at the quote and cost a full reprint if they move afterwards.

The positions. Chest, back, sleeve, lower back. Every position added is another pass, so a different price and a different lead time. "We will see on the day" is never an answer, because on the day it is too late to requote.

Garment colour against print colour. A logo designed for white does not hold on black, and the reverse usually needs an underbase. A client who picks a dark garment after approving a light mock-up has just changed your job without knowing it.

The logo format. A vector file reprints at any size. An image pulled off a website does not scale. Ask early, because the answer is usually "I will ask whoever made the logo", and that person takes ten days to reply.

Names and numbers, or the file that never arrives

A personalised shirt is not one order of thirty pieces. It is thirty orders of one piece, and each one can be wrong on its own.

Ask for the list in a form nobody has to retype: a table, one column per piece of information, one row per person. A name misspelled in an email becomes a name misspelled on a garment, and nobody proofreads a table they sent themselves.

It is also the one part of the order where a mistake cannot be talked round. A debatable colour gets debated. A "Dubois" printed "Dubis" gets reprinted.

If you want the exact list of questions this trade asks, it is written out here: the brief for a garment order. Take it as a starting point, to shorten and reword to the way you work.

And for the general mechanics, nothing to do with garments: what a brief form has to contain.

Frequently asked questions

What do you need to know before printing a shirt?

The garment and its cut, the quantity per size, who supplies the blanks, the print positions, the garment colour and the print colour, and the list of names and numbers in a table. A total quantity on its own lets you start nothing.

Should you supply the garments or let the client bring them?

Supplying costs the client more and leaves you in control of the lead time, the reference and the quality. Letting them bring means inheriting a batch you did not choose, with no margin for spoilage. If the client brings, ask for spare pieces and put it in writing.

Why does the size breakdown always arrive late?

Because the client does not have it. They have to ask their own team, and a club takes about a week to get thirty people to reply. Asking at the order rather than at the approval moves that week to where it belongs.

What file format should you ask for a logo in?

Vector, a file that reprints at any size without losing quality. An image taken from a website does not scale up. Ask early: the answer usually goes through whoever created the logo, and they take several days to come back.