How to get your team logo ready for jerseys and banners

What a printer actually needs

"Send us your logo" means different files for different jobs. A PNG is a grid of pixels, and the machines that cut and press work from shapes, so most shops either ask for a vector file or redraw your PNG themselves, sometimes for a fee. This is what the common methods usually want. Shops differ, so ask yours which file they prefer.

A vector file keeps its shapes and colours at any size, so the same file serves a left-chest print and a banner. Our PNG to SVG guide explains what a vector is and how a PNG becomes one. If you only need the files, the logo for print page makes them from your upload.

What prints and cuts well, and what does not

We ran four team-style logos through Logobundle's tracer as they were: one flat crest and three that are common in AI-made team logos. All four inputs were made with a Gemini image model for our test set.

✓

Flat crest

✗

Chrome and glow

✗

Detailed mascot

✗

Thin outline lettering

• Flat crest (✓): 4 colours, 44 paths, a 64 KB file. Every edge is clear, so each colour is one clean screen or one vinyl layer.
• Chrome and glow (✗): the bevel and the glow have no edge to follow. The trace needs 8 colours and 983 paths, a file of 862 KB, and the rim is rough. A printer cannot split that into a few clean colours. Ask for the same crest flat, without bevel, gloss or glow.
• Detailed mascot (✗): fur and shading come out as 10 colours and 655 paths. It can work as a large full-colour digital print, but not as a screen print or vinyl cut, and the small TIGERS badge is already breaking up.
• Thin outline lettering (✗): only 2 colours, but the double outline is so thin that it fills in when printed small, and a thread cannot follow it. Make the strokes bolder.

✓

Flat crest at 48 px

✗

Mascot at 48 px

✗

Thin lettering at 48 px

If your crest came from an AI image tool, the Midjourney guide and the Gemini guide show how to ask for a flat version that traces cleanly.

The versions a team needs

One full-colour file is not enough for a season of kit. A dark jersey needs a light version, a single-colour print job needs a one-colour logo, and a cap or a sponsor sheet often asks for black or white only. Plan for these three:

• Full colour: the crest as designed, for light shirts, banners and the website.
• One colour (black): the same shapes in a single ink, for one-colour print jobs, forms, newsletters and engraving.
• White: for dark jerseys, hoodies and caps, where the dark parts of the crest would disappear.

Logobundle makes all three, plus a grayscale version, from one upload. The pack has SVG in colour, black, white and grayscale, PDF in colour, black and white, and EPS in colour and black.

Give the printer your exact colours

A screen or a phone mixes colour from red, green and blue (RGB). A printer's inks are mixed differently, so the same navy looks a little different on the shirt. The files in the pack use RGB, as traced. Printers convert them or match them to their inks, and for a club colour that has to be right every season, the safest way is to name it: a Pantone number, or at least the hex code.

You can read the hex codes from an SVG: open it in any text editor and look for fill="…". The flat crest above uses four:

fill="#000101"   near-black outline
fill="#04132c"   dark navy
fill="#10325f"   navy
fill="#fff"      white

The first two are almost the same dark. If you want to save a colour, tell the printer to print them as one.

Embroidery, and what Logobundle does not make

Embroidery does not use a vector file directly. The machine stitches from a stitch file (DST, PES and similar formats), and a digitizer makes that file by deciding where each thread goes. Logobundle does not make stitch files. What it gives the digitizer is a clean, flat vector to start from, which is the part that saves time.

• Thread has a width. Most embroiderers want letters at least about 6 mm (¼ inch) tall and lines about 1 mm wide, so thin double outlines and tiny taglines do not stitch. Ask your shop for its minimums.
• Few flat colours stitch best, because each colour is a thread change.
• Gradients cannot be stitched as a smooth blend. The digitizer picks a few steps.

Likewise, Logobundle does not make colour separations for screen printing or a Pantone-matched file. The shop prepares those from your vector.

Make the files with Logobundle

If you would rather trace it by hand, the PNG to SVG guide has the steps for Inkscape and Illustrator. Most shops also ask for the placement and size, for example left chest, back or sleeve, so tell them that when you send the files.

What to send your printer

• The vector file: PDF first, EPS or SVG if they ask.
• The versions: full colour, black and white.
• The exact colours: Pantone numbers or hex codes.
• The size and placement of each print, for example left chest 9 cm wide.
• The colour of the garment, so they know whether to use the colour or the white version.
• A note if a part of the logo, such as a year or a sponsor, changes every season.

The same files work for stickers, so the club can make die-cut stickers for fans and fundraisers from the same upload.