Company Swag That Doesn't End Up in a Drawer: A Chicagoland Guide

Every November the same email shows up. An office manager in Lisle or Downers Grove has forty people, a spreadsheet of sizes that's half guesses, a budget number from the owner, and a holiday party on the calendar. Last year they ordered polos. Nobody wears the polos. This year they want to get it right.

Good. Here's how we'd walk through it if you were standing at our counter in Warrenville.

What company swag do employees actually wear?

The stuff they'd have bought anyway, with your logo kept small. That's the whole secret, and it's why the polos are still in the drawer.

A giant front-chest logo on a stiff 50/50 tee is a work shirt, and work shirts get worn to paint the garage. A left-chest or sleeve hit on a Comfort Colors 1717 or an Independent Trading Co. heavyweight hoodie gets worn to the grocery store, to the kid's soccer game, to the bar. That's free advertising in Naperville and Wheaton every weekend, and it only happens if the garment is something a person would choose on their own.

So spend the money on the blank first. A Bella+Canvas 3001 or a Next Level tee instead of the cheapest thing in the catalog. A real fleece hoodie instead of the thin one. A quarter-zip for the people who'd never wear a hoodie to a client meeting. The specific brands are in our guide to blank hoodies and crewnecks, and everything we stock is in the blank catalog.

Then go easy on the branding. Tone-on-tone embroidery. A one-color print of just the wordmark. And the design doesn't have to be the logo at all: the year the company was founded, an inside joke from the Slack channel, the Warrenville skyline (all three buildings of it). People wear things that feel like theirs.

Screen print or embroider? It depends on the item

Screen print the tees and the big hoodie graphics. Embroider anything with a collar or a zipper. That covers most of it, but here's the fuller version.

A mixed order is easier than people expect. You can mix sizes, garment styles, and shirt colors in one screen printing run as long as the ink colors stay the same, so the warehouse tees and the office hoodies share one setup. Embroidery has a one-time digitizing fee to turn your logo into a stitch file. Pay it once and every polo, quarter-zip, and beanie after that just runs.

How do you collect sizes without chasing forty people?

Set up a company store and let everyone pick their own. We build online merch stores for exactly this: each employee logs in, picks their size and style (and the hoodie color, if you want to offer two), the window closes on a date you set, and we print once. No leftover smalls in a supply closet. No "I said large" argument in January.

For a crew of a dozen, a shared sheet is fine. Just ask us about sizing before you send it, because the brands don't agree with each other. Comfort Colors runs big and boxy. Next Level runs slim. A medium is not a medium.

One more trick: order a couple of extra mediums and larges with the main run. You will hire someone in February.

When do you need to order holiday swag?

Before Thanksgiving, if you want it in hand without stress. Our standard turnaround is about 10–12 business days after you approve the art, plus shipping if we're not handing it to you at the shop. Count it out from December 1 and the order lands in the middle of the month, right before most offices empty out.

December gets crowded at every shop in Chicagoland, ours included, so the earlier your art is approved the better your odds of a boring, on-time delivery. Rush is available by quote if a deadline sneaks up on you. Orders placed after 5 PM process the next business day. We cover how the schedule actually works in how long custom screen printing takes.

Onboarding kits: the version that pays off all year

The holiday order is the fun one. The quiet win is the ongoing one: a hoodie and a tee waiting on a new hire's desk every time you grow.

That's a hard thing to buy from a big online portal, because a reorder of two hoodies barely registers there. At our shop it's routine. No minimums, screens always free on reorders, your embroidery file already digitized, your blanks already in our catalog. Email the sizes and the kit shows up. For companies that want this handled without thinking about it, we run brand and merch programs that keep your art, your blanks, and your store in one place. If you need a number for the budget meeting first, our pricing guide explains how quantity and ink colors move the per-piece price.

How to decide in 60 seconds

• Forty-plus people, one design, hoodies or tees? Screen print, and put the savings into a better blank.
• Sales team, client-facing, collars and zippers? Embroider a small left-chest logo.
• Remote team or a mess of sizes? Online company store with a close date.
• A handful of new hires? Premium Film Print or a free-screen reorder of the last run. No minimum either way.

Not sure where your order falls? Tell us the headcount, the rough budget, and the party date. We'll say straight which garment and method gets you the most wearable swag for the money, even when that's the cheaper one.

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