Custom Clothing Printing in Nuneaton: Hi-Vis and Warehouse Kit
By The Velocity Wear Team
Velocity Wear supplies branded workwear to Nuneaton logistics and distribution businesses online, with tracked UK delivery. For sites around the A5 and the M6 corridor the practical answer is usually printed or badged hi-vis for operational staff, embroidered polos and softshells for supervisors and office teams, and cheap printed tees for high-turnover agency labour. Minimum order is 20 pieces per order with sizes mixed freely.
Branding on Hi-Vis Borrows Space From Safety
High-visibility clothing works because it has a certain area of fluorescent background material and a certain area of retroreflective tape, arranged so a person reads as a person in poor light. Anything you print onto that garment covers some of it. That is not a style opinion, it is how the product functions.
The general requirement is that decoration must not compromise the garment's certified performance, which in practice means keeping logos off the reflective tape, keeping total printed area modest, and following what the garment manufacturer states about decoration. Do not take a supplier's word for it and do not take this page as legal advice. Check the manufacturer's guidance and current official guidance on protective clothing before you commit a large order.
Where a Logo Can Sensibly Go
On a standard vest that leaves you the upper chest and the panel between the shoulder tape and the collar on the back. On a coat you also have the sleeve. The back panel is the one that matters operationally, because in a warehouse people are usually seen from behind, walking away, at distance.
Keep the back mark simple and big: company name in a single heavy weight, no strapline, no fine detail. Anything intricate is illegible at the distance it needs to work, and it is competing with a yellow background that eats contrast. Black or dark navy on fluorescent yellow reads best. Mid-blue or red on yellow does not, however good it looks on the brand guide.
Agency Churn Should Change What You Buy
Distribution sites flex hard around peak, and a lot of that labour is temporary. Personalising kit with names is a waste of money for anyone who might be there for three weeks. Personalising by role is not, because role identification genuinely speeds up a shift.
Buy in two tiers. Permanent staff, team leaders and drivers get embroidered garments that look like uniform and last. Temporary staff get printed tees and standard hi-vis with a role word, over-ordered slightly because a proportion never comes back. Trying to run one premium spec across a workforce that turns over quarterly is how kit budgets disappear.
A Practical Kit List for a Distribution Site
- Certified hi-vis vests or coats with a large single-colour back print and a small chest mark, keeping decoration clear of the reflective tape.
- Embroidered polos and softshells for supervisors, transport office and anyone customer-facing, because they wash hot and often.
- Screen-printed cotton tees for agency and seasonal staff, one or two colours, over-ordered in the middle sizes.
- A branded mid-layer such as a fleece or hoodie for winter, since an unbranded personal coat over your uniform undoes the whole system.
- Vinyl role words such as PICKER, GOODS IN or FLT applied per garment, which avoids paying setup for every variation.
A Shed in January Is Not a Shed in July
Large distribution buildings are difficult to heat and the loading dock is effectively outside. Staff will layer whatever they own over the uniform in winter unless you give them something better, and the moment they do, your hi-vis is buried and your branding is gone.
The fix is to buy the winter layer as part of the uniform rather than as an afterthought, and to make sure the hi-vis goes on the outside of it. That usually means a hi-vis coat sized to go over a fleece, not a slim vest that will not close over one.
“"High-visibility clothing is safety equipment first. Everything you print on it is borrowing space from that job."”
Timing, Peak and Reorders
Production starts at artwork approval, not order placement. Screen printing and embroidery run around 10 to 15 working days from approval, plus 2 to 5 working days for UK delivery after dispatch. Peak season ordering therefore needs to happen in late summer, not in the week the volume forecast lands. Order the base spec early and treat top-ups as top-ups.
Quantities, Sizes and What Bulk Saves
Twenty pieces per order, sizes mixed freely, which suits a site that needs a spread rather than a block of one size. The free Design Studio previews artwork at true scale on the garment, which matters enormously for large back prints. The instant price calculator shows live pricing as you change garment, method and quantity, and bulk discounts reach up to around 40% as volumes rise, so consolidating several sites into one order usually beats running them separately.