How Do I Handle a Logo Change Mid-Year?

Phase it rather than replacing everything at once. Switch the garments customers see first, run down existing stock where the change is small enough that nobody outside the organisation will notice, and write the new specification down before a single garment is ordered. A mid-year logo change is a scheduling problem far more than a printing one.

First, Work Out How Big the Change Really Is

There is a large difference between a refined logo and a new one. A typeface refresh, a tightened mark or a slightly different shade of the same colour is invisible to almost everyone outside your marketing team, and existing garments can be worn out honestly. A name change, a new symbol or a merger is a different matter, because old kit now says something inaccurate about who you are. Be honest about which one you are dealing with. Treating a subtle refinement as an emergency is how rebrands acquire their reputation for wasting money.

Phase by Who Sees It

Sort the wardrobe into three tiers. Customer-facing kit goes first: front-of-house polos, driver and installer uniform, anything worn at events or on a doorstep. Back-of-house comes second, since a warehouse fleece with last year's mark on it costs you nothing in perception. Expensive outer layers go last, because jackets and softshells are the most costly items to replace and the longest-lived, so replacing them early is where a rebrand budget quietly disappears. Working through those tiers spreads the spend across two or three ordering cycles instead of one painful quarter.

Set a Cutover Date for the Shop Window

Mixed branding looks accidental rather than transitional, so pick a date after which no customer-facing person appears in old kit, and work backwards from it. Production begins at artwork approval rather than order placement, so the artwork sign-off date is the one that matters. Allow around 10 to 15 working days from approval for embroidery and screen printing, more for complex work, then UK tracked delivery of typically 2 to 5 working days after dispatch, then time to distribute across sites. Announce the date internally so nobody is caught wearing the old polo on launch morning.

• Exact colour references, Pantone where available, for the new mark on both light and dark garments.
• Approved file versions: full colour, one colour, knockout for dark fabric, and the simplified version drawn for embroidery.
• The minimum reproduction size, and an explicit note of where the mark should not be used, such as cap fronts.
• Placement measurements in millimetres, given as a drop from the shoulder seam so they hold across the size range.
• The digitised embroidery file reference and the date it was created, stored with the artwork rather than in an email thread.

Using Up Existing Stock Without Looking Sloppy

Unopened stock in the old branding is not automatically waste. Where the change is minor, issue it as normal until it runs out. Where the change is significant, redirect it: training sessions, warehouse and workshop use, volunteer or contractor kit that never meets a customer. What you should not do is reorder the old logo to use up a quantity break, because the setup cost is the same either way and you are buying garments with a defined shelf life. When old kit is finally retired, remove or destroy the branding before it leaves the building, since a garment carrying your previous identity is still a garment carrying your identity.

“"A rebrand is a deadline for your shop window. Everything behind the counter can catch up at its own pace."”

The Cheapest Moment to Fix an Awkward Mark

This is the part most organisations miss. If your old logo never embroidered well, if the text was too fine to read at left chest size, if it needed four screens for a job that wanted two, the rebrand is the one moment when fixing it costs you nothing extra. You are paying for new artwork and new setups regardless. Ask the designer for a version that stitches cleanly and a version that prints in one colour, and specify the minimum size at the same time. Skip this and you inherit the same production headaches for another decade.

Keep the Old Files for a While

Do not delete the previous artwork and digitised files the moment the new ones arrive. A forgotten box of garments turns up, a site needs a matching replacement for a half-transitioned team, or somebody asks what the old specification actually was. Archive the old files clearly marked as superseded, with the date they were retired, and keep them for a year or so. It costs nothing and removes an entire category of awkward conversation during the transition period.