Ordering Kit for a Team Building Day Without Wasting Money
By The Velocity Wear Team
Order one design, printed in a single ink colour, on several garment colours so each team is instantly identifiable without paying for multiple print setups. Match the fabric to the activity, take sizes from the whole office rather than guessing, and count backwards from the day itself: around 10-15 working days of production from artwork approval for screen printing, plus 2-5 working days of tracked UK delivery.
What the Shirt Is Actually For
It has two jobs. On the day it tells people which team they are on from twenty metres away, which is the difference between an organised activity and a car park full of confused adults. Afterwards it appears in every photograph that goes on the intranet, the recruitment page and half a dozen personal social feeds. That second job is the one people underestimate when they are shopping on price alone.
It does not need to be an expensive shirt. It needs to be a shirt that reads clearly in a photograph and does not look like a plastic bag after one wash.
Team Colours Without Paying for Five Setups
This is where most away day budgets leak. People commission five different designs, one per team, and discover that screen printing charges setup per colour and per design. The cheaper route is one design, in one ink colour, printed across several garment colours. Teams are still obvious from a distance and you are paying for a single setup.
The catch is legibility. A white print reads on navy, forest, burgundy and black, but disappears on yellow. So choose your garment colours from a single tonal family, all dark or all light, and check the artwork works on the lightest and darkest of them before approving. If you genuinely need contrasting light and dark garments, DTF is the more flexible option because there is no per-colour setup and it prints happily on cotton, blends and polyester.
Let the Activity Choose the Fabric
An obstacle course, a charity walk and a workshop in a hotel function room are three different garment briefs. Cotton is comfortable and prints beautifully, but it holds sweat and takes a long time to dry, which matters if people are outdoors for six hours. Polyester wicks and dries fast and is the sensible choice for anything physical, and it is also the only fabric sublimation will work on if you want an all-over design.
For an indoor day, cotton or a cotton-rich blend is genuinely the better call. It feels better across a long session in a warm room and it photographs with less shine under function room lighting.
Sizing an Office Nobody Has Measured
Size guessing is the single most common cause of a bad away day shirt. A short internal form takes ten minutes to set up and removes the problem entirely.
- Ask for a size, not a dress size or a chest measurement. People know what t-shirt they wear.
- Publish the actual garment measurements alongside the form so nobody has to guess between brands.
- Offer unisex and women's fits where you can, and be clear which is which; they are not the same shirt.
- Set a hard cut-off date for responses and order without the stragglers, using spares to cover them.
- Always order beyond your headcount. Late joiners, guests and the facilitator will all want one.
Names and Nicknames Are Slower Than They Look
Personalised names via vinyl are lovely and they add a per-item step to the job, plus a proofreading burden that lands on you. Every spelling has to be right, and one wrong name is the one everyone photographs. If you want personalisation, supply a single, final, spell-checked list, and accept that individually named garments are not the place to shave days off a schedule.
“"A team building tee is a uniform for one day and a photograph for five years."”
Counting Backwards From the Day
The date will not move, so everything else has to. Production begins at artwork approval, and that is the step your own organisation controls and usually delays. Get the design signed off by whoever needs to see it before you submit anything, then approve the proof the day it arrives. From there, screen printing and embroidery typically take around 10-15 working days, complex or sublimated jobs nearer 15-20, and tracked UK delivery usually adds 2-5 working days on top.
Is It Worth Spending More?
Sometimes, and be honest about when. For a one-off day of activities, a mid-weight cotton tee with a clean one-colour print is entirely sufficient and nobody is disappointed. Spend the extra where the garment has a life afterwards: if the same design is going on hoodies people will wear all winter, or if the day is doubling as a launch for a new brand mark, then the heavier fabric and better print earn their money. Otherwise, put the difference into the day itself.