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Freshers shirts need to be boxed and on campus in early September, which means ordering in July. Production runs 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval, artwork takes its own few days, and August is the month when the people who sign off the design are on holiday. July is not cautious. It is the month that survives one person being unreachable for a fortnight.
Why July rather than August?
The build window itself is three calendar weeks at the long end. Add transit and you are at four. Order in the second week of August and the shirts land in the second week of September, which is after the fair for most institutions. The deeper problem is approval. Freshers merch is usually signed off by a committee, a sabbatical officer or a marketing lead, and in August at least one of them is away. Every day the artwork sits in an inbox is a day the production clock has not started.
The practical fix is to settle the design in June while people are still at their desks, order in early July, and accept the boxes arriving a few weeks before you need them. Storage is a cheaper problem than a missed fair.
How do you size a run for people you have not met?
You are ordering for an intake whose measurements nobody has. The minimum is 50 pieces per design, and sizes can be split freely inside that 50, so the whole game is the curve rather than the total. On a student run, small and medium do more work than they do on a corporate order, and the extremes are where dead stock lives.
A defensible approach is to weight the middle three sizes heavily, keep a handful at each end, and treat unisex sizing as the default unless you know the society has a strong skew. If two societies want the same design in different colours, be aware that each colourway that needs its own screens counts as its own run of 50. The method for sizing a run against a known headcount is in how many t-shirts should I order for an event, and the fit differences that change how a size runs are covered in fits and cuts for wholesale t-shirts.
Which fit actually moves at a fair?
A regular fit in 150 to 240 GSM combed ring-spun cotton is the safe choice for a society shirt that people will wear to events and socials. A boxy cut moves better as merchandise, particularly where the design is the point rather than the society name, and it forgives a size mismatch because it is not meant to follow the body. If you are ordering for sport, regular wins, because it layers under kit.
Colour matters more than most buyers expect at a fair. A stall with one strong garment colour reads better from across a hall than three muted ones, and it also keeps you on one run rather than three. Current from-prices, starting at £11 a piece at the 50-piece minimum, are on the wholesale t-shirts page.
Is it worth taking a sample first?
For a recurring annual order, strongly yes in year one. The £150 sample is credited against the bulk order, and what it gives a student union is something physical to put in front of a committee, which shortens the approval argument that is otherwise conducted over a PDF. It also lets you check that the society crest, which is often an old file, actually prints cleanly at the size you want rather than going soft at the edges. Details are on the samples page.
Order the sample in June. By July you want to be placing the run, not discovering that the crest needs redrawing.
