What Is the Safest Print Placement for All Sizes?
By The Velocity Wear Team
Measure down from the high point of the shoulder and keep that distance identical across every size. A print positioned that way sits in the same place on the body whether the wearer takes a small or a 3XL. Centring the artwork within the front panel, which is what happens by default when nobody specifies otherwise, makes the print drift downwards as the garment gets longer.
Why a Centred Print Drifts Across the Size Run
Garments do not scale evenly. Between a small and a 3XL the chest width grows considerably, the body length grows as well, and the neckline barely moves relative to the shoulders. If artwork is centred within the front panel, the mid-point of that panel sits progressively further down the torso as length increases. The result is a design that looks right on a medium, a little high on a small, and distinctly low on the largest sizes, sitting nearer the stomach than the chest. Nobody spots it on the hanger. Everybody spots it in the group photograph.
Measure From the Shoulder, Not the Hem
The high point of the shoulder, where the shoulder seam meets the neckline, is the one landmark that means roughly the same thing on every size. A drop measured from there follows the wearer's body rather than the garment's cut. Specify it as a single figure, hold it constant, and both your small and your 3XL carry the print at chest height. The same logic governs the back: measure down from the centre back collar seam rather than up from the hem, and a back print stays between the shoulder blades instead of sliding towards the waistband.
- Front chest print: a drop of roughly 70 to 90mm from the high point of the shoulder puts the top of the artwork just clear of the collar on most adult tees.
- Left chest logo: commonly around 180 to 200mm down from the shoulder, roughly level with the wearer's armpit, and held identical across sizes.
- Back print: measured down from the centre back collar seam, so it stays between the shoulder blades on every size in the run.
- Sleeve print: measured down from the shoulder seam and kept narrow enough to fit the smallest sleeve you have ordered.
- Youth sizes: treated as a separate specification with their own drop and artwork width, never as a scaled-down adult one.
Size the Artwork for the Smallest Garment in the Run
Placement is only half the problem. Artwork width has to respect the narrowest printable area in the order, which is your smallest size, and on a fitted women's cut that area is narrower again. A design measuring 320mm across looks generous on an XL and runs into the armhole seams on a small. Choose a width that works on the smallest adult garment and accept that it looks slightly modest on the biggest, rather than the reverse. Slightly small reads as deliberate. Running off the edge reads as a mistake.
“"Measure from the shoulder, not the hem. The shoulder is the only landmark that means the same thing on every size you ordered."”
Where the Garment Fights Back
Some placements are limited by construction rather than by measurement. A hoodie pouch pocket sets a hard lower boundary for a front print, and that boundary arrives sooner on small sizes because the pocket sits proportionally higher. Zips rule out a centred front print on zip-through styles altogether. Side seams, sleeve seams and collar seams all create surfaces a press cannot sit flat against. If a design has to cross one of those, raise it before artwork approval, because the honest answer is sometimes to move the design rather than attempt the placement.
When to Split Into Two Artwork Sizes
Mixed adult and youth orders are the usual trigger. An adult chest print on a child's tee reaches the shoulder seams and looks like a mistake. The clean solution is two artwork sizes with two placements. Whether that costs you anything depends on the method. Screen printing needs a separate screen per artwork size, so each version carries its own setup. DTF and DTG have no per-colour setup and cope with multiple artwork sizes far more comfortably, which is often what decides the method on a mixed run. Sizes mix freely within the 20-piece minimum order, so splitting the artwork does not mean splitting the order.
Write the Placement Down and Reuse It
The most useful thing you can do after a good first run is record exactly what was done: artwork width in millimetres, drop from the high point of the shoulder, and any variation used for youth or fitted cuts. Keep that note with the artwork files. Reorders then match the originals instead of approximating them, which matters enormously for uniform, where garments bought a year apart end up standing side by side. The Design Studio is useful for visualising placement before you commit, but it is the written figures that make run two match run one.