How to Design and Create Custom Hats for Your Business
Custom hats are a great way to promote your business and boost staff morale. But designing personalized business hats can be a daunting task when you don't know where to start or how to channel your ideas into a worthwhile product.
These tips will show you the best practices for developing the perfect headwear to represent your company. From choosing the right fabric to setting your budget to conceptualizing a logo, creating a hat for your business will be easier than you ever thought possible.
Benefits of Custom Hats for Your Business
Personalized designs are becoming increasingly popular. Custom clothing is affordable for every budget, and there are plenty of options to consider. As a business owner, you know every decision comes down to how it benefits the company. Customized high-quality business hats, although a simple concept, offer more advantages than you may realize:
Low costs: Whether you order beanies or trucker hats, they're still more affordable than a sweatshirt. Hats are low cost company swag that give you the best bang for your buck in terms of both quantity and quality. When it comes to fabric, logo size, closures and design, you can be as creative as you like without breaking the bank.
Boost in morale: Custom company clothing is a great way to boost morale within your team. It's a sign of confidence and trust in your employees, showing your team they're performing to your standards and representing the brand well. Personalized business hats also generate a sense of belonging, especially in a company that has multiple departments or offices that don't have the opportunity to interact often.
Brand promotion: Marketing is one of the most important facets of running a business. Individualized headwear is a subtle and stylish way to successfully promote your brand without any additional costs. When staff, friends and family are sporting your logo, brand awareness and genuine interest among the public will continue to grow.
A guaranteed crowd pleaser: Everyone loves hats because they're a fashionable and practical accessory they can wear all year. A standard hat fits everyone, regardless of clothing size, gender or age. With colorful and minimalistic designs, custom hats never go out of style.
How to Create a Custom Hat: Bringing Your Product to Life
You don't have to be a fashion designer to design a quality custom hat. In fact, this step-by-step guide will show you how to design and create custom hats for your business like a true seasoned professional.
1. Understand Your Options
Before you pitch your ideas to your stakeholders or start brainstorming designs, you need to decide what type of hat you want to purchase. Choosing different hat types is easy — you just have to take into account your location, available materials and design framework.
Designing a hat for your business starts with choosing your materials and hat types. Here is a basic breakdown of your options for different types of hats:
Hat fabric types: There are many fabrics to choose from when designing a hat for your business. You can choose between cotton twill, polyester, nylon mesh, poly mesh, honeycomb mesh and camo. These options offer varying levels of warmth, comfort and design.
Color: One of the main design elements you'll have to decide on is the color of your hat. Your color options will be limited to the type of material you want to use. For example, cotton twill is one of the most popular hat materials because it comes in a variety of colors, whereas honeycomb mesh is a durable fabric that has fewer colors to choose from.
Branding: Brainstorm designs that demonstrate the best branding practices for your company. What colors, prints or pictures do you want to put on the hat that will tell the world what your business does or represents? The image should be clear, distinct and spark curiosity from the people outside of the company.
Style: There are different hat styles, like trucker hats, snapbacks, dad hats, fitted caps, performance hats, camper hats and more. Your logo or image, color preference and personal preferences will help determine which style is right for your business.
2. Determine Your Goals and Budget
As with any new goal, you need to determine your “why” when creating a new personalized product. Why are you designing a custom hat? What are you trying to achieve by distributing a branded product?
Here are a few examples of what objectives can be accomplished:
Publicity: Branded merchandise is an effective way to organically promote your business. It's a marketing strategy that never gets old. If promotion is your intention, consider making your branding as clear and obvious as possible to everyone who sees it. Your logo or a simplified version of your logo would be the perfect image for a promotional hat.
Unification: Inclusivity should never be underestimated. Your employees are the glue that keeps your business together and operational. Custom hats show your appreciation for your team, so they feel recognized and respected.
Celebration: Whether it's the holiday season, a charity event or your company's 10th anniversary, personalized hats perfectly capture the moment, no matter how monumental it may be.
Profit: You can sell your hats to customers and use this marketing strategy to pull in another stream of revenue. If this is the case, you'll want to consider who your target customer is and how much they'd be willing to spend on a branded hat. Depending on the industry, you can be as formal or imaginative as you want.
Once you decide the purpose of your custom hats, you can set a budget for your order. You may be willing to spend more money on merchandise that you're selling for a profit, or you could have over 100 workers and will need to plan a larger budget to make sure everyone gets a hat.
It's unnecessary to put hard boundaries on a merchandise budget, but having a general idea of what you are willing to spend and whether you would pay more for quicker order fulfillment will help you make faster, more informed decisions.
3. Share With Your Investors and Partners
You can't create custom hats for businesses without communicating with your partners and shareholders. Once you have your budget and creative concept, you can share your ideas with the other members of your leadership team with complete industry knowledge and confidence.
Remember that your shareholders and employees will be the ones sporting the new merchandise, so their feedback is priceless when it comes to decision-making. With their input, you can design a cap everyone will love.
4. Find a Company You Can Trust
Now, it's time to find the right company to help you bring your ideas to life. There are dozens of businesses that specialize in bulk orders of custom designs. However, only a few will deliver the quality and convenience that should be standard when designing personalized business gear.
You should look for a company that has:
The lowest minimums: Most manufacturers have fixed order requirements in terms of quantity. This can mean ordering too many hats, and a surplus is never ideal. You should work with a company that lets you order a small amount so you're not stuck with extra units. This will prove to be convenient and cost-effective.
Quick turnarounds: Although some products take longer to create than others, you should receive your order within three to four weeks. The process to create unique designs should be handled by a company that's efficient and well-managed, so you're guaranteed fast production, efficient communication and a high-quality product.
Quality: Whether your hats are gifts or you intend to sell them, you should hold your merchandise to the same standard as everything else within your business. The quality of your products reflects your business practices and values. Make sure you partner with a company that will produce clear designs, clean stitches and caps that will stand the test of time.
5. Pick Your Product
Once you find the right company for your vision, you can choose which of their products best fits the aesthetic you're going for. You'll have a few hat styles to choose from, but the right product will accommodate the color, design and image placement you have in mind.
Snapback: These baseball caps allow you to adjust the fit of your hat with straps in the back that snap into place.
Fitted: Fitted caps are sized to fit perfectly snug on your head.
Dad hat: This type of hat is a casual cap that features a slightly curved brim.
Camper: Comfortable and adjustable, camper hats have a shallow crown and five panels that give you ample room for logos and other embroidered designs.
Trucker: These hats feature a high front panel and breathable mesh back.
Performance: Functional and stylish, performance hats are lightweight and moisture-wicking.
6. Brainstorm a Unique Design
This step is where your imagination can really soar — be as experimental and innovative as you like. Mock up several designs, then share them with your team members. You can make your design decisions based on the following customization options:
Embroidery: For a durable and colorful design, you can't go wrong with embroidery. Both standard stitching and 3D embroidery give you a clear image that won't fade or peel away.
Patches: This type of label really pops against the backdrop of a cap. They provide a burst of color that's sewn or ironed onto the hat.
Custom taping: Taping is what connects the hat panels together. Adding your company name or tagline on the taping is a discreet and minimalistic way to customize your caps.
Custom liner: Custom lining allows you to add another element of design to your personalized cap. With digital printing technology, you can add playful patterns or your brand colors to the inside of the hat.
Woven labels: If you appreciate attention to detail, you'll love woven labels. Placed on the left side of a snapback, your brand can be on display from all angles.
Custom closures: You can choose between snapbacks, closures and Velcro and place your values, slogan or quote on the just above the closure.
7. Get Your Final Feedback
After you've achieved the finished look of your custom cap, you need to get your final round of input. Just like any other major project, creating a unique design that accurately represents your brand can be an all-consuming task. You've invested countless hours and creative energy into a real product that's going to be seen and worn in the outside world.
Share your final mock-up with trusted team members, friends and higher-ups to ensure your personalized hat satisfies everyone and objectively looks great.
8. Place Your Order and Distribute It
Once you have finalized your design, you can move on to the last stages of the creative process. One valuable perk of ordering your custom merchandise from a reputable brand like Diehard Custom is that you can get a sample of what your final product is going to look like before placing your bulk order.
This last step allows you to make last-minute changes to get the best possible product to represent your brand. When you finally approve of the design, you can place your order. You should order enough hats so you can distribute them to everyone on your team. If you're selling them, order a quantity you're confident will move over the next few months so you aren't left with overstock.
When your order arrives, you can distribute your custom hats however you see fit.
Partner With Industry Experts to Create Great Custom Hats
Creating customized merchandise should be a fun and easy experience. With a streamlined creative process, the experts at Diehard Customs can take care of every detail, from developing the graphic for your cap to turning around a bulk order in just a few weeks. We'll ensure your business is represented with unique and colorful designs that will always leave an impression.
Want to expand your merch line? Browse our entire lineup to see what we have to offer. You can suit up with custom scarves, beanies, socks and more. Whether you want to create a sense of unity among your team members or to add a new element of style to your existing merchandise, our products are guaranteed to boldly serve their purpose.
