The Quick Reference Table

These are standard dimensions based on an adult medium t-shirt. Keep in mind that garment style can shift these numbers. A hoodie with a front pocket pushes the usable print area up, which affects where a full front or center chest print can realistically land. A deep V-neck drops the collar lower than a standard crew, so the usual collar-to-print distance doesn't apply the same way. When the garment is anything other than a standard crew neck tee, it's worth a quick conversation before locking in placement.

Left Chest

This is the most common placement we print. If you've ever worn a polo or a staff shirt with a logo on it, there's a good chance it was a left chest. The print sits 3 to 4 inches below the collar, roughly centered over the left chest area. On an adult shirt, you're working with about 4 inches of width, which is enough for a clean logo but not a lot of room for detail. Intricate fine lines and small text at this size will lose legibility, so the design either needs to be simple on its own or simplified for this placement.

Left chest works well for company logos, team identifiers, and event branding where the shirt itself is the point. It reads professional without taking over the whole shirt. When we first opened, full front was the most requested placement across the board. These days, left chest paired with a full back has become the go-to for branded and event work. Full front is still very much in the mix, but for corporate orders, staff shirts, and anything with a name or sponsor on the back, left chest plus full back is what most people land on.

Center Chest

Center chest sits in between left chest and full front in terms of size. The print is centered horizontally, drops 4 to 5 inches below the collar, and usually runs about 8 inches wide on an adult medium. It's a good option when the design is too wide or too detailed for a left chest but doesn't need the full real estate of a full front. A horizontal text layout, a stacked wordmark, or a mid-size graphic all land well here.

One thing worth knowing: center chest prints tend to stay visible even when someone's wearing a jacket or an open button-down over the shirt. If visibility matters and you're not sure the full front is the right call, center chest is worth considering.

Full Front

Full front is what most people picture when they think of a printed t-shirt. The design fills the front of the shirt, starting about 3 inches below the collar and centered left to right. On an adult medium, you're looking at roughly 11 to 12 inches wide and up to 14 inches tall. That's a lot of space to work with, and it shows.

Bands use it. Artists use it. Anyone who wants the shirt itself to be the statement uses it. The tradeoff is that a full front print can look overwhelming if the design wasn't built for that scale. A logo that works at 4 inches doesn't always work at 11. If you're going full front, the art should be designed for it or adapted before we go to film.

Screen printing a full front also means more ink coverage, which adds a little to the per-piece cost compared to a small chest print. Not dramatically, but it's part of why our pricing calculator asks about print size.

Back Placements

The back of a shirt gets split into a few distinct zones and it helps to know which one you're actually asking for.

The back collar print is the smallest option. It sits 1 to 2 inches below the collar, centered, and usually runs about 2 inches wide. It's not a high-visibility placement. People see it when you're standing in front of them or seated close by. A lot of brands use it the way they'd use an interior label, as a secondary identifier that's there without announcing itself. Small and clean works best. Anything complex at that size will just look like a smudge from a few feet away.

Upper back is the horizontal band across the shoulder blade area. It drops 3 to 4 inches from the collar and prioritizes width over height, typically 12 inches wide and only 4 inches tall on an adult. This is the placement for text-heavy designs: event names across the back, sponsor lists, rosters. It reads from a distance because it sits high and wide. If the design is mostly type and it needs to be readable across a room, upper back is usually the right call.

Full back is the workhorse. It's the most popular back placement by a wide margin, and it pairs naturally with a left chest on the front. On an adult shirt, the standard is 12 inches wide by 14 inches tall, starting 3 to 4 inches below the collar. There's no rule that says it has to fill that entire area. Plenty of full back prints run smaller, but that's the range we work within. If your design is taller than it is wide, or if it has a lot going on vertically, full back is where it lives.

Sleeve

Sleeve prints are smaller by necessity. On an adult shirt, you're working with about 2 to 4 inches of printable width, centered on the sleeve and positioned 1 to 4 inches from the sleeve hem. Simple shapes and logos work fine here. Long text strings, detailed illustrations, or anything that relies on fine lines will not translate well at that scale.

One thing to be aware of if the order includes women's cut shirts: the sleeves on those run noticeably shorter than a standard unisex tee. That shorter sleeve can cut the printable area down significantly, and in some cases there isn't enough room to fit the design at all. If you're mixing garment styles in one order and sleeve printing is part of the plan, it's worth flagging so we can check before anything gets set up.

Sleeve prints see a lot of use as sponsor placements, a small logo from a supporting brand tucked on the left or right sleeve. They also work well as secondary branding when the main design is on the front or back and you want another touchpoint without doing a full additional location. One thing to keep in mind: printing a sleeve is a separate setup from front or back placements, so it does add to the cost. It's worth doing when it adds something, and worth skipping when it doesn't.

Why Centered Does Not Always Look Centered

This one catches people off guard. A design can be mathematically centered on a shirt and still look off. It happens most often with logos that have an element extending off the main shape, a banner below a crest, text hanging under a circular emblem, a graphic with more visual weight on one side. The software centers based on the full bounding box of the artwork, which includes all of that extra space. So the part your eye actually goes to, usually the dominant shape, ends up sitting slightly off to one side or higher than it should because the math is splitting the difference across the whole file.

A common example: a circular logo with a banner or ribbon extending below it. Center that file on the chest and the circle itself will read as sitting too high because the software is accounting for all that space below it. Getting it to look right means adjusting the placement to compensate for where the eye actually lands, not just where the ruler says the midpoint is. It's something we keep an eye on when we put mockups together, and it's the kind of thing that's easy to miss if nobody is actually looking at the artwork before it goes to press.

What We Need from You

When you send us artwork, it helps to know which placement you're going for. If you're not sure, that's fine too. We can look at what you've got and tell you where it fits best. You don't need to come in with a spec sheet. A rough description works: "logo on the left chest and text across the back" gives us what we need to get started. We'll confirm size and placement on the mockup before anything gets printed.

A note on specs: a lot of print shops send over mockups with detailed size measurements noted on them. We get why they do it, but those numbers don't mean much to most customers, and honestly a mockup can't tell you how big something actually prints anyway. Mockups are flat, generic templates. The shirt you're ordering isn't going to be laid out flat on a table. We've been doing this long enough to know what looks right at what size, and we size designs appropriately based on the garment and the art. If you have a specific size in mind or you're particular about exact dimensions, just tell us and we'll work to those measurements. Otherwise, trust that we're going to make it look good.

If the design hasn't been built yet, knowing the placement ahead of time lets us give you better feedback on sizing and layout before you finalize the art. A file built for full front won't always work at left chest without changes. Catching that early keeps things moving.