Custom Camp Shirts

Ask any director what the camp shirt is for and the honest answer is counting. On a field trip, at a public pool or in a crowded trailhead parking lot, a counselor needs to sweep a crowd and pick out every one of their campers in a few seconds.

That job decides the color before any artwork is drawn. Choose something bright and uncommon that strangers are unlikely to be wearing in the same place. Safety yellow, a strong orange or a vivid teal all work. Navy, black and heather gray vanish into a crowd.

Camp staff shirts should be a different color from camper shirts, with the same artwork. A child who is lost or hurt needs to find an adult quickly, and a parent at pickup wants to know who is in charge. Many camps add the word Staff large across the back.

Only after the shirt has done that work does it become a souvenir. The good news is that both jobs fit on one tee. A bright color with well drawn art on the chest is easy to count in July and still gets worn to school in October.

Groups that travel off site often go further and give each cabin, age group or troop patrol its own color. The art and ink stay identical, so it all prints as one run, and only the color of the blank shirts changes from group to group.

A camp shirt has a harder life than almost any other printed tee. It is worn for days, soaked in a lake, rubbed with sunscreen and bug spray, and stuffed damp into a duffel. Heavier cotton holds its shape through that better than a thin fashion tee.

Garment-dyed tees are a camp favorite because they arrive already soft and slightly faded. Know that the dye process means shade varies a little from shirt to shirt and from one order to the next. On a trail that reads as character. If you need an exact match for counting, a standard dyed tee is more consistent.

Screen printing is the right method for most summer camp shirts. The ink bonds well to cotton, holds up to repeated washing, and costs less per piece as the count rises. Keeping the design to one or two ink colors stretches the budget further across a full camp.

For cold mornings and campfires, hoodies and long sleeve tees are the pieces campers ask to take home. They also sell well in a camp store. Full color artwork, like an illustrated map of the property, is a better fit for direct-to-film than for screens.

We make t-shirts, long sleeve tees, tank tops, polos, hoodies, hats and beanies. We do not make bandanas, drawstring bags, swimwear or rain jackets, so plan those from another supplier and match the color to your camp shirt as closely as you can.

The best camp designs are simple enough for a child to draw from memory. A lake, a pine, a canoe paddle, the camp name in strong lettering. Detail that looks lovely on a screen, like fine crosshatching or a thin script, tends to fill in or break up on fabric.

Think about the youth small. Artwork that sits well across an adult chest can wrap toward the armpits on a small child, so designs are usually scaled down for the smallest sizes. A compact, roughly square layout survives that better than a long horizontal banner.

Leave room for a name. Plenty of camps print a blank bar or box on the back or at the hem where a parent can write a name in laundry marker. It costs almost nothing in ink and it empties the lost and found.

Decide whether the shirt is dated. A year or a theme makes it a keepsake and encourages returning families to collect each one. An undated design lets you carry leftovers into next summer. Some camps keep staff shirts undated and change the camper shirt every year.

If all you have is an old patch, a sketch from a counselor or a scan of a brochure, send it. Rough logos can be cleaned up or redrawn so the lines print sharp, and you will see the result on the proof.