A logo is one of a business’s most important visual aspects, representing their brand and becoming more iconic as the business finds success. For that reason, it’s important for your logo to be on display while your employees work to naturally advertise the quality of your services and products. For this reason, many industrial workplaces customize their hi-vis vests to display their logos. The challenge with this, however, is making your logo stand out and look appealing against bright reflective backgrounds in addition to understanding the imprinting process. Here are seven tips for designing your logo for hi-vis vests.
Keep First Impressions in Mind
Beyond a bit of extra exposure for your company, what benefits warrant custom hi-vis vests? What makes them worth the time and effort? There are actually a few reasons why you'd want to brand your vests and other high-visibility gear with your logo.
- On many job sites, it’s not uncommon for contractors to work side by side with other companies. Supplying your employees with gear that has your logo on it will help you differentiate them from the employees of other companies. This will be a great help for managers and employees to identify with each other more quickly, vastly improving communication on-site.
- Image is everything when it comes to first impressions. Custom imprinted clothing and equipment will create a more professional and organized appearance for you and your employees, inspiring confidence in potential customers that you are trusted professionals.
- Getting your brand out there is difficult, especially if you’re just starting out and need to compete with larger, more established companies. Imprinted clothing helps increase brand awareness among contractors, project owners, and anyone who passes by.
- Lastly, imprinted clothing can help your employees feel more like a part of a team if they have a common symbol to rally around. Furthermore, it’ll impress upon your employees that they reflect the company as well as themselves.
Consider Functionality Before Imprinting
Before you can imprint anything on your hi-vis gear, there are a few considerations you’ll need to make. One of the most important of which is ensuring your intended design remains ANSI 107 compliant, which we’ll discuss in more detail later. As for the design itself, you’ll need to consider where you’ll place the logo and how much space it takes up.
Your logo should cover no more than 22 square inches of visible retroflected material, and the logo or lettering can’t have any gaps of more than 2” horizontally. This is to ensure the hi-vis gear’s functionality is not compromised, which could potentially put your employees in danger. Both the front and back of your hi-vis gear needs a certain percentage of reflective material visible; this is complicated by designs like X-backed vests that help distinguish which way a worker is facing.
Choose the Best Imprinting Site
When choosing an imprinting site, the ideal spot is a large, clear space that’s not too close to any important features or details; generally, you should keep 1” to 1.5” of space between your logo and any features like reflective material, zippers, or pockets.
This not only ensures the functionality of the reflective material remains, but it also helps your logo imprint cleanly and effectively. Some of the most popular spots include imprinting on the sleeve, breast pockets, the upper back, and the lower back. These are small but clearly visible spots where your logo will be seen.
Understand the Imprinting Process
When you contact Hi-Vis Safety for custom imprinting, you’ll first pick out what kind of garment you want from our website and then submit a quote. To quicken the process, you should send us a vector graphics profile of your desired logo.
Next, we’ll contact you to go over the details of your quote and answer any questions you may have. Once we have the specifics, we’ll create a design proof to show you what the logo will look like on the garment and get your approval.
Once you’ve approved the design proof, our professionals will get to work imprinting your garments with only the highest-quality practices and materials. Once completed, the garments will be shipped to your business.
Evaluate the Different Kinds of Logo Printing
When considering the design of your logo, you’ll have three kinds of logo printing to choose from: black, full color, and reflective.
- Classic black imprinting is a bold impact that provides great contrast with the reflective material and high visibility colors, ensuring it stands out no matter where you place it.
- Full color is ideal for companies whose colors are an important part of their logo. With this option, we’ll ensure we keep your iconic colors intact and looking good when imprinted onto the reflective material.
- If your employees often work in low-light conditions, creating your logo with reflective materials is a great way to add extra protection and provide an effective method of featuring your logo whenever light reflects off your employees.
Stay ANSI 107 Compliant
While one of the less exciting tips for designing your logo for hi-vis vests, it’s incredibly important that you ensure your customized vests and other hi-vis gear remain ANSI 107 compliant. This is the standard that defines different levels of high-visibility protection workwear and specifies the amount of fluorescent and reflective materials necessary. If your logo is too large, it may cover up too much of these materials and thus infringe on the ANSI 107 standard. Importantly, remember that your logo can’t exceed more than 72 square inches, and both the front and back of your hi-vis gear needs to meet the ANSI 107 standard.
Some workplaces don’t require ANSI 107–compliant high-visibility gear, but it’s still a good idea to be conscious of your logo as though it were held to the same standard. This will be in the interest of ensuring your workers remain visible and safe while on the job.
Hi-Vis Safety Services
Always remember that you don’t have to figure out all of these various details on your own. Hi-Vis Safety can provide you with help every step of the way with our expertise and services. We’ll be able to check over any design proposals for errors or violations of the ANSI 107 standards and help you adjust the design to something more acceptable. Get in contact with us today for customized hi-vis vests that best represent your company and its values.
