A left chest logo should be about 3.5 inches wide on an adult shirt, with a normal range of 3 to 4 inches. The top of the logo usually sits 3 to 4 inches below the collar seam, centered over the left side of the chest. Go a little smaller on youth and fitted shirts, and a little bigger on hoodies and jackets.
That's the short answer to what size a left chest logo should be on a plain tee or polo. Where people get tripped up is the stuff around that number, like a long skinny logo or a tagline that's too small to stitch. Here's how we'd size it at Conquer Printing, garment by garment, plus the mistakes we see on left chest orders from Sacramento businesses.
Left chest logo sizes by garment
| Garment | Logo width | Where it sits |
|---|---|---|
| Adult T-shirt | 3 to 4 in (3.5 is the sweet spot) | Top edge 3 to 4 in below the collar seam |
| Polo | 3 to 3.5 in | Between the placket and the side seam, top edge near the second button |
| Pullover hoodie | 3.5 to 4.5 in | A bit lower than on a tee, since the hood sits on the neckline |
| Zip hoodie or jacket | 3.5 to 5 in | Fully on the left panel, at least an inch clear of the zipper |
| Fitted women's tee | About 3 in | Same spot as a tee, scaled down |
| Youth shirt | 2.5 to 3 in | Top edge 2 to 3 in below the collar seam |
Those are widths. Height depends on the shape of your logo, and that's where most of the trouble starts.
Why width isn't the whole story
A 3.5 inch wide logo can also be 3.5 inches tall (a round badge) or barely half an inch tall (a long one-line name). Same width on paper. Completely different shirt.
Round and square logos are the easy ones. At 3 to 3.5 inches they read from across a room and they don't crowd the shoulder or the armpit.
Long horizontal logos are the hard case. Picture a pool service company whose logo is the business name in one line with a phone number underneath. At 4 inches wide, the name might stand about 0.6 inches tall and the phone number ends up so small nobody will ever read it. You've paid for a logo that looks like a thin stripe from six feet away.
Our rule of thumb: if your logo is more than about three times wider than it is tall, look for a stacked version. Most businesses have one somewhere, even if it's sitting in an old folder from whoever designed the logo. If you don't have one, that's the kind of thing our free design support can help with.
Tall logos (a crest, or an icon stacked over a name) have the opposite problem. Once the height passes about 3.5 inches, the logo starts creeping up toward the collar and down toward the armpit, and it stops looking like a chest logo. Shrink it until it fits in roughly a 3.5 inch square.
How far down from the collar?
The usual answer is 3 to 4 inches from the collar seam to the top of the logo on an adult shirt. You'll also see guides that say 7 to 9 inches, which sounds like a contradiction. It isn't. Those guides measure from the shoulder seam where it meets the collar, not from the front of the collar, and on a typical adult tee both measurements land in about the same place.
Side to side, the center of the logo sits roughly over the middle of the left side of the chest, about 4 inches off the center of an adult medium. Two quick checks we like:
- A standard business card is 3.5 by 2 inches. Hold one against your chest and that's the size and spot of a typical left chest logo.
- Put the shirt on and look for where you'd clip a name badge. That's the zone.
One thing people don't expect: a left chest logo is usually run at one size across the whole order, from small to 3XL. It'll look a touch bigger on the smalls and a touch smaller on the big sizes. For most crews that's fine. If your order is mostly youth sizes with a handful of adults (a Sacramento youth soccer league with its coaches, say), it's worth splitting it into two logo sizes so the kids' shirts don't look like they're wearing a sticker.
Embroidery needs a simpler logo than print
Embroidery and printing at the same width don't look the same, because thread has thickness and a print doesn't. The limit you'll run into first is small text. The commonly accepted minimum letter height for clean embroidered lettering is about a quarter inch, and ASI's guide to small embroidered letters explains why the width of each letter stroke matters just as much.
On a 3.5 inch logo, a tagline under the business name often falls below that line. When it does, the small openings in letters like "e" and "a" fill in and the tagline turns into a fuzzy bar. Your options are to drop the tagline on the stitched version, make it bigger, or move it to a sleeve or the back.
Finer thread can stitch smaller lettering. Thread maker AMANN notes that a thinner 75-weight thread helps with lettering around 3 mm. That's specialty work, though. For a work polo or a staff jacket, we'd rather simplify the logo than fight the thread.
Bigger embroidered logos also mean more stitches, which is one of the things that moves embroidery pricing. Our guide to what embroidery costs walks through that.
And here's the honest part: embroidery is the wrong call for some left chest logos. If your logo has photo detail or gradients, thread can't render it well at 3.5 inches. Hairline strokes have the same problem. Embroidery on a lightweight tee can also pucker the fabric around the design. In those cases we'd steer you to print. If your logo is clean and your garment is a polo or heavy fleece, embroidery is hard to beat on a chest.
Print gives you more room for detail
A printed left chest logo can hold detail that thread can't, so a 3.5 inch print can carry a small tagline that would never survive embroidery.
Screen printing is our pick for a one or two color logo on a run of shirts, like a contractor putting the same chest logo on every crew tee. DTF is the better fit when the logo is full color, has gradients, or you only need a handful of shirts for a new hire or two.
Print has limits too. Lines thinner than the process can hold will break up at chest size, and a blurry low-res file stays blurry no matter how it's printed. Send vector art if you have it. Our file format guide explains what to look for.
Mistakes we see on left chest orders
- Going too big because the logo looked small on a phone screen. A 5 inch logo on a tee stops reading as a chest logo and starts looking like a front print that slid to one side.
- Placing it too low. Below about 4 inches from the collar seam on an adult tee, the logo drifts toward the middle of the chest and looks like an accident.
- Overlapping a pocket. On pocket tees and work shirts, put the logo above the pocket, not across the pocket seam, where it can pucker.
- Forgetting the zipper. On a full-zip hoodie or jacket, the logo has to fit on the left panel with room to spare, which sometimes means going a little smaller than you'd like.
- Using one logo file for everything. A logo that works on a 10x10 canopy or a storefront sign is often too busy for 3.5 inches of chest.
Common Questions
What is the standard left chest logo size?
The standard left chest logo is 3 to 4 inches wide on an adult garment, and 3.5 inches is the most common choice. Height follows the shape of the logo, so it usually lands somewhere between 1 and 3.5 inches. Youth shirts drop to about 2.5 to 3 inches wide.
How far down from the collar should a left chest logo be?
The top of a left chest logo usually sits 3 to 4 inches below the collar seam on an adult shirt. Guides that measure from the shoulder seam instead quote 7 to 9 inches, which puts the logo in about the same place. On a pullover hoodie it goes a little lower because the hood sits on the neckline.
Is 4 inches too big for a left chest logo?
Four inches is the top of the normal range for a tee, and it works well on hoodies and jackets, or on XL and up. It starts to look oversized on youth shirts and fitted cuts. For a round or square logo on a tee, 3.5 inches usually looks better than 4.
What size should a left chest logo be on a hoodie?
A left chest logo on a hoodie usually runs 3.5 to 4.5 inches wide, a bit bigger than on a tee because the garment is bulkier. On a zip-up, keep the logo fully on the left panel with at least an inch of space from the zipper. Heavy fleece holds embroidery well, so a hoodie is one of the best places to stitch a chest logo.
The bottom line
Start at 3.5 inches wide and 3 to 4 inches below the collar, then adjust for the garment and the shape of your logo. If your logo is a long one-line wordmark or has small text you care about, fix that before you order, because no placement trick saves a tagline that's too small to stitch. Conquer Printing has no minimums, so if you're torn between two sizes, you can order a couple of test shirts before you outfit the whole crew. Price out your exact garment and logo in our quote calculator, or send the logo over and we'll help you pick a size.