A jacket is the piece of branded apparel people actually keep. Long after a conference tee gets relegated to a gym-rag pile, a well-made jacket stays in the regular rotation - pulled on for a commute, a cold warehouse shift, or a Saturday on the sideline. That staying power is exactly why custom jackets are one of the highest-perceived-value items a company or team can order: the per-wear cost is low, the visibility is high, and a jacket with your logo reads as an investment in the person wearing it rather than a giveaway. This guide covers what custom jackets are made of, how a logo actually gets onto one - embroidery, patches or screen printing - and what to expect on minimums, turnaround and ordering.
What Are Custom Jackets, Exactly?
Custom jackets cover a wide family of outerwear: varsity and letterman jackets in heavyweight twill, zip-up or pullover fleece jackets, lightweight nylon windbreakers, and bomber-style jackets in a nylon or poly shell. What makes any of them 'custom' is the same thing across every style - your logo, team name or artwork applied to the garment rather than a blank jacket off a rack. GetMerch is a custom print-on-demand shop, and custom jackets are decorated the same way as the rest of the apparel catalog: through embroidery for a stitched finish, sewn-on or iron-on patches, or screen printing for bigger, more colorful graphics.
Where Can I Get Custom Jackets Made With My Own Logo?
GetMerch designs and produces custom jackets with your own logo, from a blank jacket style through to a finished, decorated piece. The process starts with picking a jacket style and fabric, then choosing a decoration method for your artwork - embroidery, a patch, or screen printing - based on how detailed the logo is and which jacket fabric it's going on. GetMerch's team digitizes logos for embroidery, produces custom patches, and sends a proof before anything goes into production, so you see the placement and colors first.
What Materials and Styles Do Custom Jackets Come In?
Custom jackets are built from a handful of fabrics, and the right one depends on climate, use case and which decoration method you want to use.
- Twill - a heavyweight cotton-poly weave used for varsity and letterman jackets. Holds embroidery, chenille patches and screen printing cleanly, and is the traditional choice for team and school jackets.
- Fleece - brushed, soft and warm, used for zip-up and pullover jackets. Embroiders well on the chest; larger fleece surfaces also take screen printing.
- Nylon or polyester shell - lightweight, wind- and water-resistant, used for windbreakers and bombers. Favors patches and screen printing over dense embroidery, which can pucker thin shell fabric.
- Soft-shell - a mid-layer performance fabric for outdoor and workwear jackets, usually embroidered rather than printed since the surface isn't ideal for ink.
GetMerch can talk through which fabric fits your use case - an outdoor crew needs a different jacket weight than a corporate office giveaway.
Embroidery vs. Patches vs. Screen Printing: Which Decoration Method Is Best for a Custom Jacket?
Three decoration methods cover almost every custom jacket order, and each one suits a different kind of logo and fabric. Embroidery stitches thread directly into the jacket, which looks premium and holds up for the life of the garment, but it struggles with fine detail, gradients or more than a handful of thread colors. Patches - chenille for a raised, textured varsity look, or flat embroidered and twill patches for more detail - are a separate piece sewn or ironed onto the jacket, so the same design can be reused across different jacket styles or colors without redigitizing. Screen printing applies ink directly to smoother jacket fabrics like nylon shells and can reproduce big, multi-color graphics that neither embroidery nor a patch handles as cleanly.
| Method | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Embroidery | Small, few-color logos on twill, fleece or soft-shell | Fine text and gradients don't stitch cleanly |
| Patches (chenille / twill) | Varsity jackets, reusable designs across styles | Adds a slightly raised profile to the jacket |
| Screen printing | Large, multi-color graphics on nylon or fleece | Doesn't hold up as well on tightly woven twill |
What's the Minimum Order for Custom Jackets?
There's no strict minimum for embroidered custom jackets - GetMerch can embroider a single jacket the same way it embroiders a hundred, though per-piece pricing improves once an order reaches 12 or more pieces. Screen-printed and patch designs are generally more cost-effective starting around that same dozen-piece mark, since the setup work for ink screens or patch production is spread across the run rather than a single jacket.
How Long Does It Take to Get Custom Jackets Made?
Turnaround on custom jackets depends on the decoration method, the order size, and how quickly you approve your artwork proof. GetMerch's custom apparel typically ships in about 14 days after proof approval, with rush production available when a deadline is tight. A large embroidery run or a custom patch design produced from scratch can add time, so it's worth sharing your target date when you request a quote.
Can I Put My Own Logo or Patch on a Jacket?
Yes - a custom jacket can carry your logo as direct embroidery, a sewn-on or iron-on patch, or a screen-printed graphic, and you can often combine methods on one jacket. The best starting point is vector artwork (AI, EPS, SVG or a high-resolution PDF), since it scales cleanly to a small left-chest logo or a full back patch without going soft. If all you have is a low-resolution logo from a website, GetMerch's design team will redraw it as clean vector art before it goes into production.
How Do I Order Custom Jackets for a Team or Company, Step by Step?
Ordering custom jackets for a group follows the same four steps whether it's a five-person crew or a two-hundred-person rollout.
- 1. Pick the jacket style and fabric - twill for a varsity feel, fleece for warmth, nylon shell for a lighter windbreaker or bomber.
- 2. Choose a decoration method based on your logo's detail: embroidery or a patch for a small, few-color mark; screen printing for a bigger, more colorful graphic.
- 3. Send artwork - ideally vector files - or work with GetMerch's design team to clean up a low-resolution logo before it's digitized or set up for print.
- 4. Approve a digital proof showing placement, thread or ink colors, and patch style, then confirm quantity and any size breakdown across your group.
Custom Jackets vs. Hoodies and Polos: When Does a Jacket Make Sense?
Custom jackets sit above hoodies and polos as heavier, more weather-ready branded apparel, which makes them the right call for staff working outside, outdoor events, colder climates, or any program where you want a piece that gets worn more often than a t-shirt. Hoodies and polos are lighter, cheaper per unit, and better suited to everyday indoor wear or warmer seasons. Many teams and companies run both - jackets for outerwear occasions, polos or hoodies for daily branded apparel - rather than picking one category for everything.
Fabric, decoration method and order size are the only three decisions that really shape a custom jacket order - get those right and sizing, color and timeline fall into place around them. If you already have artwork, upload it and pick a jacket style to see embroidery, patch and print options side by side; if you're still deciding on a method, GetMerch's team can walk through the trade-offs against your logo before you commit to a run.
