Ask a screen printer where the image goes on a shirt and you’ll get a deceptively simple answer: wherever it looks good to the customer. But “looks good” is where things get complicated, and where expensive mistakes happen if you’re not careful.

Templates Are Guides, Not Gospel

Some shops rely on elaborate placement systems. Some customers hand over precise measurements down to the fraction of an inch. Both of those things can be useful starting points, but they should never be treated as unbreakable rules.

Here’s why: measurements and visual perception don’t always agree. A design that sits exactly 2.5 inches below the collar according to a ruler might look like it’s sitting too low once it’s on a body. The eye doesn’t care about your tape measure, it cares about balance, proportion, and how the design relates to the overall shape of the garment.

The Communication Problem

You ask, “Where Does the Image Go on the Shirt?” When a customer says “two inches down from the collar,” do they mean from the top of the collar or the bottom? When they say “center the design,” do they mean the mathematical center or the visual center? These are not the same thing, and words alone won’t get you to clarity.

The solution is layered communication. Don’t rely on words alone. Don’t rely on photos alone. Use both, and when the stakes are high, add a test print to the mix. The more touchpoints you create, the less room there is for misunderstanding.

A Real-World Example: Jordan Brand

Jordan was a brand that ran an exceptionally wide size range, and their sizing historically skewed large. What they labeled as a small back in the early 2000s would be closer to an adult medium by today’s standards, and their 3XL was more like a modern 5XL. That kind of spread means placement can’t stay static across the run. A design that sits perfectly on a medium will look off on a 3XL if you don’t adjust.

This is where size-run sampling helped. During the approval process, we’d often send the brand a full size run, the same design printed across every size in the range, so they could evaluate how placement and proportion held up from garment to garment. Sometimes the image itself needed to scale up or down along with the placement shift. Other times it was a matter of establishing acceptable tolerances: how much variation in position or size was the brand willing to live with? Those thresholds were determined through the sampling process, with the brand signing off on what they saw across the variation ‘run’ before production ever started.

Just Following Instructions Isn’t Enough

This is worth emphasizing: blindly following a customer’s measurements doesn’t protect you from a bad result. If the placement doesn’t look right to your trained eye, send a photo. Better yet, send a test print. “I did what they asked” isn’t a great defense when you’re staring at thousands of dollars in misprinted shirts.

Let the team stand back, looked at the shirt on a person, and notice if it was printing too low. Then move the design up, make a judgment call that no measurement template would have made.

The Three-Step Approval Process

For high-stakes jobs, use a layered visual check:

1. Close-up photo of the design. This confirms print quality, colors, and detail accuracy.
2. Full shirt held up. This shows placement relative to the garment as a whole.
3. Someone wearing the shirt. This is the ultimate test — how does it look on a real human body in motion?

When tens of thousands of dollars in inventory are on the line, you need to be “crystal clear.” No ambiguity, no assumptions, no crossing your fingers and hoping the customer meant what you think they meant.

Where Does the Image Go on the Shirt?

Shirt placement is part science, part art, and entirely dependent on communication. Use measurements as a starting point. Trust your eye for the final call. And when in doubt, over-communicate with your customer through every channel available to you, words, photos, and wear tests, before ink ever hits fabric.

Your templates and rulers are tools. Your judgment is the skill.