Family Reunion T-Shirt Design With a Family Crest

Why a crest works on a reunion shirt

Reunions magazine gives simple design advice for these shirts: keep the type large, keep the phrases to a few words, and include the family name, the year and perhaps a motto. A crest is built to do exactly that. The name sits at the top, the motto runs along the ribbon, and the shield carries one strong picture you can recognize from across a picnic ground.

It also solves a problem shirts with a date on them have: this year's design goes out of date the moment the reunion ends. A family crest does not. Keep the shield for every reunion and change only the year, and over time you end up with a family emblem, not a pile of unrelated shirts.

Designing the crest

Put the name and year where people can read them

Use the family name, with the year if you like: "The Hayes Family Reunion" or "Kowalski Reunion 2027". Names in Crest Studio can be up to 40 characters and mottos up to 48, so there is room, but shorter reads better on a chest.

Choose one emblem that means something to your family

• Tree or acorn: the family tree and the small beginning it grew from. The obvious choice for a reunion, and a good one.
• Heart: simple and warm, and it holds up at any size.
• Tower or key: the old home place, or a family that keeps the door open.
• Ship, anchor or compass: a family that crossed an ocean or scattered across the country.
• Shamrock, thistle or fleur-de-lis: where the family came from. The Irish family crest and Scottish family crest guides go further.
• Your initial: the plainest option and one nobody else's reunion will share.

The symbols and meanings guide explains every emblem and color in the studio.

Pick colors with contrast

Heraldry's rule of tincture puts a metal (gold or silver) against a color (red, blue, green, purple or black), and it was made so a shield could be read from far away. Print shops give almost the same advice: Michael Waite of Hollopoint Design told Reunions magazine that colors too close in value blend together and lose detail, and that light against dark is best. Follow the rule and you get both.

Write a motto that sounds like your family

This is where a reunion shirt can be funny. "Still Here, Still Loud" will get more laughs at the buffet than anything in Latin, though the Latin motto generator has plenty with translations if your family prefers the formal look.

What to tell the printer

Two printing methods cover most reunion orders, and the choice affects which file you need.

• Direct-to-film (DTF) or digital transfers: the design is printed onto film and heat-pressed onto the shirt. There are no screens to set up and no extra charge per color, so a full-color crest with its gold and shading prints as you see it. Printers commonly suggest this for small runs and full-color art.
• Screen printing: ink goes through one screen per color, so each color adds setup cost, and shops often start at around a dozen shirts. It tends to be cheapest per shirt for big orders with few colors. A full-color crest is more work to separate, so ask the shop to quote it, or use a simpler one-color version.

Which Crest Studio file to send

• The $9 set has the SVG vector, the file printers usually ask for, and a 4000 by 5000 px PNG. At 300 pixels per inch that PNG prints about 13 by 16 inches, larger than most shirt prints.
• The $19 Heirloom set adds line art and two-tone files that were made for stamps and can also suit a one-color print. Show them to your printer first.
• The $29 Crest Logo Kit adds a transparent PNG, which is useful on colored shirts, and a shield-only mark for a small chest print or a child's shirt.

Ask for a proof before the whole order runs. Printers differ, and what one wants another may not.

Ordering without the last-minute panic

1. Order early. Reunions magazine says most printers need at least three weeks, and warns that shirts arriving late mean paying to post them to everyone afterward.
2. Set the family's deadline before the printer's. Someone will send their sizes late, so build in time for it.
3. Plan for small shirts. A print sized for a large adult will not fit a toddler. Either ask for a second, smaller print, or size one print to fit the smallest shirt.
4. Order a few extras. Relatives who said no often want one when they see everybody else in theirs.
5. Use color for branches. Some large families give each branch or generation its own shirt color. The same crest in gold and white reads well across most of them.

The shirt is only the beginning. The same crest works on the reunion banner, the invitations, a framed print for the oldest relative at the table, and a certificate of arms that explains the design. See family crest gifts for ideas, and if the committee wants tote bags or mugs as well, the club crest guide covers those files.

Design your reunion crest

More free heraldry tools