Logo Size for Embroidery: Chest, Sleeve, Back and Cap Sizes in cm

For most UAE uniforms, a left-chest embroidered logo should be 7.5–9 cm wide and no more than about 7.5 cm tall, a cap front logo 10–12 cm wide and 4.5–5.5 cm tall, and a sleeve logo 5–9 cm wide. Whatever the placement, keep every letter at least 6–7 mm tall and every line at least 1.3 mm thick, or the machine cannot stitch it cleanly. If your logo has a tagline or fine detail that falls below those limits at the chosen size, simplify the artwork rather than shrinking it further.

The rest of this guide gives the full size chart in centimetres, explains why small text fails in thread, and shows how to prepare artwork so your embroiderer can get it right first time.

Why embroidery size works differently from print

A printer can reproduce a 2 mm word almost perfectly. An embroidery machine cannot. Every shape in your logo is rebuilt from stitches: satin stitches for letters and outlines, fill stitches for larger areas. Thread has a physical thickness, and it spreads slightly as it sinks into the fabric. Below a certain size, letters fill in, counters (the holes in "a", "e", "o") close up, and thin lines turn into a wobbly single row of stitches.

That is why most published embroidery limits sit in the same range:

• Minimum text height: Printful's embroidery guidelines set 6.35 mm (0.25") for flat embroidery and warn that letters under about 2.5 mm tall may be removed entirely during digitising.
• Absolute floor: Logo Up, another US decorator, puts the smallest workable element at 3/16" (about 4.8 mm).
• Minimum line thickness: about 1.27 mm (0.05"). Thinner lines get turned into a single running stitch or dropped.
• Minimum gap between elements: about 6.35 mm for flat embroidery, because thread expands and narrow gaps close up.

In practice, treat 6–7 mm capital height as your safe minimum for block lettering and 4.8 mm as the point below which nothing reliable happens.

Embroidery logo size chart (cm)

These are working ranges collected from established embroidery guides and converted to metric. Exact limits depend on the garment, the hoop the factory uses and your artwork, so treat them as starting points to confirm on a stitched sample.

Placement	Typical size (width × height)	Practical notes
Left chest – horizontal logo	7.5–9 cm wide, up to about 5 cm tall	The most common uniform placement; roughly business-card size
Left chest – round or square logo	6–7.5 cm each way	Round badges look larger than their measurement, so 6.5 cm is often enough
Right chest / name embroidery	Capital letters 7–10 mm tall	Names, job titles, department codes
Sleeve (upper arm)	5–9 cm wide, up to about 9.5 cm max	Short polo sleeves suit the lower end of the range
Back yoke / below collar	8–12 cm wide	Secondary logo or website; keeps clear of the collar seam
Full back (hoodies, jackets)	Up to about 24 cm wide	Heavy garments only; stitch count and cost rise sharply
Cap front (structured)	10–12 cm wide, 4.5–5.5 cm tall	Height is the real constraint, not width
Cap side	About 2.5 cm tall, up to 5 cm wide	Icons and short words only
Cap back (above strap)	1.3–2.5 cm tall, up to about 7.5 cm wide	Website, slogan or small icon

Where these numbers come from

The US guide from Threadlogic gives left-chest logos at up to 3.5" (8.9 cm) at the widest point and sleeve logos at 3–3.75" (7.6–9.5 cm). UK supplier AM Custom Clothing recommends 75–100 mm wide for left-chest and arm embroidery and a maximum of 240 mm wide for large embroidery on heavier garments such as sweatshirts. Printful's hoodie guide suggests 7.6–10.2 cm for a left-chest logo on a hoodie, which is why you can go slightly larger on fleece than on a fitted polo.

For caps, Threadlogic puts the front height at about 1.75" (4.4 cm) with horizontal logos 4–5" wide, while Printful's hat guide allows up to about 2.25" (5.7 cm) tall on structured caps. Both agree that the side panels hold only small marks of around 2.5 cm.

The business-card test

A quick way to judge a left-chest logo: hold a standard business card (about 85 × 55 mm) against your chest. A horizontal logo that roughly fits inside it will almost always look right on a polo or work shirt. If your logo needs much more room than the card to stay legible, the problem is usually the artwork, not the size.

Size by garment

Polo shirts and work shirts

The left chest is the default, centred roughly in line with the second button of the placket. For a polo shirt, 7.5–8.5 cm wide suits most horizontal logos. On the lightweight dri-fit polos many UAE teams wear outdoors, keep the design compact and the stitch count moderate: a large, dense logo on thin polyester can pucker and feels stiff and hot against the skin. If you need a bigger mark on a performance polo, a printed transfer is often the better choice.

T-shirts

Single-jersey T-shirts are thin and stretchy, so embroidery should stay at the small end: 7–8 cm wide on the chest. Heavier 200–240 GSM tees hold embroidery better than 160 GSM ones.

Hoodies and sweatshirts

Fleece and French terry support larger and denser designs. Left-chest logos can go to 9–10 cm, and a full-back embroidered logo up to about 24 cm wide is possible, though it will be expensive. Keep logos clear of the kangaroo pocket, zip line and hood, and remember a raised hood hides the top of a back design.

Caps

Cap fronts are curved and have a centre seam on six-panel styles, so the usable height is limited. Keep the front design to about 5.5 cm tall on a mid- or high-profile structured cap, and lower on low-profile or unstructured "dad" caps. 3D puff embroidery needs even bolder artwork: Printful specifies lines of at least 5 mm and no more than 12.7 mm thick for puff. Our caps page covers the main styles.

How to keep small text readable

Most embroidery disappointments are not about overall logo size. They come from one small element, usually a tagline, a registered mark or a line of fine print, that falls below the stitchable limit once the logo is reduced to chest size.

1. Do the maths before you order

Measure the smallest letter in your logo as a proportion of the logo's width. Suppose your logo is 8 cm wide on the chest and the tagline's height is one-twentieth of the logo's width. That tagline will be 4 mm tall: below the safe minimum, and it will not stitch cleanly.

2. Remember lowercase letters are smaller

Hatch Embroidery notes that lowercase letters are roughly 70% of the height of capitals. If your capitals are 6 mm, the lowercase body of the text is about 4.2 mm. For mixed-case text, aim for capitals of 8 mm or more.

3. Choose fonts that survive thread

Bold sans-serif fonts stitch best. Hatch's lettering guide gives minimums of about 6 mm for Tahoma, Verdana and Times New Roman, but 12 mm for a script such as Edwardian Script. Thin serifs, hairline scripts and condensed fonts lose definition first.

4. Plan for Arabic lettering

Many UAE uniforms carry bilingual logos. As general guidance, Arabic calligraphic styles with fine strokes, dots and overlapping letterforms need more height than a block Latin font, so give the Arabic line at least as much height as the English line. Ask for a stitched sample before approving bulk.

5. Make a chest version of your logo

Large brands often have a simplified mark for small uses. For embroidery, that usually means:

• removing the tagline, ® symbol and web address;
• thickening thin outlines to at least 1.3 mm;
• widening gaps between elements;
• reducing to the fewest possible thread colours;
• replacing gradients, shadows and photographic effects with flat colour.

Printful's guidelines are clear that gradients and subtle shading cannot be reproduced in standard embroidery.

6. Move small text, do not shrink it

If the tagline matters, put it somewhere with room: the back yoke, the sleeve or a cap's back panel, at a size where it stitches properly.

Preparing artwork for embroidery

Embroidery machines do not read your logo file directly. A digitiser converts the artwork into a stitch file, deciding stitch types, direction, density and sequence. The better your artwork, the better the stitch file.

1. Send vector artwork. AI, EPS, PDF (saved from a design program) or SVG files let the digitiser see clean shapes at any size. A high-resolution PNG on a transparent background is the fallback; screenshots and WhatsApp images are not suitable.
2. State the finished size in centimetres for each placement, for example "left chest, 8 cm wide; cap front, 11 cm wide".
3. Give colour references. Pantone codes are the easiest way to match thread colours. Thread ranges are finite, so expect the closest match rather than an exact one.
4. Name the garment and fabric. Pique cotton, dri-fit polyester, fleece and cap twill each need different stitch density and backing.
5. Approve a digitised preview or stitched sample before bulk production, especially if your logo has text near the minimum size.
6. Keep the stitch file. Once your logo is digitised at a given size, reusing that file keeps repeat orders consistent.

Size, stitch count and cost

Bigger logos use more stitches, and stitch count drives embroidery price. Some decorators cap standard designs: Logo Up limits its standard shirt embroidery to about 10.8 × 10.8 cm and 10,000 stitches, and Printful's hat guide mentions a cap of around 15,000 stitches. A left-chest logo usually sits comfortably within these limits; a full-back design can be many times larger. Our guide to logo embroidery prices in the UAE explains the other cost drivers.

Pre-order checklist

• Left-chest logo between 7.5 and 9 cm wide (up to 10 cm on hoodies)
• Smallest capital letter at least 6–7 mm; mixed-case text 8 mm or more
• No line thinner than 1.3 mm; no gap narrower than about 6 mm
• Tagline removed or moved to a larger placement
• Vector file supplied with Pantone references
• Garment and fabric confirmed for each placement
• Digitised preview or stitched sample approved before bulk

One more practical point: most companies use one logo size across all garment sizes from S to XXL, which keeps production simple. If your order includes ladies' fits or children's sizes, ask whether a slightly smaller version is worth digitising.

Getting it right with your supplier

At MISHAREN we check the logo size against each garment when quoting and flag any text likely to fall below the stitchable minimum, so you can simplify the artwork before production rather than after. See our logo embroidery service for flat embroidery, 3D puff, patches and name embroidery.

If you are planning embroidered polos, caps, hoodies or uniforms for a team anywhere in the UAE, send us your logo file, the garments and the quantity through the contact page. MISHAREN will come back with a quotation and a recommended size for each placement.