Hats are a timeless accessory. They shade you from the summer sun and warm your ears in the winter—all while showcasing your personal style. For business owners, hats offer a versatile canvas for branding. By incorporating your logo, slogan, or unique designs onto hats, each one becomes a subtle walking advertisement for your brand.
Explore a range of popular hat styles, learn how designs can be added to fabric, and discover practical hat design ideas to help bring your brand vision to life.
Free Webinar:
How to quickly start a profitable print-on-demand store
In our free 40-minute video workshop, we'll get you from product idea, to setting up an online store, to getting your first print-on-demand sale.
Types of hats
Hats are a mainstay of many wardrobes, combining function and personal style. Whether you’re designing a fashion statement piece for customers or internal merch for employees, here are a few classic styles you can customize:
-
Trucker hats. Trucker hats typically have a structured crown of foam or cotton, a mesh back, and an adjustable snapback or velcro strap. They often sport a logo or graphic on the front panel.
-
Dad hats. Dad hats are composed of less-structured cotton with a lower profile and adjustable strap. Wearers often favor dad hats for a relaxed, casual style.
-
Five-panel hats. Hats designed with five panels instead of the usual six have a unique fit and a flat bill. Streetwear brands often utilize five-panel hats for a distinctive look.
-
Snapback hats. Snapback hats feature a strap with a snapping closure for an adjustable fit.
-
Bucket hats. A bucket hat has a flexible, narrow brim wrapping all sides of the cap. Fashion enthusiasts often choose bucket hats for a retro vibe.
-
Beanies. A beanie is a soft cotton or wool hat sold in one size with no bill at the front. They tightly cover most head measurements and keep your ears warm in colder months.
-
Baseball hats. Sporting a classic, curved bill, you can fit a baseball cap with an adjustable strap and a structured front to keep its shape.
How to add designs to hats
You can utilize different styles of adhesion and threadwork to add all sorts of designs to your hats. Depending on the types of caps and your ideas for designs, here are three design options to capture your vision:
1. Screen printing
Screen printing is a great choice for stamping designs into both synthetic and natural fabrics (e.g., the foam on trucker hats). This is the best option for intricate designs using small fonts or gradients because you can transfer ink directly onto the fabric, similar to a traditional printer.
To execute screen printed designs yourself, you will need to purchase a screen printer built specifically for hats or use a third-party service such as Vistaprint or Customink to order hats in bulk.
2. Embroidery
Embroidery is the process of directly stitching your design into the fabric of each hat. Embroidered designs are often drawn and sewn by an automated sewing machine in a factory, offering increased durability compared to screen printing due to the inability of your designs to peel or crack over time. Embroidery is great for less-intricate designs without complex color gradients, and they typically give a more professional look.
3. Patches
Offering more texture and a unique style, patches can be a great option for your hat designs—especially for simple logos. Typically made of leather, rubber, or cotton, each patch is either sewn or ironed onto your hat of choice. Rubber and leather patches also offer added dimension thanks to the pressed quality of each design.
Tips for hat design
There are several tips to keep in mind to ensure your design ideas looks great and resonates with your desired audience:
Watch free design software tutorials
Creating your own hat designs doesn’t have to be complicated. While the industry standard for design is Adobe Illustrator, you can bypass the learning curve and expense by opting for free design platforms that may offer all of the features you need. Consider starting with a user-friendly option like Canva or Inkscape, which offer intuitive interfaces and pre-made templates, so it’s easier to create basic designs without extensive training. Watch free online tutorials to get a sense of a tool’s capabilities.
Additionally, by watching tutorial videos, you might find DIY designing is beyond your scope, and you’re better off hiring a professional designer. Graphic designers know how to translate your ideas into reality while ensuring your final product looks polished. Having a base understanding of design principles will also help you communicate your vision clearly if you decide to hire a designer.
Target a niche
Whether you're launching a new hat brand, creating custom merchandise, or simply looking for fresh design inspiration, understanding your audience is key. Crafting hat designs that resonate with specific interests and passions can significantly boost sales and build a loyal customer base. Instead of trying to appeal to everyone, consider focusing on niche markets.
Think about the types of hat wearers you want to attract. Are they outdoor enthusiasts? Music lovers? Fans of a particular style or aesthetic? By tailoring your designs with relevant themes, slogans, and imagery, you can create hats that capture attention and drive purchases—or create hats your employees will actually wear.
Develop a style
Developing a style can lead to higher brand recognition. Using your brand identity as inspiration, you can build your style with specific design elements like materials, colors, or hat silhouettes that become synonymous with your brand.
Do you lean toward rugged and outdoorsy? Modern and minimalist? Retro and playful? Once you've defined your style, stick with it. This makes your hats instantly identifiable and increases their appeal to your target audience.
Hat design ideas
Here are a few design ideas that can resonate with your target audience and lead to increased brand awareness:
Logos
A company logo is often the main signifier of your brand that is recognizable to your audience. Placing your logo on a hat can be an effective design choice for fans of your brand. You can screen print logos on the front of a five-panel hat, stamp them into a leather patch on a trucker hat, or embroider them directly into the fabric of a baseball cap, depending on the intricacy of your logo design.
For example, Verve Coffee sells a simple black beanie with the brand logo stitched on the side of the hat. It's a subtle but stylish way to rep the brand’s aesthetic and core values.
Taglines
If you have a tagline used for branding, a design inspired by that phrase can be effective to portray the mission of your company on a cap. The design can simply be your tagline in a unique typeface or an eye-catching graphic that uses bright colors with your tagline below it.
Dad Gang, a popular apparel company marketing toward the culture of fatherhood, sold more than 250,000 hats over two years. Minimalist and classic, many of its hats feature a large logo and the tagline “Designed by Dads” to connect with its niche audience and showcase its brand identity.
Events
Events can be a perfect inspiration for design ideas. Attendees often want a way to remember events like 5k races or trade shows. It may be a good idea to create a cap design that features art centered around the event to invoke its feeling or theme.
New Era, a leading sports headwear company, capitalizes on large events like the World Series or the Super Bowl when designing hats, as its audience follows these events closely and may want to represent their team’s major wins.
However, you don’t need a major licensing deal to create a fun, event-centered hat. Consider creating branded hats for your next company offsite or commemorating your brand’s annual holiday party.
Humor
If humor aligns with the tone of your brand, try incorporating it into your design. Leveraging a play on words or a funny graphic can be memorable and help you stand out from competitors. Poking fun at your own brand can also be endearing to some consumers—but only do that if it fits your overall voice.
For example, Good Girl Snacks is an irreverent pickle brand that leans into humor to differentiate its core products and merch. Its “hot girls eat pickles” dad hat captures that sense of humor perfectly, repping the brand personality and frequently selling out.
Hat design ideas FAQ
How do you put a design on a hat?
A hat design is most often screen printed or embroidered directly onto the fabric of a cap or stamped into a patch and sewn on.
How do you make a hat look good?
Making a hat look good comes down to creating a stylish, professional design that stands out in your market and that your target audience will want to wear.
What size should a design be on a hat?
The size of hat designs can range depending on placement and intricacy. Typically they are around five inches wide and three inches tall.
