Merch gets worn when people feel like it. Workwear gets worn every shift, washed every week and judged by the person wearing it at 6am in November. That makes it the most honest test of a garment there is.
Get it wrong and the shirts live in the truck. Get it right and the crew asks when the next order is coming. We make workwear for hot tub plants, elevator techs, landscapers, machinery makers and marinas, and the clients who keep reordering do the same handful of things.
1. Build a kit, not a shirt
One tee for everyone is where most uniform programs start and stall. A tech who's in a mechanical room in the morning and in front of a building manager in the afternoon needs more than one piece.
Summit Elevator has placed nine orders with us since May 2024, and the big ones are kits: Red Kap long and short sleeve work shirts, performance tees in both sleeve lengths, men's and ladies' polos, zip and pullover hoodies, Tough Duck jackets embroidered in two places, backpacks and toques. Same logo, same thread, every piece. Those kit orders land in spring and fall, so the crew gets a refresh before each season instead of a scramble when someone's jacket gives out.
2. Put the role on the garment
On a plant floor, knowing who to ask is half the job. Hydropool Hot Tubs, the hot tub maker, has placed 18 orders with us since June 2024, and a lot of that is role-titled wear. Its fleece-insulated Tough Duck hoodies came in two versions, one with SUPERVISOR under the logo and one without. Its 2026 polos are titled by job: Supervisor, Production Manager and QA, in men's and ladies' cuts.
A title costs almost nothing to add at the decoration stage. It saves a lot of "who's in charge here?" for anyone walking the floor.
3. Hi-vis can still look like yours
Safety colours don't have to mean a stock vest with a sticker. Three ways clients have done it:
- Logo low on the back. KRONES Machinery's Canadian team wears yellow 5-point tear-away vests with the logo across the bottom of the back, under the reflective tape. KRONES has placed eight orders since January 2024, for a navy set of tees (tall sizes included), long sleeves, polos, quarter-zips, toques and jackets alongside the vests.
- Make the stripes part of the design. Court Surface Specialists' orange tees carry two bright yellow bars on the front and a big X across the back, printed as part of the artwork, with the company name worked in.
- Add a line people remember. Muskoka Landscapers' safety yellow tees carry the logo on the chest and back plus "Do Life Right" at the bottom of the back. The 2026 run added an "Enhancement Team" line under the back logo. Nine orders since March 2024.
One rule on hi-vis: buy garments already rated to the standard your site needs (in Canada that's usually CSA Z96), and keep the logo off the reflective tape. Decoration should never cover the part that keeps someone visible.
4. Buy the jacket they'd buy themselves
The fastest way to tell if a crew respects its uniform: do they wear the jacket on the weekend? Tough Duck is the name we get asked for most, because it's the jacket a lot of trades already own. The Window Company's Tough Duck jackets carry a small patch on the chest and a large one across the back. For softer, front-of-house roles, softshells and quilted vests do the same job without the canvas.
5. Sample before you commit
Before Hydropool ordered its team leader tees, it ordered samples first, wore them, then placed the real order a few months later. For anything with a new garment, a new fit or a role-titled print, a sample round is cheap insurance. It's how you find out the ladies' cut runs small before 40 people find out for you.
6. Plan for the reorder on day one
Crews change. New hires start in March, someone tears a sleeve in June. The programs that work keep the same blank, the same colours and the same logo files from order to order, so the second run matches the first. We keep the art and specs on file for every client, which is why a Summit Elevator or KRONES reorder is a short email, not a new project.
Picking the decoration
- Embroidery for polos, jackets, quarter-zips, toques and hats. It survives industrial washing and reads as uniform, not giveaway.
- Screen print for tees and long sleeves in volume, and for big back prints like a crew name or a hi-vis X.
- DTF transfers for full-colour logos on heavy or textured garments, and for role-titled versions of the same piece. Hydropool's supervisor hoodies were done this way.
- Patches for duck canvas and puffer vests, where stitching straight into the shell isn't the best option.
If the crew wouldn't wear it on a Saturday, it's a costume. If they'd buy it themselves, it's workwear.
From the workshop
A few of the jobs above. There's more on our Work page.
Outfitting a crew?
Tell us how many people, what they do and where they work, and we'll come back with a kit, mockups and pricing. Orders start at 50 pieces, and stock workwear with your logo typically runs 2 to 3 weeks from mockup approval. For a faster start, here's how to brief your order.
Start a project →