Author archives: Stuart Nimmo

King of the hoodies!

20 April 2023 Stuart Nimmo Marketing, Physical marketing

Probably the most requested item in any apparel range is the Hoodie. They’ve evolved so much over the last few decades, styling comes and goes, and equally “trend” colours shift on an annual basis too. But they’re well and truly a staple of the apparel mix. Corporates now adopt them for team wear, they appear as an easy means for work-from-home branding, and above all there functional.

Where did they stem from? Well if you go back far enough it’s the monks, that were the first adopters of the hood in everyday apparel. More for functional purposes than style. Hoods keep the warmth in and are so relevant to today’s cost of living issues. Yes, hoodies have had it rough, the 1990s associated them with yob culture. As we said, the flavour has changed.

So with the plethora of options now available how do you start?

With the likes of Just Hoods by AWDis with over 75 colours, the choice is massive. The generic college is the starting point. Also, AWDis have an excellent choice of varsity hoods, with the 2 colour combinations. So the sky is the limit when it comes to colour options.

The next option people ask for is something more weighty. The standard hoodie weight is 260-280gms material, so the next level is 300-310gms weight. In our opinion there are two options AWDis have a heavyweight option, note not with the same range of colours. Also, the other option is Anthem’s heavyweight – we seriously like these, the trim and finishing level on these. Yes, we can get other options around this, however, the finish or quality doesn’t match the two options.

If you’re running an event and need hoodies on a budget, we’d recommend Ultimate Clothing Co, a 260-270gms weight garment, with a limited colour range, but it prints great and delivers a product you can be proud of within a budget.

All of the above can be found in our showroom, so pop in if you want to get your hands on them and decided for yourself!

So if you are planning to style up a hoodie for a merchandise project, here’s the low down on how to manage this from stock to something different;

• consider the cords, yes you can often upgrade these to match your print colour or other styling facet
• hood prints, you really need to get the garment and work out what can appear where, as hood panels do vary from garment to garment style.
• if zipped, you can look at zip pullers, there are options to trim these to make them look funkier.

If in doubt, ask, between us here at HAD-Print we live our hoodies, we’ve tried many different options, and we know what we like. We listen to our customers and pick up what works, even when it is family members who are envious at people’s hoodies!

The big question… Why?

15 April 2023 Stuart Nimmo Customer Service, Marketing, Power of Print

In an age where buzzwords and rhetoric spin around endlessly. Falsities around being kind to the environment by using electronic communications bluff their way into everyday life. Why does print or physical marketing matter?

We exist to provide the following

• enable successful businesses/organizations to engage with effective physical touchpoints
• assist SMEs / charities to deliver effective physical branding to enforce their presence in their primary customer touchpoints
• enable more accountable communications with known carbon footprint materials

What drives us… in a physical world, where being seen is a significant challenge. The reality of physical provides a great opportunity to help SMEs and third-sector organizations to create reality, and retention whilst resonating with an audience in a meaningful way.

The power of print, aka physical marketing, lies in the ability to connect. Connections are created through, the impact of the message; evoking the senses, visual and touch. Print through its lesser utilization due to mass market digital communications being cheap and overused, means print holds a unique power of trust, and reality, there at the moment, with no distractions. When coupled with creativity in a proper design, and well-written content, it has leverage in a very different way. Add in personalized or localized to make the message even more relevant to the recipient, and the engagement level increases further.

As a multi-disciplinary print provider, we don’t just print on paper, but everything through to large format items like banners and signage, through to garments and apparel. Delivering a wide range of physical items ready to take your brand. Delivery of this range of items, allows us to support our customers more fully in delivering their message, even just reminding people of who they are. Of course, this can be subliminal, working in the background.

We don’t live in silos, unlike some graphic communication providers. We know and understand the power of connecting digital communications with print. We don’t profess to be experts in digital communications, however, understand what you can do. Hence why you won’t find us selling websites, social media support or other digital products. At the heart of what we do is the power of physical media through print. We understand the paper, and the nuisances of print finishing, which allows us to better specify strong campaigns and items in print.

Don’t think we are not connected, we do understand marketing basics, we have professionals in other disciplines we love to work with. We will ask, what is your call to action? How do you want to measure or quantify parts of marketing tools? How are you distributing or connecting with people who might be your ideal audience? These aren’t hostile questions, purely us making sure you have thought through a customer journey, where are you wanting them to go next and why.

As for being accountable, we can identify sources of paper, substrates, garment stock and pretty much everything that flows through our print studio. From the shortest journeys of Kendal to Preston and us in Halifax, or paper manufactured in Portugal. With toner which is compostable, latex large format ink. We are well aware of every item we use in our processes. We’d like to challenge you to think of the carbon used in digital communications- you’ll struggle to fully identify every element or resource used.

Above all, we care about what we do, try to be properly responsible, and have some ethics along the way. Perhaps we are an exception to life in modern business society, we aim to be credible, through being responsible. We work best when in partnership with our customers, helping them to achieve whilst delivering progressive development for all involved. Making us part of the bigger community, valued and adding value where we can.

A day on product knowledge learning…

26 February 2023 Stuart Nimmo

So, all in a day of learning. Yes, I spent my Sunday at Printwear and Promotion doing the touchy-feely bit and getting the product into my hands to help us specify great solutions for our customers.

A different show from previous years, less might be one word, but what was there was certainly worth the time.

Probably to our biggest wholesale channel first, considering we’ve not actually met our account rep in person, it was great to know that voice alone gets you recognised. Gildan has a new Softstyle Midweight Fleece Adult Hoodie, which yes made the mark, with 15 colours in the range, it’s not quite to the level of the other big Hoodie manufacturer, but we can say, there will be stock of this, as this wholesaler and brand a renowned for keeping good stock levels. So, a sure winner there! If you’re sporty, the advent of a well-known name of Craft coming into the portfolio of this supplier is a real winner too. And, yes I will be product testing certain items myself (that says a lot!) However this isn’t in the catalogue yet – give it a few weeks and we’ll be chomping at the bit for it.

A Craft Fleece Top with nice branding patch on left-hand side.

For our workwear clients, here’s the winner through this wholesale channel – Jobman workwear, yes the Craftsman Trousers, are certainly a product to take a look at. We also liked the Softshell Jacket as well – again specification at the price point is a great option – more than the Regatta Ablaze, but in a different league. If you are a brand snob and workwear has to be absolutely top-notch, the option around Helly Hansen is there, and the Manchester T-Shirt again really packs a punch.

As big fans of Hoodies, we had to stop by AWDis – purely the range is awesome, with more colours than you can shake a magic wand at. Whilst we have some in our Halifax Showroom, we don’t have the full range, Great for apparel which needs to bring brand colours really to home. We also took a serious look at AWDis Just Cool and knowing some of our personal trainer clients and fitness industry clients, there is some interesting development in products which will allow your branding into more places, including crop tops and excellent leggings. The other Hoodie which we are fans of is Anthem – this has become our staple top-of-range go too. Yes, we came away with a sample of the mid-range Anthem Hoodie and did spend a bit of time looking at the zipped hoodies as well.

Other highlights saw us exploring options around merchandise to bolt on to apparel – watch this space. We also had substantial conversations with a significant outdoor clothing brand about potential packages we might be able to offer. Plus exploring further product offerings which might help us to enhance our offering.

So our advice – if you’re looking for apparel and workwear, ask, we’ve seen a lot, and gotten to know a lot of products. We have sample stock available for you to see for yourselves in our Halifax showroom.