How to Choose Your Promotional Bag

When choosing a promotional bag for your sports promotion there is a huge array of products on the market. Choice is great but too much leads to confusion. To help navigate through the process here are a few things to consider.

Bag Style

Even if the bag you are looking for is described as a sports bag there a number of different designs which are included under the banner sports bags, including:

The Hold All

The hold style of gym bag is usually made of polyester and although light, is very strong. The range of colours will be limited so unless you are talking very large volumes when you may be able to get a pantone match to your brand, you will need to consider a complimentary colour to the logo. Hold-alls are attractive because of the pockets and utility – but do not get too carried away because you need to keep an area free for branding. These are typically the most popular types of bags, being used in gyms, to transport clothes on trips and much more.

The Backpack

All the comments about materials and branding from above apply to the back pack. The choice between these and the hold all is not just a personal preference though. You need to consider the sport you are trying to appeal to – back packs are much more appealing to cyclists, joggers and walkers. Don't think this is just limited to sport though, as people cycle and walk from work every single day. You might have a huge target market with students or even people in Cambridge and their attachments to travelling everywhere on two wheels. 

The Drawstring

Whilst the utility of this may need seem as attractive, the drawstring has a couple of advantages as promotional product. Firstly they are light and can be folded down so that they can be sent by post; this is also a huge benefit if you want to store these on your premises. Secondly they have a much larger area for decoration and finally they are much cheaper. Whilst the other types of bags are more good quality items, these make for better giveaways at the likes of a music festival or charity 5k.

 Below is a picture of one we did for Lucozade back when they did their "YES" campaign - remember the big tv advert with DJ Fresh and the roller skaters? Along with pop up tents for a music festival, we did these awesome bags.

The Specialist Bags

There are some other bags you may wish to consider especially of you focussing on a single sport. These are specialist bags such as boot-bags; this is an essential to football players, rugby players and athletes in similar professions, even golfers. Many are aavialable as standard products but if the volume is large enough most manufacturers will create a bespoke.

Materials

There are essentially two types of material canvass or polyester. Canvass can be either jute – a natural fibre made from plant materials – or cotton. These can be a little more expensive but do have the advantage that being natural products they are biodegradable. The disadvantage is that they are not water proof materials; in the world of sport this might be a significant problem

The other material used is polyester, which light strong and waterproof. Polyesters come in different weights referred to as 250D, 300D or 600D. The D refers to denier and the best way to decide if the thickness works for you is to obtain a sample.

Decoration

Screen Print

The most cost-effective way is to screen print the bag. This gives a bold and effective print but is restricted to spot colour printing with no tones. Also the line work cannot be too fine. This is because there is a danger that thin line work will simply not appear with the screen. The last thing you want is for some of your logo to be missing.

If you really think that your logo might be too fine, get in touch with us and our experts will be able to help you determine what the best option is for you regarding print.

Embroidery

Embroidery is more expensive but does allow for a much wider range of colours and effects. The problem here is that by definition embroidery will make holes in the material so any water proof nature will be lost in the area of the brand – usually not a major issue but worth considering.

Transfer

Somewhat more expensive is transfer printing. This allows for digital printing of tones and fine lines which are then heat transferred to the fabric. The only disadvantage of this is the adhesion of the ink to the fabric which is not as hardwearing as an embroidered logo.