BDE logo: design one that looks great on a sweatshirt

BDE logo: design one that looks great on a sweatshirt

A good BDE logo comes down to a short name or initials, a single colour and a shape readable from a distance: a collegiate arc, a monogram or a crest. Tested on a sweatshirt before the committee votes, it becomes the merch the year group wears all year.

The essentials in 4 points:

• A BDE logo starts with its name: initials or a short name embroider cleanly, a long motto does not.
• The logo's colours come from the school's own, one or two at most: cream thread on a burgundy sweatshirt instantly says campus.
• The sizes that work on a sweatshirt: between 6 and 8 cm across for a logo over the heart, 200 × 80 mm for an arc across the chest, up to about 28 cm wide on the back.
• For the file, an SVG (the vector format the designer accepts) gives the sharpest result, but a good-quality PNG is enough to get started.

In French schools, the BDE (bureau des élèves) is the student association that runs campus life, and every year a new team campaigns to take it over. The same scene plays out each time: a list of candidates forms, finds its name one campaign evening, and the logo comes out of a late-night drawing session, with a gradient, four colours and a motto in thin letters. On a laptop screen, it looks great. Embroidered 7 cm wide on the chest of a hoodie, it turns into a blur.

A BDE logo does not live the life of a company logo. It is used first on personalised textiles, sweatshirts, campaign t-shirts and caps, it is voted on in a committee meeting, and it changes hands with every handover. This guide starts from those constraints: the name, the style, the colours, the size, the technique and the file, then the vote, the price and the lead times.

Designing your BDE logo in 5 steps

A BDE logo is designed in five steps, in this order: find a name that works as a logo, choose a style that holds up on a garment, limit the colours, prepare a clean file, then test the logo on a real sweatshirt before putting it to the vote.

1. The name: short, or reduced to initials.
2. The style: collegiate arc, monogram or crest, the three shapes that age well on a sweatshirt.
3. The colours: one or two, taken from the school's own.
4. The file: vector if possible, a sharp PNG otherwise.
5. The test: the logo placed on the garment, in the chosen colour, before the committee votes.

A list name that works as a logo

The name of the list or of the BDE is half the logo: a short name or initials read from a distance and embroider cleanly, a long motto does not. That is the advice behind our Campus collection, where the name is written in an arc across the chest.

The reason is mechanical. In embroidery, letters need to stay at least 5 mm tall to remain sharp. On an arc 20 cm wide, three initials have room to breathe; a fifteen-letter name gets squeezed, and the motto underneath becomes unreadable.

Two reflexes before you settle on the name:

• Write it at real size, 7 cm wide for the left chest. If the letters drop below 5 mm in height, the name is too long for that format: keep the initials for the chest and the full name for the back.
• Think beyond the campaign. If the list wins, its name will be worn until graduation: a campaign joke nobody understands three months later ages badly on a sweatshirt people keep for years.

Collegiate arc, monogram, crest: which style for a BDE?

Three logo styles keep coming back in BDEs, because all three hold up on a sweatshirt: the collegiate arc, the monogram and the crest. Each has its own format and use.

• The collegiate arc, the style of American university sweatshirts: the name in thick letters, curved across the chest, 200 × 80 mm in our Campus and Heritage Arc collections. A shorter line fits underneath, the graduation year or the founding date, within the same format.
• The monogram, two or three interlaced initials: our Monogram collection places it at 50 × 50 mm, more a signature than a poster.
• The crest, an emblem inside a shape (shield, circle, badge): it gives the BDE an institutional feel, that of a school with a history.

For campaign t-shirts, a fourth format joins the list: the large design on the back, up to 280 × 300 mm in our Big Back collection. It is an event format more than the one for the sweatshirt you wear to class.

For the other kinds of logo, from the wordmark to the mascot, and how each behaves once embroidered or printed, see our guide to the clothing brand logo.

How many colours in a BDE logo?

One or two colours are enough for a BDE logo, and the simplest is to take them from the school's own. Our Campus collection shows how: an arc embroidered in cream thread on a burgundy sweatshirt instantly evokes a school, and on a grey sweatshirt, navy thread works just as well.

Why one colour is so often enough, what it changes to the price of the marking, and why to prepare a light and a dark version of the same logo: our guide to the clothing brand logo answers all three questions, and its answers apply to a BDE too.

What size should the BDE logo be on a sweatshirt?

On a BDE sweatshirt, the logo measures between 6 and 8 cm across when it sits over the heart, 200 × 80 mm for an arc across the chest, and up to about 28 cm wide on the back, a ceiling that does not change with the cut of the sweatshirt. In embroidery, no letter goes below 5 mm in height.

These benchmarks are enough to start drawing. The exact placement, the sleeve, the back of the neck and the hoodie with a kangaroo pocket are covered in our guide to logo placement and size.

Embroidered or printed: which marking for the BDE logo?

A BDE logo should be embroidered when it is simple and meant for a thick sweatshirt: embroidery adds relief and lasts, around ten years in our experience. It should be printed when it is large or detailed, like a back design for the campaign t-shirts.

Three rules to choose:

• One technique per garment. Two markings are still possible on the same sweatshirt, the chest and the back for example, but we produce them in the same technique, for a consistent look from one placement to the other.
• Two markings at most. That is the stance of our offer: one well-placed logo makes more of an impression than three.
• Chenille for the varsity look. Chenille embroidery, the thick looped thread that stands out in relief, gives initials the look of university jackets, and it is very popular with BDEs right now.

Which file should you provide for the BDE logo?

A BDE logo is ideally sent as a vector file, which stays sharp at every size: in the designer on our website, that vector file goes in as an SVG. A good-quality PNG image is enough to get started, and the designer also takes JPEG and WebP images, up to 10 MB.

If the only logo available is a blurry image saved from a story, it needs to be vectorised, meaning redrawn as clean paths. Depixelise, the free tool launched by our group, does it online; our guide to vectorising an image compares the other methods, free and paid.

One last step, the one people forget: store the source file in the association's shared drive, not on the president's laptop. That is the file the next committee will need.

Famous brands, the school's logo: what the BDE can reuse

A BDE cannot freely reuse a famous brand's logo: reproducing a protected logo without permission is against the law, and our terms of sale rule it out. Twisting a big brand's logo, tempting as it is for a year-group sweatshirt, is therefore a bad idea.

The school's logo raises a different question: it belongs to the school. Before embroidering it on the BDE's sweatshirts, ask the administration for permission. The simplest option is still a logo of your own, one that evokes the school without copying it: its initials, its founding year, its colours.

Putting the logo to the vote on a real sweatshirt

A BDE logo should be voted on the garment, not on a white background: a design that shines on screen can fade away on a burgundy sweatshirt. The simplest approach is to bring previews of the logo on the planned sweatshirt, taken from the designer on our website, to the committee meeting.

The method that avoids endless debates:

1. Prepare two or three versions, not ten.
2. Place each one on the planned sweatshirt and colour, in the right position.
3. Hold the vote on those previews.

To settle a question of size or fabric before the full run, a blank garment can be ordered from a single unit.

How much does a sweatshirt with the BDE logo cost?

A personalised hooded sweatshirt embroidered with the BDE logo costs around €18 excl. VAT per unit for 50 units on our College Hoodie (JH001), the hoodie in our Schools & campus selection. The same model comes to around €16.50 excl. VAT with the logo screen printed in one colour or applied as a DTF transfer. These are our prices, checked on 1 October 2026 on the pages of our website, for guidance only and subject to change; the College Hoodie page shows the full price grid, from 10 to 1,000 units.

For a more fashion-forward look, the Radder 2.0 Vintage from our Campus collection, a sweatshirt dyed after making for a washed look, comes to around €35 excl. VAT per unit for 50 units with its large 200 × 80 mm embroidered arc, checked the same day.

The price drops as the quantity rises, and each model can be ordered from 10 units, all sizes combined. Who fronts the money, and at what price to resell so the association breaks even: the year-group sweatshirt budget is worked out step by step in a dedicated article.

How long does it take to receive the BDE's sweatshirts?

The BDE's sweatshirts arrive after 1, 2 or 4 weeks of production, depending on the option chosen at checkout, plus shipping. The estimated delivery date is shown before you order, so the logo vote and the size collection can be planned around the target date: the start of the year, the integration weekend or the gala.

The BDE logo, ready to use again during the year

A BDE logo is used several times a year: the start of the year, the integration weekend, the gala, a tournament. On our website, every product you design joins the dressing of your account (your saved designs), logo included, and keeps the sizes you ordered the previous time: a single click calls it back when the next event comes round.

To organise the BDE's order itself, our guide to creating your BDE's merch covers it in detail.

Key takeaways

• A BDE logo starts with a short name or initials, in letters at least 5 mm tall if it is embroidered.
• Collegiate arc, monogram and crest are the three styles that work best on a sweatshirt.
• One or two colours, taken from the school's own.
• The logo is voted on previews of the real garment, before ordering.
• The source file goes in the association's shared drive, for the next committee.