Custom Blankets and Throws with Your Logo

Read the GSM before anything else

Blanket quality is measured in GSM, grams per square meter, and it is the single number that predicts whether a recipient keeps the blanket. Lightweight fleece around 200 to 300 GSM is thin, packs small, and suits a stadium giveaway or a summer event. The 300 to 400 GSM range is a genuine everyday throw. Above 400 GSM, including sherpa-backed and micro-mink styles, is what feels like a gift someone would have bought.

If a product listing does not state GSM, treat that as information in itself. Weight is the easiest specification to publish when it is good.

Materials

Coral and micro fleece is the economical standard: soft, warm for its weight, and it takes full color printing well.

Sherpa is the textured, fleecy backing that doubles the perceived value of a blanket. A sherpa-backed plush throw is the format most likely to be described as the best gift someone received that year.

Sweatshirt blankets use the same looped-back fabric as a hooded sweatshirt. They breathe better than fleece, take embroidery cleanly, and appeal to an audience that finds plush too soft.

Recycled polyester and RPET versions are widely available and now perform close to virgin polyester. If your organization reports on sourcing, this is an easy category to make a credible claim in.

Full color print or embroidery

Full color dye sublimation prints edge to edge and lets you put a photograph, a pattern, or an all-over design on the blanket. It is the right choice for teams, schools, commemorative gifts, and anything where the design is the point. Note that sublimation needs polyester to work, so it is not available on cotton-rich styles.

Embroidery puts a neat logo in a corner and leaves the blanket looking like a blanket rather than merchandise. For a client or executive gift this restraint is usually the better call: a large logo across the middle turns a gift into advertising, and advertising does not get used on a sofa.

The honest caveat

Plush and sherpa blankets shed in the first few washes and can pill over time, particularly the cheaper coral fleece. Nothing prevents this entirely, but density helps, so the heavier options hold up noticeably better. Tell recipients to wash cold and skip fabric softener, which coats the fibers and makes pilling worse.

The second thing worth knowing: blankets are bulky. They take up disproportionate space in a shipment and in a trade show booth, and individually folding and bagging several hundred of them is a real job. If they are being distributed at an event rather than mailed, plan the table space and the handling before you plan the design.

Where blankets work best

Outdoor sports, stadium promotions, and fall and winter events are the obvious fits. Less obvious and more effective: real estate closings, patient and resident welcome gifts in healthcare and senior living, employee milestone recognition, and client gifts in any industry where the alternative is another branded drinkware item. A blanket is also one of the few gifts that gets shared with a recipient’s family, which extends its reach well past the person you handed it to. See related items in Home & Kitchen.