An employee appreciation shirt is a small gesture, but it can say quite a bit about how a company sees its people. A generic company logo will do the job, but a design with some personality can make the shirt feel much more like a gift employees will enjoy wearing.
That could mean a simple thank-you message, a department nickname, an inside joke, or a design built around something the whole team has been through together. You can also personalize the shirts with employee names, years of service, or other details that make the design specific to the group.
If you’re planning shirts for Employee Appreciation Day or simply want to give your team something fun to wear, here are some ideas to get you started.
1. Put “Thank You” Front and Center
This might be the most obvious option, but a shirt that says “Thank You, Team” or “We Appreciate You,” paired with the company logo, a small illustration, or the employee’s department, can go a long way. And, with interesting typography, you don’t need fancy design skills — the message can carry most of the shirt.
For something a little less direct, try:
- The People Behind [Company Name]
- Better Together
- Proud of This Team
This approach works particularly well for an Employee Appreciation Day event, when the shirts are a gift to the entire staff.
2. Celebrate a Company Milestone
A major milestone can be a great occasion for an appreciation shirt. Maybe the company just turned 10, opened a new location, launched a major product, or wrapped up a particularly ambitious project. Instead of treating it like a corporate announcement, make the employees part of the story:
- 10 Years
- Built by Our People
Add the company name and founding year to finish it off. For longer anniversaries, a timeline of key years on the back works well while the anniversary number stays prominent on the front.
3. Make a Department-Specific Shirt
An appreciation shirt doesn’t have to be identical for everyone. You can start with a shared design and change one element for each department, whether that’s the text, a color, or a small icon (a headset for customer support, a calculator for accounting, or a camera for marketing):
This is especially useful for larger companies where employees identify strongly with their immediate teams.
4. Give the Team a Ridiculous Title
Instead of printing a bland department name, give the team a title worthy of a much more prestigious organization:
- Directors of Making It Happen
- Vice Presidents of Figuring It Out
- Department of Unscheduled Emergencies
You can build the whole shirt around the title with a badge, crest, or varsity lettering. It’s especially fun for teams whose real job is fixing problems nobody else knows how to fix.
You could also take a yearbook approach and hand out fictional superlatives:
- Most Likely to Bring Snacks
- Most Likely to Say “Quick Question”
- Most Likely to Have 47 Tabs Open
5. Design a Fake Employee ID
The look of an employee ID card or official credential gives you a lot of room for humor while keeping the artwork fairly simple. For example:
- Employee Status: Appreciated
- Department: Keeping This Place Running
- Valid Through: Retirement
Add a fake employee number, hire date, or company name to make it look convincingly official.
6. Turn a Workplace Joke into a Shirt
You can also feature a joke that needs absolutely no explanation among your employees. Maybe someone once sent a company-wide email with a spectacular typo. Maybe the team spent three months calling a broken piece of equipment by an increasingly ridiculous nickname, or there’s one meeting room everyone avoids because the Wi-Fi never works.
The joke doesn’t have to make sense to anyone outside the company — that’s part of the appeal. Just make sure the person behind the typo is laughing along too.
7. Put Employee Names on the Back
The simplest way to make a group shirt feel personal is to include the people in the group. Put the company or department name on the front (something like “The [Department] Crew”) and arrange employee names across the back like a sports roster, concert lineup, or classic camp tee. For a sports-themed design, each person could pick their own number.
You could also list each employee alongside the year they joined, which turns the roster into a record of the team’s history.
Our Design Studio has a feature that lets you add individual names and numbers to a group design, so the personalization is easy to build in.
8. Design It Like Retro Merch
One of the easiest ways to make an appreciation shirt feel like a gift is to design it like retail merchandise instead of a corporate giveaway. If your company has a recognizable color palette, you can borrow it without making the shirt look like a uniform. Take inspiration from vintage collegiate shirts, old athletic gear, or outdoor brands.
Keep the logo subtle, try an interesting typeface, or put the year somewhere unexpected. A good test is whether someone on your team would pick this shirt from a company merch store. A low-key design like this is also more likely to get worn outside of work.
9. Make a “Day in the Life” Shirt
It’s hard to pull it off without being tacky, but you could also create a collage of the little things employees deal with every day. For an office team, that might be coffee, laptops, calendars, headphones, and the inevitable stack of unanswered emails. A restaurant team might get order tickets, kitchen tools, and coffee cups, while a construction crew could get hard hats, blueprints, and trucks.
Put the company name and an appreciation message around the collage. The more the artwork reflects the actual work, the more entertaining it becomes.
10. Include a Slogan
A funny slogan can capture everyday office humor in just a few words. Some ideas:
- We Have a System
- It’s on the Spreadsheet
- Could Have Been an Email
The best slogans sound like something your employees actually say, so if the team already has a catchphrase, use that instead.
11. Let Employees Vote on the Design
If you’re giving shirts to employees, let them have some say in what they receive. You could present three designs and let the team vote, or keep the artwork consistent and let employees choose the shirt color. For a smaller team, ask everyone to submit an idea and turn the winner into the final design.
This is especially useful when you’re going for humor. Employees are much more likely to know which references will land, since they’re the ones living them every day.
Tips for Success
Here are a few practical details that can make the difference between a shirt that gets worn and one that ends up in a drawer:
- Pick a blank that feels like a gift: A softer retail-style shirt feels more like a present, while a heavier cotton tee works well if you’re going for a classic T-shirt feel.
- Offer two fits: For a larger group, consider two style options with the same artwork, like a more fitted silhouette and a traditional unisex fit. Everyone gets the same design in the style they prefer.
- Work within your budget: For a larger group or a cost-conscious order, Gildan shirts can keep the per-shirt price manageable. If you have more room in the budget, Bella + Canvas offers a softer, more premium feel. Quantity, decoration method, and color count all affect the final price, and you can get an accurate per-shirt price with the Quick Price tool on our product pages.
- Collect everyone’s sizes: Rather than estimating the size breakdown, collect each employee’s size before ordering. Since sizing varies between styles, share the size chart for your specific shirt so people can double-check.
- Get a head start on the design: Our Design Studio includes templates and a library of clip art to help get your ideas flowing.
An employee appreciation shirt works best when people can tell some thought went into it. Whether it’s an inside joke, a goofy department title, or a simple thank-you, start with the people you’re celebrating and build the design from there. The company name can still have a place on the shirt, but the appreciation should be the point.