Choosing a big sister or big brother shirt: names that fit, sizes that don't lie, and the deadline

Which names fit

Width decides, not letter count, and the difference is bigger than it sounds. ALICE fits under SISTER. MAJA, which is a letter shorter, does not — M and A are among the widest animals in the alphabet, and MAJA has two of them, while I, P and S are the narrowest. JULIA, longer than MAJA, fits. Five narrow letters take up less of the chest than four wide ones.

Every design has a width to spend, and the design's own word sets it. While the name stays inside that width the print stays full size. Past it the name starts governing the scale, and everything shrinks to make room, including the words the shirt is about.

Which means SISTER and BROTHER behave differently, and in opposite directions. BROTHER is the wider word, so its own letters print smaller — about 39 mm tall against 54 for SISTER in the animal alphabet. But the wider word leaves more room underneath, so a long name that governs the scale under SISTER still rides free under BROTHER. If you are buying one of each, expect the brother shirt to read a little smaller and to take a longer name without complaint.

So the studio measures a name rather than counting it. Type one that is wider than the design's own word and the studio says so, under the field, before you pay — because past that point the name is what sets the size and the whole print comes out smaller.

Picking a size

Children's clothing is sold in three scales that do not translate: 2T to 5T, 2Y to 12Y, and XS to XL. Two garments labelled for the same child can be a full size apart. We print on one blank, so there is one scale here, and every design carries the measured chest and body length in centimetres rather than a letter you have to interpret.

It is mid-weight cotton at 180 grams — the same blank a school orders for a hundred children, which tells you something about how it survives being worn.

If the shirt is for a particular day, size for that day rather than for the year. A sleeve slightly too long photographs better than one slightly too short.

Will it arrive in time

An announcement shirt has a deadline, which is unusual for clothing. Allow 2–5 business days for production plus carrier transit, and order with more margin than that if a grandparent is posting it onward.

Nothing here is ever out of stock, because nothing is made until it is ordered. The trade is that there is no next-day option. What you get instead is the print itself before you pay — the picture in the studio is drawn by the same code that builds the file we send to the printer, so there is no proof to approve and nothing to be surprised by in the parcel.