Why choose custom silicone swimming caps for your team?

Whether you have a swimming team or a school club, it makes sense to invest in customised swim caps for a number of reasons. From brand recognition to health and safety and better lesson organisation, let's take a closer look.

What are silicone swimming caps?

Silicone swimming caps were originally designed to simply provide an alternative for people with an allergy to latex. However, swimmers rapidly realised that this flexible, soft and comfortable material offered plenty of additional benefits. Silicone is made out of a repeating plastic polymer, and the resulting material is used extensively in our manufactured lives, appearing in everything from textiles and implants through to automotive parts and even deodorant.

Silicone is non-toxic, malleable and easy to manufacture to high standards. It can be made into fluids, gels, elastomers and resins. These resins are the more solid form of silicone and they are the type found when you're weighing up swimming cap choices.

What are the benefits of swimming silicone caps?

Design
The first thing you'll probably notice when you look at a silicone swim cap is that it has a slick and thinner design than its latex cousin. This makes it ideal for people with smaller to medium-sized heads, who have shorter hair. People with a lot of hair may find that a latex cap is easier for keeping everything under wraps, but there are silicone swimming caps in different sizes.

Colours
They tend to be available in a very wide range of designs and colours, and the material lends itself well to dying and image printing, with vibrant, true and eye-catching results that last well. This means that silicone swimming caps are often a little more expensive than other materials, but the quality and results match the price point.

Indoor swimming
This material is perfect for indoor swimming pools, and the resulting cap is soft, strong, durable and comfortable. It will mould itself well to the wearer's head and provide protection from the water, whilst keeping hair under wraps and helping to prevent drag in speed swimmers at a competitive level. This material results in a wonderfully sleek finish which looks very clean and professional, without dragging or wrinkling. They are easy to pack, store, transport, apply and to care for.

Outdoor swimming
A silicone swim cap is also ideal for open water swimming. The soft and strong material makes the swimming cap able to withstand the tougher elements of the outdoors, and by choosing bright colours you can help to ensure the safety of your swimmers. These caps are popular with triathlons, outdoor swimming events and organised water sports where participants need to remain visible and easy to see by organisers, other participants and safety marshalls at all times.

Why choose a branded swimming cap?

Most swimming clubs and schools choose silicone swimming caps for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the biggest draw is the fact that these caps can be customised with a brand or logo of choice, printed on top of a chosen base colour. This offers the following key benefits:

1. Brand recognition
When you have a custom swimming cap with a single branded design, your team is instantly identifiable. This is ideal for teams, groups, classes and schools alike and allows everyone connected with the pool to see which group the swimmer is with. Many swimming pools use coloured caps to help manage mixed swimming classes for children so that the right child ends up in the right class. Instructors can simply take a headcount of their class' cap colour and gather the relevant pupils for the lesson from the waiting area or pool. This saves time and stress and offers parents a bonus extra for their lesson plan purchase too.

2. Safety
Whether you are attending (or hosting) an outdoor swim at night, or simply letting your children swim in a busy holiday pool, a bright and customised swimming cap will show lifeguards and other present adults that the swimmer is in the pool, and which group or team they are part of. This helps to support safety and security. Choose bright colours if safety is one of the over-riding concerns. For example, night swimmers doing an outdoor lake swim and small children in a busy pool both need to be visible, so neon brights or light, bold colours could all be good choices, especially when printed with a bold and contrasting logo.

3. Image
A custom swim cap creates an impression of quality and professionalism. It can also help to reinforce your brand and to build recognition of your brand. Brand recognition is vital in today's challenging marketing environment, and print and physical materials are a natural channel for getting your logo out there and visible amongst your target audience. Brand your team or school's swimming caps, brand their swim bags, brand their towels... get your logo placed clearly so that people at the pool start to notice it and start to ask questions about who or what your logo stands for. This provides effective marketing and a route for enquiries and contacts if you run a swim programme, competitive team or similar swimming-based offer which relies on customers or applicants.

4. Revenue
You can also sell your own custom swim cap range to your customers and charge a margin which allows you to raise revenue, funds or contributions towards your club, group or school. This is often of great interest to swimming clubs and groups of different kinds that are always looking for ways to raise the funds that they need to operate and to cover their costs.

The printing process

The right supplier specialising in printing custom swimming caps can advise on the printing process which is likely to use laser printing and digital inks. The professional print will be produced to a high-end specification and will enable the custom print to last if the cap is well cared for. (These care instructions will be provided as part of the order.) The printer will provide information about the artwork that is required to complete the job and any other technical factors that need to be considered for the print run processes.

It may be possible to purchase one or two samples which is useful if you want to get an idea as to how your logo might look once it has been rendered onto the silicone swimming cap of your choice. Once you have completed a print run, there will be an option to ask the printer to retain your custom artwork for speed and to enable quick runs of any future caps that you want printing - perhaps onto a different colour silicone cap for a special event or occasion.

Getting the right result

To ensure you get the right results for your customised swimming cap order, a graphic designer can produce the necessary artwork in the requested file format. The designer will be able to translate any offline artwork into a clean and simple graphic that has the necessary contrast to stand out and which works for the type of print finish you have ordered. For example, you may want a simple black or white logo printed directly onto a bright silicone swimming cap or you may be looking for a full-colour image and logo.

The designer will submit the artwork to the printer and will check the proofs. The printer may also have an inhouse designer who can produce this artwork. Remember that once you have approved the artwork and proofs, the order will go ahead and cannot be changed without a fee. The printer will provide details of the order process when you contact them with an enquiry. Your order will be delivered along with care instructions and the unit cost of your caps will lower as the size of your order gets bigger. If you repeat order with one supplier you may also be able to enjoy customer loyalty discounts on further orders, or discounts on aligned promotional products such as swim bags or towels; again, customised with your branding.

Caring for your swimming cap

The printer will provide information on care for your cap, but the basics hold true. Wash the cap in clean water after wearing it in the pool. Dry it out afterwards to avoid it sticking in storage. It's best to hang it up once you get home from the pool, and you can sprinkle the interior with a little baby powder to avoid the sides from sticking. Adding a little baby powder also makes it easier to get the cap onto your head before you swim, if it's slightly on the tight side.

Organising custom caps for your group

To find out more about a huge range of coloured silicone caps, of various specifications, size and quality finish, please get in touch. We provide full printing for branded caps, with superb customer service, rapid delivery, excellent quality products and highly competitive pricing.