V-neck

The V-neck drops the front collar seam from the round crew's horizontal line down to a point, typically 3 to 5 inches below the collarbone depending on brand and cut. Most blanks used for printing sit at a shallow-to-mid depth around 3 to 3.5 inches — Gildan's 64V and Next Level's 3200 both fall in that range — while fashion or "deep" cuts drop past 5 inches. The V is finished with a mitered seam where the rib or self-fabric edges meet at the point, and a sloppy miter puckers under a heat press.

For a print shop, the angled collar eats into the top corners of a standard front placement — a full-chest design that clears a crew by half an inch can crowd a V's point. We've had reorders come in as V-necks after a customer loved the crew mockup, only to find the same artwork file needed to shift down and narrow to keep clear of the seam. Brands aren't consistent about depth either: a "V-neck" tag on a Bella+Canvas 3005 sits shallower than the same label on an American Apparel 2456W.

Pros treat V depth as a spec to confirm before art goes final, not an assumption — pull the actual garment measurement or the brand's tech pack rather than eyeballing a product photo, and center any chest logo relative to the V's point rather than the shoulder seams so it reads even on bodies of different sizes.

The common mistake is assuming "V-neck" means one depth across the industry. It doesn't — a shallow V and a deep V from two different manufacturers can differ by more than an inch at the point, enough to turn a centered logo into one that looks pasted too high or swallowed by the collar.