The start of a new school year means getting back on campus and seeing friends again. It also means more than two million students need to be moved into student housing.

Many schools organize a specific move-in day to corral the chaos, assigning days and times for certain groups to move in. The goal is to make it as fun and painless as possible, especially for new students who are getting their first taste of campus life that day. Students tend to do better and graduate at higher rates when they live on campus, so schools want to make the experience good from day one.

The day involves a lot of volunteers and helpers to carry boxes up stairs, direct traffic, and answer questions. Make the process more efficient by making them stand out so incoming students can find them to get help. The easiest way is to provide them with a cool move-in day shirt that makes it clear who the volunteers are.

What Makes a Great Move-In Day Shirt?

When pondering t-shirt design ideas for move-in day, you need to start with what you want to do. Yes, the shirts are about making it easy to find the right people to answer questions or provide muscle for lugging boxes. But these shirts can also be used to promote school spirit and early term events like a welcome bonfire.

Your end goal with the shirts helps you decide if brightly-colored shirts are needed and what information to include in the design. You should also decide how important it is to make them move-in-day specific or if they can be a more general design that works for any school event.

Promote School Pride

If your main goal is to promote school spirit, you’re likely to want to focus on including school colors and possibly the mascot in your design. This could be as simple as doing any design in your colors or something along the lines of how you bleed those colors. While this particular one calls out green and gold, it’s an easy design to translate to other color sets like red and blue or orange and black.

School mascots can follow in the same vein, providing students with a warm mascot welcome. The mascot can even be incorporated as one element in a design special for moving day. One great example is this design showing an eagle making the move into its nest and the name of the residence hall.

One nice thing about designs that focus on school pride is they are easily used throughout the school year and not tied to just move-in day.

Mark Out Move-In Day Workers

The most common reason or need for having move-in day shirts is to identify those working that day. These could be movers to help carry boxes up to dorm rooms or residence hall staff ready to provide directions and answer questions.

If your budget permits, you can provide special shirts to distinguish residence hall staff from the other volunteers. This could be a design that combines something homey with your school logo and the name of the residence hall or something a little edgier that designates staff.

The moving team could use shirts that call out their job whether stating they’re in the moving crew or acknowledging that it’s moving day. Many volunteers might be participating as part of their service requirement with a different organization, so you might customize the design to let them add in that group’s name. You can also go with something humorous to bring a smile to a potentially stressful day with something like this “move it” design.

For workers serving in general roles, you might consider designs that designate them as part of the welcome team. These designs can be very type-oriented and done in school colors or just bright ones. Add in a logo or mark to customize it to your school even more like the paw print in this graphic.

Encourage School Involvement

Most students on moving day have their brains focused on how to get all their stuff to fit in their dorm room. But it’s the first opportunity to hit them up to get them involved in various school activities. These can be general encouragements or tied to big events like homecoming.

Depending on the traditions at your school, welcome back weekends and dances might be big ways to kick off a semester. Having those as part of the move-in shirt design ensures incoming students see the information many many times throughout the day. For those who attend the event, these shirts can become a great memento of their college years.

Among the workers at any move-in day will be the school activities board or team members. Shirts that specially mark them out make it easier for students looking to learn more about campus rec and event options. Ones like this campus activities board design emphasize the board rather than moving or the school.

Another option for move-in day would be general encouragement and school involvement messages. These could address the start of a new adventure or remind students why they chose to attend your school. This type design boldly challenges students to get involved not just to have fun but to make a mark and leave a legacy.

Need a Move-In Day Shirt?

Reduce moving day chaos by having move-in day shirts made for all your volunteers and helpers. These shirts mark out people that incoming freshmen and others can approach for help getting their gear up to their dorm room or learning how to sign up for activities. A great design makes it a shirt your team will be proud — and happy — to wear.

Choose from ready-made designs that just need your school name added or create your own t-shirt design from scratch just for your event or school. Our catalog is full of t-shirt logo ideas but if you’re looking for professional designs, our team can help with your custom design.