Fashion is all about expressing yourself through clothes. T-shirts give people another way to express themselves comfortably.
Many entrepreneurs venture out to T-shirt businesses. Who doesn’t own a T-shirt right? There’s a regular need for them. Consumers buy as trends pop out like mushrooms and materials of the shirts they own eventually wear down.
Apart from this, it is a profitable business with eCommerce channels expecting to see the industry sales grow beyond $735 billion in 2023.
This is on top of the benefits it will bring to your brand such as increased brand awareness. It is a marketing asset that does not require consistent spending like TV ads that only run for a limited amount of time. When done right, T-shirts for your brand can present opportunities for your brand to gain revenue from other means.
Reading these dos and don’ts will help you avoid the boo boos other brands have encountered by pursuing their print projects without prior research.
Whether you’re starting a shirt business, creating merch, or just printing shirts for your brand giveaway, you can maximize your project by reading this quick guide. Making fewer mistakes will give you more opportunities to focus on networking and expanding your brand.
Dos
Anyone who plans on printing a shirt should take the time to learn the basics. We’re keeping it simple with the best practices of t-shirt design.
Place logos and design carefully
Personable, Simple T-shirt Design by highway69design
Have you ever seen a shirt that looks a bit off in terms of the design placement? It is likely you have.
A lot of designers fall short when it comes to placing graphic elements on t-shirts. This is completely understandable, but to prevent this you have to be wary of the following factors that come into play when placing design:
- Age
- Toddler – 2” from the center collar
- Teen – 2” to 3” from the center collar
- Adult – 3.5” to 4” from the center collar
- Placement Options
- Sleeve
- Full front
- Chest
- Locker Patch
- Vertical
- Bottom
- Shirt Type
- Basic Tees
- Pocket Tees
- Polo Shirts
- Athletic Shirts
Considering these factors for your design is a good rule of thumb for you to always achieve the best results. Your design will definitely stand out once you’ve found the placement balance.
Additionally, familiarizing yourself with design placements will broaden your options and help you become more creative with your projects.
Find a niche
Fish Apparel Store T-shirt Design by Target Creative
You can’t please everyone. This is the truth of life and branding. Taking a vague approach to your audience will make it more challenging for you to be relatable to them.
Basically, having different types of audience in mind when creating a message may become a hurdle when building a connection with them.
Executing a task like T-shirt without targeting a niche may harm your business. So how can you find a niche?
There is value in looking into what you know best or the things you are most passionate about. That way, you’ll easily know how to tap into the hearts of the consumers.
It’s important to follow up niche identification with competitor research for you to have a better idea of what you are up against. Not only will you be able to analyze their operations, but you will also get an insight into how you can play your strengths up and come out stronger.
So, do you want to make science fiction or woodworking? There are no wrong answers. If there’s a niche, there’s a way.
Be smart about typography and color
Poise by Al Pech
The technical aspects of the business are important. However, this is no reason for businesses to take creativity and design for granted.
People buy T-shirts for their design, not just for the way they were marketed. During your design process, make sure the concept stays true with the theme and relatable for your audience. Creating a tee that your audience will love starts by getting an impressive design, which is made up of type and color.
Typography for shirts changes the whole design completely. You can nail this aspect by looking at the best fonts to use on T-shirts. It is important to go with readable fonts especially when your goal is to spread brand awareness. The best fonts for T-shirt design include Oswald, Montserrat, Shrikhand, Ostrich Sans, and Lobster, among others.
Combining fonts together also creates a good contrast that can make the concept exciting. Thick serif fonts are best paired with slender or decorative san serif fonts.
As for color, make sure your design’s color looks great with the shirt color you’re planning to print it on.
One great color combination hack you can use is the color wheel. Simply find the color you’re planning to use and the color that sits directly on the opposite side will surely go well together. This is a method designers use to look for complementary colors. Popular T-shirt color combinations like Blue and Orange are a result of this color wheel trick.
Know Your Material
Colorful, Full T-shirt Design by VintageDesigner
To get the best results, you need to be strategic with the materials you are going to use for printing. So think about the type of print and shirt type you are going to use and make sure they are compatible.
The best shirt materials to use for printing are cotton and polyester because they are versatile fabrics. Cotton shirts are good for Direct to Garment (DTG), screen printing, and embroidery. Meanwhile, manufacturers recommend using polyester tees for transfer printing and sublimation.
It is imperative that you research and test the print outcome before printing a large batch. The wrong combination of print and material may lead to poor color payoff and other quality issues.
Pro tip: Make sure you print on a flat surface.
Designs printed on ribbed or textured fabrics do not translate well. The same also goes for pocket tees. Before printing, make sure to measure the design and resize it. This prevents the print from overlapping with stitches and other rough surfaces.
You will get a better shot at maximizing the creativity of your design by printing it the right way.
Don’ts
Making mistakes is part of the process. Blunders are unavoidable, but they can be reduced by knowing what you shouldn’t do, not just what you should do.
Avoiding these common t-shirt design and printing mistakes will allow you to save time and resources.
Sacrifice the quality of your materials
Some skimp on spending for quality materials. However, doing this puts your product at risk for quality issues.
Making your buyers trust your brand does not stop at providing great design and marketing well. You actually need to have a quality product that can hold its own in the market. A shirt that will wear out and tear after a few weeks won’t make people like your products no matter how outstanding your marketing campaign is.
Plus, the more people wear it, the more advertising you’ll get. From having your name exposed to the public through the shirt design or by word-of-mouth recommendations, providing high-quality goods can take your brand farther.
Add graphic elements sparingly
Don’t overload with trends because you still want to end up with a timeless design that will be relevant enough to be worn.
We get it, this year’s T-shirt design trends are all so good that you want to dump them all in one shirt. These trends include bold statements, florals, artworks, rainbows, and more. But just because they individually make for a good design doesn’t mean they’re good together.
Never overdo design as a general rule when it comes to making T-shirts that aren’t tacky. Carefully consider your T-shirt design placements as well for a more balanced look.
Size matters
A beautiful design will be wasted if you don’t size it properly. Like materials, people also tend to take this part for granted.
Disasters ensue when your large batch of shirts end up printed with a pixelated design. T-shirts like this look unprofessional and generally undesirable. You don’t want to suffer another long process of reprinting or worse, proceeding to distribute your shirt as is because you no longer have a budget.
To prevent this, it’s best to make sure that your file is two times larger than the actual size you are planning to print it in.
Depending on the graphics type, you also want to reconsider your file format to make sure you don’t lose quality from compression.
Vector graphics are best saved as the following formats:
Bitmap graphics, on the other hand, come out better when saved as these file formats:
Bonus Tip
Sometimes, inspiration runs dry and businesses start producing designs that aren’t impressive.
Increase your odds of finding quality designs by using the method used by different brands. Big fashion brands like Uniqlo love using this trick to source their best-selling graphic tees.
Design contests for T-shirts are launched by fashion brands to provide variety in terms of design. They give a short brief of the concept they want and let the imagination of the artists run wild. Once artists have sent in their concepts, these brands pick a winner and use the design bid for their products.
Brands need variety because no one wants to look like a one-trick pony. Having their concept refined by different artists with different styles gives them a fresh take on their usual look.
Any-tee-ng is possible when you have an army of designers helping you bring your dreams to life. Get amazing designs from professional artists here.
More articles you’ll love:
Written by DesignCrowd on Monday, May 4, 2020
DesignCrowd is an online marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services by providing access to freelance graphic designers and design studios around the world.