1. Define your goal.
To increase the impact of your customized t-shirt, consider why you're making it. It could be to create awareness of a specific cause, brand, or event, for example you, your staff, or your brand ambassadors will most likely be seen wearing them, As a result, you'll want as many eye-catching t-shirt designs as possible to pique people's interest and encourage them to ask you about them.
To attract attention, your t-shirt does not always have to be bright and eye-catching. A clean and minimalistic design, accompanied with a punchy tagline, attractive iconography, and an easy-to-remember hashtag, might sometimes be all that is required to spark a conversation
You’ll also want to keep your target audience at the front of your mind when designing your custom tees. Not only should they represent your brand, they should be something they’d actually be proud to wear in public! You may want to consider running surveys or market research to determine what styles, looks and fabrics they prefer before you start designing. Doing this from the get-go can help save you time and money down the track!
2. Pick your colors
It’s important to note that there are two sets of color you’re working with when creating t-shirts. The first is the color of your fabric, and the second is the colors in your graphic, logo or imagery. To ensure your t-shirt design is visually harmonious, you’ll want to make sure these two complement each other.
To ensure your fabric and design colors are complementary, use your fabric color as the base when you start creating your shirt. You’ll also want to keep in mind that colored canvases can affect what the ink looks like, so be sure to ask for samples from your printer if you plan to use anything other than plain white.
3. Choose your fonts
As with any design project, your typography is a crucial piece of the puzzle. Using the right font can be the difference between making your shirt look like amateur hour or a polished and wearable garment. Readability is the top priority here—you don’t want people to have to stare at your chest to decipher what your shirt says! While cursive fonts can look feminine and elegant in other branding, these can be difficult to read on t-shirts. The good news is, there are many serif and san-serif typefaces for you to choose from.
For example, Graduate is a popular font option in t-shirts. It’s versatile, modern and very easy to read—especially when capitalized.
4. Pick your graphics
If you plan to let your typography do the talking with a slogan t-shirt, you can skip this step! However, you may choose to incorporate graphics into your t-shirt, as they’re an excellent way to make your design stand out in a crowd. There are a couple of different routes you can go down here. Firstly, you might choose to keep it simple and print your own logo across your t-shirt. This can give your merchandise an air of understated cool as if the brand speaks for itself, as we often see with companies like Nike or Calvin Klein.
5. Mock up your t-shirt
Now, it’s time to actually start designing your shirt! This is where you choose the actual layout of your design, and mock it up—meaning, you’ll preview what it’s actually going to look like on a t-shirt. At this stage, it’s important to find a plain, t-shirt mockup image to guide your design. This will ensure you’re working with the correct dimensions, spacing and scale. If you are working with a company that prints the t-shirts for you, they will often have their own tool to do this.
