T-Shirts – Carabu Shirts & More

 Select a color palette and typography

 T-shirt design via Drew Lakin.

 Less is typically more when designing t-shirts. Whether they’re designed to promote your brand, event, or message, the best t-shirts are kept to one to three colors with no more than three fonts. Keep it simple!

 Your brand colors, if possible, and your target audience will guide the creative treatment of your t-shirt design. A t-shirt promoting a local coffee shop will have a drastically different color scheme and font style than a t-shirt promoting love. Think about the psychology around the colors you choose for your t-shirt and ensure they align with your t-shirt’s purpose and audience.

 While the idea of bright and punchy colors may resonate with your brand or message, many t-shirt wearers prefer more versatile colors, such as white, black, blues, cream, and more. Make sure you pare down your color palette and also think about the t-shirt color you’ll have the design printed on—because some colors just don’t mesh well together. Trust us, we’ve all been there.

 When thinking of the font style you want to use, the best choice is to opt for a readable font style, such as a sans serif or serif font. Think of t-shirts like a walking billboard—you can’t just stop and read the shirt as they are being worn, they are usually seen from a distance.

 Need some font help to get your t-shirt design started on the right foot? Master the art of font pairings in no time!

 5 more t-shirt design examples to inspire you

 Arched (or curved) text is a popular go-to for many t-shirt designs. Use this text style for short phrases, such as a short motivational quote or text describing your brand or business. To balance out the arched style, try incorporating horizontal text at the bottom of your arch.

 Create curved text in PicMonkey

 You can achieve the arched (and circular!) text look in PicMonkey in just a single click. Type out your text, then with the layer selected click Curved text on the left Text Tools menu. Select Circle or Arc and define the curvature. All done!

 Curved text elevates simple horizontal text and allows the text to wrap around illustrations and graphics. Who knew something so impactful could be oh so simple?!

 T-Shirt design via Travis Pietsch.

 Retro styles always make a comeback, and for good reason too! They’re a classic style and are especially impactful when printed on a t-shirt. They invoke nostalgia, but in all of the right ways.

 To really make an eye-catching t-shirt, use a single color design that speaks to your business or brand, with retro-style fonts and a simple illustration on the back of your shirt.

 Lucky for you, you can easily achieve a similar retro-style look in PicMonkey! Incorporate this style by using a thicker script font style combined with a simple sans serif and you’ve got yourself a chef’s kiss moment. PicMonkey’s Graphics library houses endless editable graphics that you can combine, layer, and recolor.

 T-shirts are also a perfect way to rock a quote or phrase that speaks to you. Whether it’s motivational, positive, or just a catchy slogan, quotes can resonate with the wearer and promote a brand.

 Highlighting fonts in a visually interesting way will definitely get your t-shirt noticed by passersby. Let’s face it, we all enjoy good type design.

 Incorporate punchy quotes in PicMonkey

https://carabushirts.com/

 If putting together a fun phrase or quote isn’t your best skillset, we’ve got you covered in PicMonkey!

 Choose from tons of text-based graphics that can be easily edited to suit your brand or style. Simply search for “text” or browse our graphics categories and add them onto your canvas.

 Once you’re finished editing the graphics, head on over to the Download button on the top toolbar and save as a PNG to ensure transparency before sending over to the t-shirt print shop.

 Not every element of your t-shirt design has to be fully solid shapes and text. You can get creative with how each t-shirt element interacts with each other with the help of blend modes, as seen above. That simple overlay of shapes never looked so cool.

 Get geometric with PicMonkey

 While the thought of just using shapes may not be up your alley, consider using blend modes to jive it up a little bit! Simply select a single graphic on your canvas, then click Fade & blend in the left toolbar and experiment with the fade slider and the blend mode options. Save and download as a PNG file to ensure transparency with your layered shapes before sending it off for print.

 Referring back to the less is more approach, a minimalist take on a t-shirt design can uplift your brand or message while eliminating excess design space.

 Referring back to the less is more approach, a minimalist take on a t-shirt design can uplift your brand or message while eliminating excess design space.

 Not every t-shirt needs to be completely filled to be a masterpiece. If your branding calls for simplistic imagery and branding, or if you want to break the cycle on what sprinkles and ice cream looks like, seen in the t-shirt above, then going the minimalist route is ideal.

 Experiment with various graphics to make a wow-worthy t-shirt design!

 Open the Graphics tab, go through the Design category and bam! You have yourself a great collection of funky shapes and patterns that can be catered to your colors. Select the newly added graphic and click Change colors to choose the one(s) you want.

 Creating the perfect t-shirt design for your brand, message, or event doesn’t have to be difficult. When you dig into the basics of the what, where, and why of the t-shirt in addition to curating the creative elements, you’re already more than halfway there to a stunning t-shirt that wearers will rock for years to come.

 T-shirt design is a hugely popular outlet for creatives. Whether you're an illustrator, graphic designer or typographer, putting your designs onto T-shirts can be fun, and a great way to sell your designs online).

 However, the process can be daunting if you're new to it. Here, we'll walk you through our top tips for successful custom T-shirt design, from what to consider with the design itself to the practicalities of printing your designs onto T-shirts.

 If you need some drawing tips to help you make your design, make sure you see our how to Draw article.)

 This Electric Zombie tee by Derek Deal has a lot of colour and loads of detail

 Don't rush the design process. Sketch your T-shirt design out, go for a walk, create a few variations, have something to eat, do a full brainstorming process and sleep on it. And then do it all over again. If the design comes to you straight away, great, but take the time to explore other creative options just in case.

 Try choosing complementary colours in your design

 Use the T-shirt colour effectively and try choosing complementary colours. If you're using Adobe Illustrator, turn on Global Colours. This can be an absolute lifesaver and will save you so much time. (You can get Adobe Creative Cloud here(opens in new tab).)

 You can also use Halftones to make the most of the restricted colours you're allowed to use.

 Use Pantone Colours(opens in new tab) for screen-printing – your printer will love you for it. They'll also love you if you outline any text and expand any strokes you may have. There are plenty of good tutorials out there, both for Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to take the time to get familiar with the process and you're print will be happy working with you.

 T-shirt design: T-shirt being printed

 It's important to learn about what type of T-shirt you want to print on

 You can have your design finished and properly artworked, but your tee will only ever be as good as your printer. Try a reputable company like White Duck(opens in new tab) in the UK or Hey Monkey(opens in new tab) in the US. You could also give your local screenprinter a call. But it's important to take time to learn about the type of tee you want to print on.

 The weight, sizes, labelling options, cost and so on all affect the end product that you'll produce. This takes a while to learn about, and it will require speaking to various companies, but one stick with one rule: deal with a company that wants to treat your tee as an end retail product and will handle your work with care. Screenprinting is an art.

 T-shirt design: a book called 'Vintage T-shirts'

 To have a good understanding of anything, you need to study and understand its context

 To have a good understanding of anything, you need to study it and understand its context. Tees have emerged from every subculture phenomenon that has ever existed, whether it's music, skateboarding, street art, sport or general pop culture.

 Do some reading, find out about T-shirt history and learn to appreciate it. Even designs that you don't like yourself can provide inspiration and insight into what people like to wear. One good book for reference is Vintage T-shirts(opens in new tab) by Lisa Kidner.

 10. Stay ahead of the game

 It's fine to take inspiration from the latest trends, but to keep one step ahead you want to avoid copying them. Chances are that by the time any given T-shirt's been produced, its designers are already moving onto something else. Keep abreast of what's happening in fashion and elsewhere in pop culture, but try to forge your own path.

 Do you have a great design in mind, but only a vague idea of where it’d look best on a t-shirt?

 If that’s the case, then you’ve come to the right place.

 In this guide, you’ll learn about 7 different t-shirt design placements in detail. You’ll also find out which placements work best for logos, artwork, and text-based designs.

 By the end, you’ll be able to pick the best t-shirt placements for your designs!

 The front of a shirt is a classic—one of the most popular design placements you’ll see out there.

Artisticimage.net

 Why? Wearing a custom-designed t-shirt with the artwork front and center is an excellent way to show off beloved art or rep a band, team, or favorite brand.

 T-shirts with front placements are great when paired with outerwear that shows off the design. Think layering pieces like a zip-up hoodie that can be left open or tied around your waist to let your tee speak for itself.

 Want to get even more specific? Enter: the center chest design placement—it’s one of the most commonly used spots for blank t-shirts. And it’s no secret why: this placement is in a highly visible location that grabs attention right away.

 For embroidery, the centered placement size is 4” × 4”.

 The center embroidery placement is best for smaller embroidery designs, like logos, text, quotes, or small artwork.

 If you want to embroider a bigger design on the front of the shirt, use the large center placement. Take advantage of the extra space to add more details (but don’t forget that it has less surface area than the DTG front placement).

 Pro tip: Check your product’s File guidelines tab to see the maximum placement size for your chosen front design placement.

 Pro tip: Check your product’s File guidelines tab to see the maximum placement size for your chosen front design placement.

 Left chest design placement

 The left chest design placement is an all around win: classic yet versatile, understated yet dressed up—and it’s been popular for decades. This placement doesn’t offer a lot of room for detailed art but works great for logos, symbols, smaller designs, and text.

 Using the left chest placement for your logo or branding helps give a regular t-shirt a more polished look.

 The minimalist layout also makes this placement easier for shoppers to pair your t-shirt with other clothing. After all, offering t-shirt designs that you can wear with anything increases the chances customers will choose your t-shirts over other brands.

 At Printful, the standard size of an embroidered left chest placement is around 4” x 4”. The smaller size and left chest location also make this spot a good choice for work uniforms or branded clothing.

 Pro tip: We use different embroidery stitches for different shapes or text thicknesses. Learn more about embroidery at Printful and check out what works best for your design.

 To make sure you get your left chest placement design right on the first try, stick to the tips we’ve listed below.

 Make sure detail thickness is at least 0.05” (4pt)

 You can also use the center chest placement to show off your carefully-crafted text designs.