Design Tips When Getting Custom Shirts Printed

Ever wanted to have your own fashion label? Many people do and you can cut your teeth on custom t-shirts until you’re ready to start your own label which, as many budding young clothing designers have discovered, isn’t impossible.

Know your market

Chances are you’re not trying to appeal to too many people just yet, perhaps just friends and friends of friends as is often the case, not to mention a good starting point, but even so you have to know your market otherwise even your friends won’t want to get around in your designs.

Trial and error … the cheap way

Good design is a lot of the time, a case of trial and error, usually more of the latter than the former. If you’re an artist and can draw, freehand draw your designs before printing them and ask friends for an understanding of what works and what doesn’t in their opinion.

You might have access to cheap t-shirts and printing services but why waste a t-shirt and ink on something that doesn’t work?

There are some cool t-shirt design programs you can use too, some of which like OpenTshirts is open source and free to use, whilst some like GraffixPro Studio® you’ll need to buy, though depending on how serious you are, likely to be well worth the money.

Keep your t-shirt designs simple

Next time you walk down the street, take a look at the t-shirts people are wearing these days – what do you notice? In general, they’re opting for simplistic t-shirt designs because simple designs have the greatest impact and if you’re trying to convey a message with your t-shirt designs this is what you should be aiming for – t-shirt designs with impact.

That isn’t to say that full-front graphics don’t work because they can, though you need the skills to deliver.

Create artwork at the actual size

By creating your artwork at its actual size, i.e. the size you want it printed, you can avoid having the printer use his/her judgment and print your designs at a different size than what you had envisioned.

If you specify the exact size you want the t-shirts printed at you can avoid this problem, though be sure to take into account different-sized artwork for different-sized t-shirts.

Convert text to outlines

Any article you read on the subject of t-shirt design will tell you this – convert the text on your designs to outlines. There’s a very good reason for this the font you use might not be supported. To avoid incompatibility problems, convert text to outlines to be viewed as an image.

Work with a reputable printer

By working with a reputable printer, one you find easy to talk to about how you want your t-shirts to look and can make astute suggestions from experience, you can mitigate, to a great extent, problems like the two directly abovementioned – the printer printing your designs at a different size and font incompatibility problems.

Moreover, there’s more involved here, such as using high-quality inks and the correct technologies and techniques, plus working with someone you feel comfortable talking to is essential for good communication and that’s important for producing products of saleable quality.

What’s more, as you undoubtedly want to make money from your designs, you’ll need to source a cheap t-shirt printing service, though bear in mind that cheap shouldn’t mean low budget but rather cost-effective – there’s a big difference.

You too can design and print your own t-shirts and there’s no reason why you can’t be successful at it either.

About Author:

A company that has state-of-the-art equipment and an integrated facility, Mad Dog Promotions is a reliable provider of quality though cheap t-shirt printing services in Australia. They do not only screen printing but also digital transfers and dye sub-prints.

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