T-Shirt Design Tips for Creating Custom Apparel
Everyone loves a great custom t-shirt (we know we do) and with experience like ours, we know what it takes to make the kind of custom t-shirts that people will want to wear for years and years to come. At Crooked Monkey T-Shirts we specialize in creating premium quality completely custom t-shirts (plus other apparel and promotional items) so if you’re on the hunt for some quality custom t-shirt design tips and tricks, then you have come to the right place.
While designing custom t-shirts can be an extremely creative and artistic opportunity, the process can be somewhat intimidating for those with no experience. But at Crooked Monkey T-shirts we refuse to let a little lack of experience stand between you and your next favorite t-shirt. So, that’s where we come in… the “Custom T-Shirt Experts”- to ensure you’re locked and loaded with the best t-shirt design tips, tricks, and things to avoid when designing your next batch of completely custom t-shirts.
Check out our list of 10 Pro Tricks and T-Shirt Design Tips for creating killer Crooked Monkey Quality Custom Apparel
1. Take time to explore your ideas
When creating your next custom t-shirt our biggest t-shirt design tip is to give yourself the opportunity to explore all areas of your creative imagination. Sketch out anything and everything that comes to mind and create multiple variations of each design. If a particular design comes to you right away, that’s great, but try to explore other routes of your imagination for safe measures. Our biggest piece of advice? Don’t rush yourself. Create a few designs and then Eat on it.. And then Sleep on it.. Maybe even Online shop on it if you want… But never rush your design and limit your creativity! WE know how.
2. Size DOES matter
Were sorry to break it to you, but the age old argument of “size doesn’t matter” just doesnt stand here… In the process of designing completely custom t-shirts- size means everything and more and we’re here to let you know how you can avoid some of the most common sizing mistakes. The quite simple truth is- the size of your t-shirt is dependant on your design and you want to make sure that the two correlate. Some people choose to print out their design on printer paper and hold it up to the shirt they are designing to ensure the correct sizing of their design. Pro Tip- Square or circular shapes tend to look best when they are sized smaller than standard
3. Keep it simple
While little details can be the perfect addition to an event, unnecessary detail overload is one of the most common mistakes in custom t-shirt design. The fact of the matter is- the human eye can only process a certain amount of information at once. As a walking billboard for your initial t-shirt concept, each extra detail can takes away the opportunity for passerby to grasp your original idea for the custom t-shirt you spent hours designing. Keep it simple and watch how your custom t-shirt design grabs the attention of others and radiates your creativity!
4. Placement
Print placement is specific instruction of where to print a design within a particular print location on the shirt you are designing. While you could create one of the most eye popping designs a t-shirt has ever seen, if the placement is incorrect the whole t-shirt could be seen as a flop. No one likes an unflattering belly print…so let us help out! If your design is in a typical standard print location, we will ensure the placement is also standard across each of your various garment styles and sizes to eliminate all of your placement worries.
5. Font choice says a lot about a design
Typographies vary in the ideas they convey and the emotions that they invoke. From years of helping businesses design their logos, we have become somewhat of experts on picking and choosing fonts that elevate branding and bring attention to a t-shirt. When designing your next batch of completely custom t-shirts, we suggest choosing fonts that correlate with the message you are trying to convey through your t-shirt. But the most important thing that you remember is this- Never use more than three different fonts in a design and always follow the Golden Rule of Custom T-Shirt Design… KEEP IT SIMPLE!
6. Colors
When designing a completely custom t-shirt, one of the most important choices to be made involve color. Not only is the color of importance for the visual of your design, but it is important that you understand when screen printing more colors= more cost per item. Although it can be tempting to add loads of color to your design, too much color can backfire as you begin to risk clashing. We like to suggest our customers try to create their designs with the least amount of colors possible. This will ultimately save you money on printing cost and serve your investment as more efficient as we have learned these are the shirts that get the most wear!
7. Balanced composition is key
Often times, the opinion on what makes a well designed and balanced composition can vary by individual, but there are many basic composition rules that can help you ensure a well balanced t-shirt design when followed. Check out this page for information on 10 Rules of Composition All Designers Live By.
8. Image quality
Far too often we see people spend hours and hours on a design only to have saved their work in the lowest quality of format. Unfortunately, “low resolution” designs do not have enough pixel information to give us the details we need to print a good quality custom t-shirt. Ideally, designs should be submitted 200 dpi or higher and submitted through Adobe Illustrator, EPS, or Adobe PDF.
9.Contrast
Contrast is one of the most important choices to be made in the design of a custom t-shirt in terms of color. Contrast is the degree of visual difference between the darker and lighter parts of an image. The strongest contrast in t-shirt design is obviously white on black or black on white, but bright colors on a dark background or vice versa as well make for a high contrast and good quality custom t-shirt designs. High Contrast designs are not the only way to go when designing your own custom t-shirt as low contrast tee’s have grown in popularity quite a bit in recent years. We suggest making the choice by deciding which style of contrast would best fit your design and the message you are trying to convey through that design!
10. Choosing a great printer
Did you really think we were going to get you this far and make you figure out the rest on your own? We take the title of “Custom T-Shirt Experts” very seriously, and lucky for you we work with some of the best printers in the country. At Crooked Monkey T-Shirts, there’s no headache when you’re working with us- we take care of it all!
