How to Design Tee Shirts

Tee shirts can be fashionable forms of wearable self-expression. Although there is an endless selection of designs, colors and styles to choose from that are available at various retail outlets, there is nothing more fun than designing your own tee shirt. Here is some information on how to design tee shirts.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. 
    
   Original artwork on tee shirts

   First you will want to figure out what you want designed on your tee shirt. You can do your own designs by hand, design them on the computer, or work with existing designs. You can use an artist if you aren't one yourself, use clip art or play with typefaces. Remember that when doing art work for clothing it is different than working on a flat paper surface.

2. Both artwork and lettering needs to be legible from a distance and read easily on the rounded contours of the body.

3. 
    
   Line art needs to be printable

   Art work has to be designed so it translates easily into the printing medium. That means that shading and blended colors may be a problem unless you can do color separations or half tones when printed. Full color art can be printed on high quality ink jet machines without color separations, but these top level machines are expensive to use and beyond the means of your average printer. Also, line work needs to done with clear black lines so it translates properly and colors can be filled in successfully.

4. 
    
   Images will stretch when worn,

   Keep in mind the material and the color of the tee shirts you want to use. You will need contrast and some inks are not all that opaque so light colors on dark shirts may require multiple passes making registration (matching the placement of the printed image) more work. Remember the image will stretch when worn.

5. When doing your design, keep in mind the size and the shape of the design in relationship to the tee shirt you are printing on. Remember that you can print on sleeves or the side of the shirt as well as the back and front. But be conscious of where the seams of the shirt are since that may interfere with printing.

6. 
    
   Rhinestone transfers

   You can do your own design and send it to an online company that will print your tee shirt(s) for you or find a local printer who will handle small quantities. You can also buy a heat press and print out your design(s) on a transfer sheet to press on your own blank shirt(s). You can even add rhinestones or studs to your design after it is printed.

7. These are just some of the guidelines that should help you design your own tee shirts. If you come up with a really good design or have some highly salable ideas along with resources for marketing it, you might even be able to develop a business out of designing tee shirts!

[betterbody]

on 5/21/2009 Very clever info on designing tee shirts.

[godfather25]

on 5/21/2009 Great article on designing t-shirts.

[unclet53]

on 5/21/2009 This is sort of a hobby of mine. Ain't it fun!