How to Design a T-Shirt: 7 Tips for Custom T-Shirt Designs

Are you looking for ideas for starting your own business? We're sure you've seen blogs advising you to start your own t-shirt business at least a hundred times by now. It is undoubtedly one of the most popular small business ideas worldwide. Everyone is starting one, and doing well. So if you're here because you too want to gain insight into this new trend in the fashion world, you're in the right place.

Touches Dark brings you a curated collection of tips to help your custom t-shirt business shine.

There are several factors that go into designing a great t-shirt. When the future of your entire brand depends on your designs, you have to pay attention every step of the way. By following the guidelines from the Touches Dark team, you can ensure your designs are always a hit with your clients.

A business with a clear target audience has a higher chance of success than a business that doesn't. This is because you can produce products and services for a specific segment of customers rather than generalizing. This also applies to your t-shirt business and the designs you will produce.

T-shirt designs come in a variety of design options. You can choose any design style, color combination, imagery, and printing options, but they will only work if you know your niche.

Touches Dark Tip: Selling dark street-style t-shirts presents a lucrative opportunity to tap into a niche market of individuals looking for alternative, edgy, and nonconformist fashion. These t-shirts allow people to express their unique identities and connections to subcultures like punk, goth, and grunge. With their versatile appeal and cultural significance, dark street-style T-shirts offer a way to express yourself and connect with like-minded individuals. By catering to this need, businesses not only cater to the fashion preferences of their target audience but also capitalize on the growing popularity and popularity of alternative fashion, ultimately driving sales and establishing a unique brand in the market.

While your customers will flock to your website to buy your designs, they will stay because of the quality. Your fabric choice will largely determine quality. There are many choices of T-shirt fabrics on the market in the fashion industry, including but not limited to cotton, linen, polyester, cotton-polyester blends, etc.

Since the quality of a print design can also vary from medium to medium, the choice of fabric can also affect the final output of a t-shirt design. You have to choose the fabric that suits the print style and design you choose. 

Touches Dark Tip: As the fabric and print style can have a big impact on the quality of your t-shirt, decide on these before designing. Even if you do, you may need to iterate the design several times to get the right result.

T-shirt printing is constantly evolving, and you can explore a variety of printing options to design just the way you want. You can approach the design and print cycle in two ways - choose the design first or choose the print style first.

Each typographic style has some limitations in capturing the full impact of a design. Therefore, the two decisions influence each other.

Popular printing options in the market are screen printing, vinyl graphics, direct-to-garment printing, plastisol printing, foil printing, novelty printing, gel printing, and water-based ink printing.

That's why we recommend consulting a professional printing company and sharing exact specifications with your design team to get it right the first time. Or with only minor modifications.

As a t-shirt brand operating in the custom t-shirt segment, the type of t-shirts you sell has a major impact on your sales. Most people gravitate toward certain t-shirt styles, so it's important to cater to your audience with a healthy mix.

The popular T-shirt styles on the market include round neck T-shirts, Polo T-shirts, vest T-shirts, sweaters, water drop T-shirts, national style T-shirts, etc. It's a good idea to style your design into several t-shirt styles to test which looks the most popular.

Be sure to assign design styles to your design team so they can compose and place designs accordingly.

For example, if you place your franchise logo on the right corner of a tee, it might not look the best on a tank tee, depending on its alignment. Also, if the polo tee has pockets, that could be an issue too.

Touches Dark Tip: Even if you won't be printing right away, you can create mockup designs of different t-shirt styles. It will come in handy when you expand your business. In the t-shirt business, you can never have too many designs. So choose the t-shirt style you want to wear with it and start designing.

The first rule of thumb when choosing colors in t-shirt design is that you have to know all the basics and make sure your designs match them.

Don't overlook black and white T-shirts as they are the most popular.

Depending on the industry and audience you wish to cater to, you can experiment with colors such as muted tones and offbeat shades to see how they respond.

Whatever colors you choose, make sure they are compatible with the print style and design you choose for your t-shirt.

For graphic tees, make sure the color plays well with the complementary elements. Don't choose color combinations that conflict or compete for attention.

Touches Dark Tip: When printing t-shirts, it helps to keep the colors of your t-shirt design simple. Vinyl printing can be expensive if your designs feature intricate colors. Simple colors mean you can print more for the same cost. Plus, simple designs often appeal to Gen Z and millennials more than complex ones.

Here's what you need to know to make sure your t-shirts appeal to customers every time: 

- Choose a design that is simple and easy to replicate. The easier a design is to understand and remember, the better.

- Make sure the image or graphic design suits all your color options. The aim is to create a complementary combination.

- Select and edit images/graphic designs to suit the different t-shirt styles you offer.

- If you use pop culture imagery or any other copyrighted stock imagery, please apply for a commercial license immediately.

- The placement of the image or design on the T-shirt and the border design must be perfect. There is nothing worse than a crooked or uneven placement.

- Make sure your designer shares high-quality images so the quality doesn't suffer.

Touches Dark Tip: If your t-shirt business centers around images and graphic tees, then you need a professional team at the helm. It was a long marathon from licensing, to editing, to being ready to print. And a product you can't go wrong with.

You might be wondering why we're talking about trends in this blog when we're promoting uniqueness.

Trends aren't always bad, and even if you don't like them, your customers may feel differently. The hallmark of a great business is the ability to consistently deliver what customers want before they even ask for it.

We talked about how the T-shirt business became the darling of a huge global pop culture influence. Now, that clout also brings trends based on the current hype. By taking advantage of this, you can delight your customers and get a big slice of the pie.

When the success of your business depends mostly on design, you can't skip this part. Yes, there are DIY and print-on-demand options, but don't you think your brand deserves more?

Contact us if you need a professional team to handle all your design requirements and meet your expectations for growing your brand.

With Touches DarkGraphics, you get a team of talented designers who can cater to unlimited design requests and modifications for all designs you need.

Touches Dark is a professional private-label dark streetwear manufacturer in China. We only use the highest quality fabrics and accessories to produce our clothes, ensuring that each garment offers exceptional comfort and durability. Our in-house factories and strong supply chain management system ensure that each garment is manufactured to the highest standards. Over the past decade, we have continuously innovated and improved our production processes to ensure the highest quality custom garments produced.