3 THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN PUTTING YOUR DESIGN ON A T-SHIRT

With the ease and accessibility of screen printing today, just about anyone can put a design on a T-shirt. But, it still takes thought and effort to develop a T-shirt design that’s both attractive and unique.

Before sending your T-shirt graphic to print, consider these three key elements for an effective design. By including these considerations in your design process, you’ll end up with a balanced, high-quality graphic for printing.

The size of your design can have a major impact on the success of your T-shirts as promotional products. Many people assume that bigger is better, but that isn’t the case for t-shirt designs.

When the design printed on a T-shirt is too large, the high amount of ink can be uncomfortable. Ink can weigh down the lightweight T-shirt material, making it feel bulky while compromising the fabric’s breathability. This may seem like a minor issue, but comfort is key when it comes to T-shirts. If your promotional T-shirt is overpowered by the design, fewer people are going to reach for it as they get dressed in the morning.

Besides comfort concerns, a massive T-shirt design isn’t particularly flattering, either. Balance is key to creating a T-shirt design that people will actually want to wear. Instead of overwhelming the shirt with your design or logo, opt for a design size that’s moderate yet visible from a reasonable distance.

When it comes to typography for your T-shirt design, there are several elements to consider for optimal results. These include:

Have you ever struggled to read the text on a T-shirt? If yes, you know that it can be frustrating. But, an unclear T-shirt font is even more frustrating for the wearer, who must endure the question, “What does your T-shirt say?” all day long.

Clearly, readability is a must in T-shirt typography. To make sure that the text on your promotional T-shirt is readable, make sure that the words are spaced out properly and that the text color is visible (light text for dark T-shirts and dark text for light T-shirts).

There are many popular fonts that people will recognize immediately. Other fonts are obscure and give your design a unique flair. Both common and little-known fonts have a place in T-shirt designs, but you need to select fonts wisely. Fonts can stir up feelings and have particular impressions on viewers. So, you need to make sure that your design sends the right message about your brand.

Just by changing the font, you can shift your design from formal to casual, classic to modern, bold to subdued. Each font will add a different flair to your graphic. So, we recommend experimenting with a wide range of fonts to find the right tone for your design.

You can use more than one font in a single T-shirt design. Oftentimes, you can improve the readability of a long quote by mixing fonts. But, make sure that you don’t exceed three font types in one design. With more than three fonts, your design will look muddled.

The image resolution of the graphic that you send for T-shirt screen printing is crucial. If the resolution isn’t high enough, when the graphic is put on a larger scale for the T-shirts, it will be blurry.

Promotional T-shirts should make a good impression and illustrate your brand’s professionalism. So, a crisp, clear graphic is a must. The image that you use should be at least 200 DPI (dots per inch) to ensure that the print is of high quality.

Images that are downloaded from the Internet typically don’t provide a high enough resolution for screen printing. You should also look out for images of images, which are typically compromised in quality. Generally, graphics, artwork, or photographs that have been scanned at a high resolution are the best for screen printing.

When quality and artistry come together, the result is incredible in T-shirt design. Once you have a design that’s visually-pleasing and sends the right message for your brand, you can move forward with the screen printing process.