5 Common T-Shirt Design Pitfalls And How To Avoid Them

Anyone with the proper tools can design a shirt these days. As a newbie in custom shirt design, you might get excited to go all out. Be cautious, though. Not every color, font, or image will look good on a shirt.

Whether you’re custom-making a batch for your varsity team, a gift for a friend, or one to wear yourself, you want your design to be eye-catching. To do that, read up on these common shirt design mistakes so you can avoid them before you start printing on a shirt.

1. Wrong Fabric Choice

When you design a shirt or any clothing, you want customers to wear it multiple times. They can’t do that if your shirt’s fabric is low quality. Poor quality shirts will tear or fade quickly in a few months if worn excessively. So, before you think about what to print on it, take a moment to look for first-rate fabrics to use.

Cheap fabric makes your custom shirts more affordable, but compromising the quality may leave many customers uncomfortable. Among the different types of cloth material you can use for bulk t-shirts, these are some of the best:

• Cotton
• Linen
• Polyester
• Poly-cotton blend
• Tri-blend (cotton, polyester, and rayon)

Partner with a reputable company to help you create the best products in the custom t-shirt scene. They’ll assist you in printing and selling your shirts effortlessly. An extra pair of expert hands will show you how the process works and do most of the heavy lifting for you. You’ll have your custom t-shirt empire growing in no time.

2. Wrong Color Choice

Even if your favorite color is neon green, it’s probably not a good idea to apply it to a shirt. That’s unless you want your customers to look like neon signs themselves. Colors can make or break the whole design of a custom t-shirt. While you want your shirt to stand out, you need to keep in mind that some colors work well together, and too many colors might be too much.

Here are a couple of color combinations that look stunning on any piece of clothing, especially shirts:

• Blue and white
• Red and white
• Green and gray
• Red, orange, and yellow

Those are but a few combinations you can try. You could always go with the tried-and-tested white, black, navy blue, or dark gray if you prefer one solid color. These four are some of the most popular t-shirt colors since they pair well with any colored outfit.

3. Poor Image And Font Quality

Your custom design is bound to have an image or two. Whether it’s a simple or a highly-detailed one, it needs to be of excellent quality, just like your chosen shirt fabric.

Before printing your design on a shirt, ensure that the size is big enough to fit on one. Expect smaller image sizes to blur or pixelate when blown up. As much as possible, keep image sizes in at least 4 megapixels or 4000 x 4000 pixels or larger. That way, you’ll have room to resize the image as you see fit, so it’ll fit on your shirt, too.

Don’t forget about the font, either. Typography is an indicator of a person or company’s level of professionalism. Custom t-shirts can enhance business events and similar occasions, so your shirt’s font choice and design matter greatly if you want people to take you seriously. Avoid using different fonts in one design to keep the print from looking too cluttered.

You can also ask assistance from a shirt printing company to help space out the words and letters evenly and fix image resolution issues if any.

4. Only One Size

You’ll set yourself up for a catastrophe if you order shirts in bulk in only one size. Don’t believe the one-size-fits-all saying some shirt printing companies might say. A t-shirt is still an article of clothing, and people come in all shapes and sizes.

Remember that shirts coming from different sources may have other measurements, too. One source’s medium-sized tees might be another’s size small. So, when you’ve decided to look for shirts to print your design on, choose one company and stick with them. If you keep changing t-shirt providers while still in production, sizes will vary.

5. Outdated Designs

Unless you’re going for vintage looks, you’ll want to make sure your design isn’t considered too old-fashioned for your intended market. Especially if you’re making shirts to promote your business, you need to capture your audience with something trendy. You won’t reel in new customers if you’re still sticking with much older designs that are outdated for current tastes.

Browse social media to see what most people are into nowadays. Take note of graphic design trends in other products not related to clothing like cosmetics, food, and music. You can learn by observing their color choices, typography, and image composition in their packaging or promo art.

Apply the same technique using a trusted custom t-shirt design software to make your shirt prints look as perfect as you want.

Bottom Line

Custom t-shirts make excellent gifts, promo materials, or everyday indoor or outdoor wear. When your shirts are comfy and easy on the eyes, people will wear them for as long as they can. That’s why it’s crucial to be a little nitpicky when designing your shirts and choosing their fabric. Quality matters significantly to most people, especially when it comes to clothing.