AngelaI am going to cover my top 5 methods for how to design t-shirts for a print on demand merch business. It's possible to make hundreds or even thousands every month by selling your own merchandise designs online. The most popular designs tend to be for T-shirts but you can also make money selling your designs on other items like Mugs, Baby Vests and Stickers.
Design T-Shirts Without Graphic Design Skills
Most people sell t shirts using print on demand drop shipping platforms. We will focus on t shirts in this guide but the methods are exactly the same for other items. Plus you can sometimes use the same designs on multiple products.
The hardest part of getting started with print on demand is often figuring out how to make your designs. In this post I am going to take you through a number of methods showing you how to create your own t shirt designs. You do not need any prior graphic design skills or knowledge, you just need to follow the instructions below.
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.
Top 5 Ways To Design T Shirts
Below are my top 5 ways to create t shirt designs ready to upload to print on demand sites like Merch By Amazon and Redbubble. You ideally need a PC or Laptop to create your own designs but some of the methods can be done using just a mobile.
- Pay For Ready Made T-shirt Designs
- Web Based T Shirt Design Tool
- Create Cool Text Designs With Wordswag App
- Use A Design Generator on Printful or Printify
- Create Unique Graphic Designs For Free With "GIMP"
1. Pay For Ready Made T-shirt Designs
So starting with the easy option, buy ready made designs or get somebody to create them for you. Some successful merch entrepreneurs get all their designs made, this allows them to scale their business much quicker. Ihave detailed below some of the options I have tried.
I have had lots of people asking me where they can find ready made graphics for merch.
If you are just starting print on demand, making your designs look good can be a difficult task. My answer has always been to approach buying designs and vectors with caution.
There are lots of people out there that will gladly sell you copyrighted graphics without the proper licences.
VEXELS
Vexels is a Graphic Design platform that allows subscribers to use a library of Royalty-free t-shirt Designs, graphics, other designs and illustrations for commercial and Merch purposes.
What can Merchers do with Vexels?
Merchers can use their Royalty-free Merch-ready designs “as is” (i.e. without modifications) to sell t-shirts and other merch on most print-on-demand platforms, namely Merch by Amazon (MBA), Redbubble, and others, as well as on self-run websites (e.g.Shopify), and also KDP and self-publishing products.
Merch subscribers can use all of their graphics, not just Merch-only designs. This is very important, since this gives subscribers unlimited design possibilities without spending extra money.
CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VEXELS
FIVERR
You can pay for a graphic designer on Fiverr to create unique designs for you. These can cost from as little as $1 per design but like most things in life you get what you pay for. Generally the better designers will charge more, so you need to find a balance between cost and quality.
Click here to head over to Fiver and search for t-shirt designers.
Once you have set up your Fiverr account you can search for and hire your designer. Start by searching for "T-Shirt Design" and you will notice a large number of designers will come up. Have a look through the sellers that have the highest ratings and that match the style of design you prefer.
Place a small order with 3-5 designers
The are lots of very bad designers on Fiverr, so you don't want to place a large order with a designer you have never used before. The first time I used a designer on Fiverr the spelling was incorrect on 2 of the 5 designs. I would recommend you select 3-5 designers you like the look of and place a small order of a few t-shirt designs. Once they have all delivered then you can make a larger order with your favorite.
Here are a few things to think about and watch out for with Fiverr.
- Does your designer provide descriptions and researched keywords
- Some designers will come up with the idea or some might want you to instruct them on your design
- Double check the designs you receive are original by checking popular print on demand sites for the same design
- Check for spelling mistakes
- Make sure your design does not infringe any trademarks or copyright by checking HERE
2. Web Based T Shirt Design Tool
So Merch Informer is one of the most popular research tools for sellers on Merch by Amazon. However as well as helping with design ideas and keywords they also have a web based design tool to create new t-shirt designs.
Merch Designer is mobile friendly and includes all the tools you need to create t-shirt designs with no experience or graphic design skills.
- Includes all products that are included in the Merch by Amazon program such as T-Shirt, Hoodies and Pop Sockets
- Includes 22 editable templates
- Library of thousands of free clip art and you can add your own as well
- Font library of 900 fonts that are free for commercial use and the ability to upload your own fonts
- Upload images, clip art, or SVG files. Also access free graphics with open clipart and Pixabay fully integrated
Get A 3 Day Free Trial
It does require a monthly subscription to Merch Informer in order to access the Merch Designer tool. Subscription starts at $9.99/m for a newbie account and you can cancel at any time. However new customers can get a 3 day trial.
GET A 3 DAY FREE TRIAL FOR MERCH INFORMER BY CLICKING HERE
If you don't want to pay for a subscription or to buy designs on Fiverr then keep reading, the next 3 design methods are 100% FREE.
3. Create Cool Text Designs With Wordswag App
If you want to great t shirt designs from your mobile, then the Wordswag App is a great tool. It's available to download for Android and Apple iOS, links attached. There is a free version but you will likely need to upgrade to the full version, which is around $4.99 currently.
Watch the short video below to see how it works.
The Wordswag app is best for making Text only designs, such as cool quotes. I recommend using the transparent background to make text designs, these will save in PNG format and can be uploaded straight to sites like Redbubble.
4. Use A T Shirt Design Generator on Printful or Printify
Another way to create t shirt designs is by using the in built tools provided by print on demand suppliers. These are free to use but are usually fairly limited in the types of designs you can create. However that being said they are great for beginners that want to get their first design uploaded for sale.
I have already gone into detail about how it works in another post. CLICK HERE for my step by step guide on using Printfuls t shirt design generator with Etsy.
5. Create Unique Graphic T Shirt Designs For Free With "GIMP"
This final step is for more advanced computer users or people with some basic graphic design skills. If you already have Photoshop then you can use that instead for this method, however Photoshop can be quite expensive. That's why I use a free open source graphic design tool called GIMP, GNU Image Manipulation Program.
Below is a quick list of the steps to create a t shirt design using GIMP. I would recommend watching a few videos on Youtube first if you have never used it before. I will write a more detailed post in the coming weeks on using GIMP.
Quick Steps To Create A T Shirt With GIMP
- Head over to GIMP.org to download the program and install it
- Download the Merch By Amazon t shirt size templates from HERE
- Open the 4500px by 5400px t-shirt template with GIMP
- This size design can be used by nearly all POD sites, not just Amazon
- Start your design
- If you want to add some free vector images, head over to Pixabay
- In the Pixabay search bar, change the drop down to Vector Images
- You can add text directly from GIMP or you can use your text from the Wordswag App
- Once your design is finished, head over to File and export. You want to export your design to .png format.
Summary
I hope you have found my top 5 t shirt design ideas useful and use them to make your own designs. In summary you can basically pay somebody else to make your t shirts or put the effort in yourself using one of the many t shirt design makers. Check out my other guides, hints and tips about print on demand.
