How to design custom birthday t-shirts online: a practical guide

Have you already decided to open your own online store and do you think that a good repertoire of original t-shirts will be the key to success? If you have plenty of initiative, but don’t know how to design those custom t-shirts that your customers will never want to take off, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we are going to teach you how to make t-shirts with original designs for your brand or to make an original gift. Go for it! 

  1. Define your niche

Before you start designing original t-shirts, it is important to define your niche market. Your design has to be very attractive to your audience, so research the tastes and interests of your ideal client! If you can’t think of which niche to target, look around you, are you part of a community? A group that you know from within is always going to be easier to explore than one that you don’t belong to. For example, let’s say you’re passionate about graphic design and art history and want to sell custom clothing to other visual art lovers. It’s a good start!

  1. Design your own t-shirt

If you already have a clear objective for your store, it is time to start designing your personalized t-shirt. The first step to being successful in selling your designs online is to research the trends in the design world and the interests of your niche. Social networks are a source of inspiration to find ideas to create and sell your custom t-shirts online.

  •         What is the most shared or trending topic on Instagram and Pinterest?
  •         Are there any fonts, colors, or designs that are popular right now?

What original designs for Cocomelon Birthday Shirts are now successful in the market?

After researching, dare to experiment! The best part about selling custom t-shirts online and doing it on demand is that there are hardly any risks. Since production only takes place once the order has been placed, you don’t have to spend a penny printing a bunch of t-shirts in advance. If a design isn’t selling well, remove it from your store. And if you find a new trend, incorporate it into your products and add it to your personalized clothing catalog: let’s see how it sells! In addition, t-shirt printing on-demand offers different digital printing techniques: DTG, embroidery,  In addition, t-shirt printing on-demand offers different digital printing techniques: DTG, embroidery, and DTF transfer. You can make the t-shirts that best suit the tastes of your customers.

  1. Use digital and online design tools

If you are a professional designer, you will already know perfectly well how to create your designs and fonts for t-shirts. It won’t be complicated either if you’re good at photography and want to take advantage of your most creative sessions by printing personalized photo t-shirts. Jump into it with Adobe Express image editor, Photoshop, Illustrator, or whatever image design and editing program you’re most familiar with. If not, you can try to make your designs using these simpler and free alternatives to Photoshop. Some of them are very easy to use, but they are not the only ones.

Print Layout Creator

You may still be wondering how to design custom t-shirts without prior experience. With Printful’s Design Creator, creating your own t-shirts online is easier than you think. If you have the “blank t-shirt syndrome” because you don’t know how to customize it, this tool has many fonts, clipart, illustrations, and symbols that you can freely use when placing your design on the garment. So if your design ideas are simple, chances are you’ll find everything you need here! Don’t miss this tutorial and unleash your creativity! Another advantage of using our integrated Design Creator TeeNavi is that you will have access to a wide range of mockups!

Websites with free images or free use

You may not need to create your custom t-shirt designs from scratch. There are tons of resources on the internet like royalty-free photos, fonts, and designs that you can use, modify, and sell however you want. Of course, just because they are free or easily accessible does not mean that they can be used without restrictions. If it is not very clear to you what copyright is, in this article, we will explain it to you. And we also give you some free vectors and several pages of royalty-free images to inspire you!

To print t-shirts with Printful, you need to have full rights to your design. This not only applies if you have a brand but also for the merchandising of companies and sports teams or to personalize t-shirts for clubs, birthdays, groups of friends, and bachelor parties. So we recommend you investigate and make sure that you can use all the images that you put on your garments or, if it is the case, manage the license for commercial use.