Making Money from Your Designs

Today I thought I'd...well I don't want to say "switch gears."  Let's say today I thought I'd veer to the left a bit.  Instead of talking about designing in particular, I'm going to write a bit about being a designer, and how to get yourself into the business of t-shirt design.  If you're an amateur custom shirt designer, or even someone who doesn't consider himself a designer, there are a few different ways that you can make some good money from your current stock of designs, and get some good exposure along the way. 

There are three popular ways to try to make some money off of your work.  The first, more obvious one, is to simply create your own site where you sell your work.  Artists will use inexpensive custom shirt printing sites like ooshirts to purchase bulk orders of their shirts, then sell them on their own site.  This is great because you will have control over absolutely everything, but this also means that you will need to generate your own traffic.  People will not go to a website they have never heard of, and search engines will not put you very high on their list of search results. 

Your next option is Threadless.  Threadless has a cool system: anyone can submit designs every week.  All of the designs are voted on, and the top five or so are sold for the week.  Additionally, the lucky winners get a $2000 prize, plus a kickback from every one of their shirts sold.  Some people have made all right money and gotten exposure from this process.  However, winning is very difficult as there are hundreds, sometimes thousands of submissions every week.  Shirt.woot has a similar voting-on-user-submitted-designs system.

Finally, you can set up your own mini store on popular sites such as zazzle and cafepress.  These sites are incredibly popular and have lots of daily traffic, but you will run into the same issue you had when you tried to make your own site: you have to market your store.  There are hundreds of unique, independent stores on each of these sites, so getting people to go to your page will still be your own daunting task.

T-shirt design is a fun, incredibly competitive business.  It's best to approach it as a creative outlet and source of supplemental, rather than main, income.  

Creating a "Good" T-Shirt Design

What is a "good" t-shirt design?

Everyone has their own opinion.  It really comes down to what your goal is.  Are you trying to prove how "out there" and creative you are?  Are you trying to sell shirts to make money?  Are you trying to advertise a business or event?  All of these require specialized techniques to make them the best possible designs they can be.  Before that though, here are a few simple rules that can be applied across every category:

• Keep it simple.  You don't want passersby to have to spend five minutes studying your shirt.  Figure out the message you're trying to convey ("buy this," "isn't this creative," etc.), and figure out how you can communicate that message succinctly. 

• Use easy-to-read fonts.  A simple enough rule, but one that is oft forgotten. 

• Think about your color choices.  Make sure the colors within your design complement each other, and that the design as a whole contrasts with the color of your shirt, so that it stands out. 

• High resolution.  Since you are probably an amateur designer, it is easy to forget to make sure your design is of the highest resolution possible.  A design that looks good on the computer may come out pixel-y on your actual t-shirts.  A good rule of thumb is to make the graphic at a resolution of at least 300 DPI (dots per inch).

If you are interested in more professional-centered design tips, Loren Sciaky has a great site with really informative professional design tips.  Finally, the ooshirts guides provide countless design suggestions for amateur artists.  Take a look at all of the resources available, and please share your own design tips in the comments.

Designing a Shirt for Marketing

So you have designed a logo that is both creative and informative.  Most importantly, it's memorable and easy to look at.  Now you need to know how to use your design effectively.  Oftentimes this means creating another design on a t-shirt or billboard, of which your logo is an important part. 

Advertising is an incredibly important part of making any business successful.  A fantastic way to spread the word about your business is by printing and distributing custom t-shirts.  Here is a great article I found that outlines 5 people who should market with custom t-shirts.  One might think that custom t-shirt marketing is not for them, but everyone from comedians to pizza parlors can benefit from it.

This brings up an important point to remember: always remember to include contact information.  Your shirt WILL be noticed, and you want to be sure that anyone interested will be able to find your business, either online or practically.  A standard advertising shirt is comprised of a logo in the middle, a tagline beneath that, and a web address or phone number at the bottom. 

Good luck designing custom shirts for your business.  Keep checking back for more art and design tips and tricks.

Logos with Hidden Images

Designing a logo is a very difficult and important part of branding.  Your logo will become synonymous with your company.  The ideal is to get to the point where people can see your image and immediately think of your company, even if the logo does not have your company name in it (such as Shell's picture of a yellow shell).

One thing I love in logos is hidden images or messages.  They give the logo a unique look, and can communicate many ideas without using any words.  Here are a few of my favorites for you to consider:

Nintendo Game Cube's logo looks like a 3D cube, which is also what the system itself looks like.  The cube logo is made of up a large purple capital letter "G" (for "game") that ends in a smaller cube in the middle, and a "C" (for "cube") in the negative black space. 

This was the first hidden image I ever found in a logo.  Note the arrow pointing to the right made up of the negative between the "E" and "x" of "Ex."  This represents FedEx always being on the move, making express deliveries.

Amazon's logo has so much happening.  Note the yellow arrow underneath "amazon."  It is pointing from the letter "a" to the letter "z," because amazon is known for providing, and helping you, with everything from a to z.  In addition to pointing from "a" to "z," the arrow forms a smiling face that reassures customers they will have a happy experience.

There is no telling if the subliminal message approach of FedEx's arrow makes a significant contribution in terms of advertising, but there is no doubt that the creative Game Cube and amazon.com logos tell a story while looking really cool.  When you're designing your own logo, think about the balance between creative and informative, and how you can use both of those aspects to make a fun and effective logo.

Check back for the next post: after you design your logo, how can you use it to effectively to market yourself?

Hello All

Greetings everyone!

Welcome to my blog, Custom T-Shirt Design Tips.  Here I will be discussing just that- artwork, and layout ideas and suggestions for customizable t-shirts and other customizable apparel; after all, every cheer squad needs short shorts with "CHEER" across the butt.

I will be looking at logo ideas, and discussing what makes a good logo.  I will examine t-shirt designs for all sorts of occasions- sports teams, holidays, charity events, etc, and giving my thoughts on what is good and bad about each design.  I will be looking at various websites' design tools, and reviewing who has the best and simplest design labs.  Finally, I will field any questions that you may have!

If you are a creative person, or are interested learning about what makes effective, and ineffective, t-shirt and logo designs, check back here regularly and join the discussion!