Are you passionate about design? Are you wondering how to become a t-shirt designer? The answer is waiting for you to discover in this post!
This goal includes seven steps, from gaining software knowledge to selling the product to the market. If you are confused about the career you pursue, follow our guide. Just scroll down, and you’ll have all the information you need!
What Does A T-Shirt Designer Do?
If you wonder what t-shirt designers will do throughout their careers, learning and creativity are the answer!
Pursuing this career means that you will have to constantly research market tastes and develop ideas for unique t-shirts. Your necessary work includes:
- Model creation.
- Logo and costume design.
- Brand development.
- Customer research ( to capture timely feedback and social trends).
During your work, you will have the opportunity to be exposed to many fabrics and take on the role of screen printing. It requires you to carefully prepare the artwork and ensure the screen printing does not make any mistakes.
The t-shirt designers on the market today tend to be divided into two categories: working for companies/businesses and independent businesses.
In particular, the freelance business will make you in charge of more fields than working for the company.
Why Should I Become A T-Shirt Designer?
T-shirt designing can bring you more benefits than you think! But specifically, why should you choose to pursue this career?
Let’s discover the answer through the four reasons we have compiled below!
High Profit – Small Risk
First of all, let’s talk about the huge profits you can make if you pursue this profession properly.
A T-shirt is familiar because it is an outfit that can be worn at home, going out, or even going to work. Its popularity makes buying demand always higher than other types of clothing.
It is not difficult for you to realize that there are countless types of t-shirts regardless of gender and age. In this way, their target audience is ever so wide and unlimited.
The above reasons have led to the fact that the T-shirt industry always brings high profits. Yet, the risks in the work process are much lower than you think.
There is no need to prepay for any product, including printer and supply chain costs. Your task is only to create ideas, add them to the store and start selling.
After the customer places an order, the supplier will cover all the rest – printing, packaging, and shipping. During this process, you need to focus on marketing and tracking customer feedback.
Constant Growing Speed
You can’t deny that a T-shirt is a type of clothing that is always close to people and never out of date.
Looking at it, it has a simple design and is suitable for hot weather. Depending on the brand, each product has a different style: casual to elegant.
In the past, T-shirts only appeared as a kind of casual wear. But in recent years, large companies and organizations are using designer t-shirts as uniforms to build their brands.
It proves that the T-shirt is no longer just a casual outfit. This change has made the demand for this type of clothing increasingly expand in all fields.
According to an investigation by Grand View Research, the t-shirt printing industry has reached a revenue of about 3.64 billion USD (in 2020). Experts say that the growth rate of this industry from 2021 to 2028 will be around 9.7%.
The above figures show the T-shirt designers industry and the assurances about recruitment demand and revenue that it can bring.
Even in the next decade, it will still be a hot industry with high demand and extremely high competition that you should not miss.
Various Selling Methods
In the past, buyers could easily consult product styles and prices at malls or clothing stores. However, the current era of technological development has led to various sales methods.
You do not need to spend time and effort to choose an appropriate pine shirt personally. With just a smartphone, shopping has never been so easy.
T-shirt designers have realized the change in shopping trends and implemented many other smart selling methods. A popular method is to live stream on popular social networking platforms like Twitter or Facebook.
People are gradually focusing on famous and trusted electronics selling sites like Teespring, Zazzle, etc.
If you are wondering about the current trending sales method, selling online will bring extremely high profits while reducing many risks for the business.
No Experience Required
If you decide to start a business as a freelance t-shirt designer, familiarity with design software is essential. Yet, you won’t need formal training to get to work.
Once you can use software like Canva, Adobe Photoshop, or Illustrator, you will start your business right away. For this reason, whether you are a student or a working person, you can pursue this job easily.
How To Become A T-Shirt Designer
Becoming a t-shirt designer is never an easy challenge for either a newbie. If you follow our detailed guide below, we’re sure you’ll be successful in your chosen destination! So, how to become a most successful t-shirt designer?
This process consists of 7 steps which we have summarized below. Please scroll down for a more comprehensive view!
1. Be Proficient In Designing Software
To become an elite designer in the field of T-shirt design, surely the first thing that you need to do will be master manipulations with different design software. Once you lack these skills, success seems impossible.
If you’re wondering which software to start with, our advice is Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. They have perfect design features, are easy to use, and can accompany you on any project.
We appreciate Illustrator a little more than Photoshop for those hatching their business plans. This software provides fast information processing speed and has a useful vector operation feature.
If you want to be a designer working for a fashion company and organization, mastering both of these platforms will help you solidify your expertise.
However, we recommend further development in other graphics applications, such as Graphics Pro and CorelDraw. Having more design software expertise than other candidates will make employers prioritize you for the first vacancies.
2. Select An Audience
Choosing your target audience is the deciding factor between success and failure throughout your business. This task is very difficult and requires you to have extremely good market research skills before making a final decision.
You need to know that the garment market is extremely developed with countless models and product brands.
If you aim to serve all of those audiences, your new brand will certainly not be able to provide a steady income or even compete with other established brands.
So, what should be done to start a business in the most promising way?
Let’s start by surveying tastes by conducting surveys and surveys. Then, select the audience group you think will ensure the best consumption.
Focus on developing and promoting their products in a reasonable and close way to that target group. Once you do this, you are on your way to success!
3. Start With Some Unique Designs
Creating new product models takes a lot of time and brain. What we are sure of is that, as long as you put effort into this step, you will create products that are worth all the money you put in.
Uniqueness and harmony are prerequisites that you need to pay attention to for your product. If there are overlaps between you and other brands, you will fail to make a mark for your brand.
As for the styling, you don’t need to complicate things. A simple but harmonious design will sometimes make your product famous overnight.
T-shirt print artwork is also an area we recommend keeping an eye on. Aim for harmony, and avoid bland symbols (such as guns or skulls).
Products that are too general will also make your product not stand out among the many other options. So, look for drawings with specific content, even quotes.
We appreciate the funny content or the sayings that have a profound power to convey to the readers. So, come up with ideas to make your design unique and eye-catching, but still make sure the content makes sense.
4. Mockup Your Designs
Once you have a design you like, you need to emulate it on a t-shirt so that they fit together. This way, you will test your products one last time before deciding to mass-produce them.
There are two options t-shirt designers can choose from to complete this step.
Ordering samples will help you have the most comprehensive and detailed product view. However, they are quite expensive and cause financial trouble if your design needs to be fixed many times.
The second way is to use graphic design software to create a digital model. This way, you can still explore your design without spending anything.
This method also allows you to freely change the color and apply more interesting effects to the product. This convenience deserves your priority.
5. Get Feedback
Although you are the creator of the projects, sometimes you will not realize their shortcomings. Therefore, now is the time to introduce the product and collect the opinions of people around you.
You need to post them on popular social networking platforms (like Twitter and Facebook) and ask people to give specific comments. This way, you can capture comprehensive contributions, correct errors in time, and promote new product arrivals in advance.
If you wonder if you can ask a relative or friend to help you with this task, that would not be honest. Therefore, try to access as many social audiences as feedback as possible.
6. Build Up A Strong Portfolio
An excellent portfolio is an indispensable element if you want to apply for a clothing company or organization. To achieve this is certainly not an easy thing.
In addition to professional knowledge of graphic software and design skills, you also need to hone your working experience.
So, start by applying to work at nonprofits or small businesses. After your skills and work experience have improved, look for opportunities at great companies that you love!
7. Start Selling Your Designs
Once you’ve got your hands on a great resume and unique pieces of work, it’s time to start launching products and making money.
Of course, working in a design firm will make your start more stable and secure.
If you are confident in your abilities, we advise you to start an independent business so that you can fully enjoy the fruits of your creation.
For freelancers, starting with e-commerce platforms like Zazzle, Shopify and Teespring are not bad ideas. They attract a lot of users and can increase the credibility of your product through the review feature.
Participating in an online business will save a lot of sales costs while ensuring stable revenue. In this way, you will accumulate significant capital to prepare for the next ambitious project.
FAQs
How Much Does It Cost To Make A Shirt With A Design?
The t-shirt design process requires you to go through many stages. These include concept creation, material preparation, design, yard spinning, and finally, creating your labor.
The above process will cost $15 per product on average. The manufacturing process will require you to pay $3.15 per shirt.
Is It Hard To Sell Shirts?
Selling t-shirts is not a difficult task, and anyone can do it. However, you can ensure stable profits and meet your set targets with the right selling method.
Is Online T-Shirt Business Profitable?
Definitely yes! Along with the development of garment technology, T-shirts are becoming a very competitive product compared to other types of clothing.
T-shirts vary in age, gender, work, and many other fields. According to experts, retail sales of this item in recent years have reached $1.9 trillion.
From the above data, it is easy to see that this profession brings a lot of profit to those who pursue it. However, clarity and agility in all design processes are essential to ensure your product remains competitive.
The Bottom Line
How to become a t-shirt designer most successfully in today’s developing technology? We hope you have got the information you need on all the steps to achieving your dream through this article.
Success in pursuing this career depends on your efforts and business skills. Therefore, actively cultivate knowledge from now on to overcome all difficulties and touch success as quickly as possible.
Good luck with your chosen career. Have a nice day!