Before you get to designing, think of who you’ll sell to and identify your niche. Your designs should appeal to your audience.
If you’re having trouble finding a niche, think of what you’re involved in. Are you part of any unique communities? It’s easier to sell to a niche that you already know about. Anything can become your niche market – hobbies, groups, events, and more:
Sports
Fashion
Family
Couples
Pets
Food
Social movements
You want to hit the sweet spot. If your niche is too broad, you won’t be able to target it effectively. Too small, and you won’t have enough buyers. Always ask yourself whether you can earn a profit with a specific niche.
Bottom line: you need to know who you sell to.
First, find out what's trending in the design world right now. Since a campaign on Yeefu is a pre-order, you don't have to spend money printing designs in bulk. We gotcha covered ;)
Yeefu’s team of in-house designers knows all about current design trends. below is a few trending designs you can get inspired from:
You can never go wrong with typography. Adapt it to any niche by playing around with the style of typography and the text.
Although there are many ways to create typographic designs, two styles are very in right now: isometric and hand-drawn typography.
Always consider what your audience likes. Are they more about bold, geometric styles, or a rustic aesthetic? Or maybe they’re drawn to your message, in which case, a simple font could work just fine!
We’re seeing a surge in collage design—that is, two (or more) images juxtaposed together.
The key to this style is the contrast. Pick images that are the opposite, but work well together. Think of the emotion you want to evoke and the images that’ll take your customer there. Photographs combined with some kind of graphic design elements work well.
This design style looks great on t-shirts—it’s easy to see all the contrasts and detail.
Continuing with the plant fan example, let’s say I want to create a simple design with a hand-drawn illustration from the Design Maker. I would simply pick an illustration of a plant, and add witty text under it.
The beauty of selling t-shirts with a pre-order period is that there’s very little risk. Since you’re printing everything on-demand, you don’t have to spend money on bulk printing designs. Better yet take a look at our 12 T-shirt Design Trends of all time
If you’re already a design pro, then you know how to create your t-shirt designs. Get started in Photoshop (or these photoshop alternatives).
But if you’re not a designer by nature, executing your ideas can be a challenge. Luckily, you’ll find plenty of help online.
You don’t have to create a design from scratch. You can find royalty-free designs, photographs, and fonts that you can sell as they are, or edit to make your own. Remember the collage style design? You can find a royalty-free photo and add your own design element to it.
Some image sources may be paid, and if you’ll probably need a commercial license to sell designs on t-shirts. If you print through Printful, you need to hold the rights to your design, so do your research.
We recommend that you stick to the designs you create yourself. But if you want to explore paid options, here are a few resources to check out:
Freepik
Canva
Flaticon
Time to create your t-shirt designs
It’s easy to start selling t-shirts online. All you need is an idea, a niche that’ll love it, and the readily available tools to get you going: an eCommerce platform and print-on-demand provider. With this blog post, you have the tools to find your niche and create a design.
We’ll even help you take it one step further by giving you free samples. ;) Happy creating!
