How to Design Your Own T-Shirt

Many garment printing companies will allow you the use of an online design tool. You can use this to transfer your designs to your choice of clothing. You can even use layering to combine different motifs or patterns, scaling tools, special effects and a text tool to add names or slogans.

You can use drawings, image files or even your own digital photographs, but follow the advice provided on the optimum file format for your final image. Once you are happy with the final design, send it to the printing company with your order. They will then print it for you.

Commonly used printing techniques include silkscreen, particularly suitable for large areas of colour, and inkjet. Screen printing is the more economical for larger orders, while direct to garment digital inkjet is great for designs with a number of different colours. Inkjet is the more economical of the two for individual garments or small quantities.

Other printing methods are used for certain types of design, such as plot printing (cat cut) for flock effects, but the above two are the most commonly used. If you ordered one or two t-shirts then inkjet would be the printer's choice.