4 T-Shirt Design Mistakes To Avoid

If you're a t-shirt brand owner that sells graphic tees, here are four t-shirt design mistakes to avoid at all costs!

#1 - MAKING YOUR DESIGN TOO SMALL

If you're like most t-shirt brands, you're probably using social media to drive a lot of your traffic...meaning most people are seeing your design from a mobile device. For us, mobile traffic typically makes up 80-90% of our traffic. If the design looks small on your desktop then it will be 10 times worse for customers viewing it on mobile. 

This is why it's so important to make your designs large enough that they can be seen and read from a cell phone. If customers can't read the slogan or make out the artwork then they won't buy!

#2 - IMPROPER DESIGN PLACEMENT

Have you ever seen a shirt where the design just seemed awkwardly placed?

Maybe it was really high up near the collar, or it was just really low down...maybe over the stomach. This is a huge conversion killer for a lot of designs, so make sure that the design is placed properly. General rule of thumb is 3 inches below the collar for the top of the graphic.

I recommend looking at graphic tees that you like and using their placement for inspiration.

#3 - USING POOR FONTS

Fonts can really make or break a t-shirt design so it's important when designing that you're very intentional about the fonts that you use. The font should be legible and clearly align with the message in the design.

I could make an entire other blog on fonts but most importantly I want to say that readability is everything, so avoid ones like super cursive fonts, for example, that are difficult to read.

If no one can read it, no one's gonna buy it!

#4 - USING TOO MANY COLORS

When it comes to choosing the colors for your design, I recommend keeping it simple.

Not only will this save you on printing costs if you're screen printing your tees, but t-shirt designs with around one to two colors do tend to outperform those with a bunch of colors.

SUMMARY

If you're a t-shirt brand owner selling graphic tees, then avoid these four cardinal sins for shirt design: one, making your design small so as to make it illegible on mobile devices; two, creating shirts with awkward design placements; three, using fonts that are difficult to read and/or do not match your messaging; and four, going overboard with the number of colors per design...simple is elegant. If you can avoid these conversion killing mistakes then you're well on your way to creating designs that sell! 

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