People who say that the T-shirt days are over are either lying, or just haven’t found the right design that would turn heads – which is essentially the goal when selecting or wearing a T-shirt.
Turns out, the same rules apply when creating a design for a T-shirt.
So, if you’ve clicked this article because you happen to own a T-shirt business or are looking for T-shirt graphic designers to create some custom merchandise for your marketing campaigns or your next company retreat, you’ve come to the right place.
Of course, there are other ways to get the best T-shirt designs such as hosting an in-house competition, or even via social media. But this would work only if you don’t really have a clear idea in mind.
If you do have a vision of what the perfect T-shirt would look like for your business, company or even marketing strategy, then hiring a freelance graphic designer would be the best fit for you.
First things first: when choosing to engage a T-shirt designer, it is important for you to consider beyond just your marketing budget. You also need to consider whether the person that you are potentially engaging is a good fit for the outcome that you are looking for or not.
That aside, you’ll also need to know:
a) the designer’s personal style in their art inclinations, as this would definitely translate into the way that the final design turns out, and
b) their experience in different types of design
The best way to do this is to request that graphic designer's portfolio so you can see and compare the type of brands and businesses as well as industries that they have experience in. This is crucial because it gives you, the client, the added value of having a graphic designer that can come in and provide creative consultation for your brand.
After all, they would need to know what would work when it comes to appealing to your target audience while paying mind to some of the typical industry trends that similar businesses or competitors are embracing. This would mean that they should have knowledge of overall graphic design directions across marketing collaterals and merchandise that other businesses produce.
Image: Pexels
By the way, before you proceed, we have written a blog post here that serves as a guide for when you’re thinking of creating a T-shirt design.
Moving forward – to help you get a clearer sense of the different types of graphic designers that you could collaborate with, we have put together a list of talented designers to whom you can potentially gauge and outsource your T-shirt graphic design work; all of which have very distinctive graphic design styles that are evident in their portfolio.
If your brand product is within the fashion and lifestyle category, engaging someone like Alina would be advantageous as she has close to a decade of experience as a fashion designer, developing wearable clothing pieces across different segments such as sportswear brands to even high-end brands.
Aside from that, she has extensive exposure in designing for a global audience with her work sold worldwide, which is key for you to consider if you are a global brand looking to penetrate several different regional markets with the same marketing collateral or merchandise.
Image: Alina T
Not an unknown name in the T-shirt design landscape, Calypso Design is a graphic designer who is based in Croatia.
Especially skilled in t-shirt designs, she has won 18 design contests on DesignHill under several categories, so if you're looking for someone who is a bit more specific to this type of work then you can view her portfolio for you to see if her style matches what you're looking for.
Image: Design Hill
Hasan's expertise is in logo tech design, which is a great skill set to have if you are an emerging brand that's looking for ways to package your brand identity on merchandise such as T-shirts.
As founder and art director of his own agency Brandoxide, Hasan’s work possesses a distinctive minimalist luxe sort of feel – think brands such as the likes of Apple.
You can check out his portfolio on Dribble to see how his personal art style is translated across different types of graphic designs.
Image: Dribble
This UK-based illustrator specialises in logos, T-shirt design and unique items like album artworks.
Singleton's style is very different from the other designers we have on this list – by that we mean expect to see lots of rock and roll as well as commercial retro artistic interpretation and elements in his work, which can be specific to a particular brand identity and target audience.
No doubt a trusted professional, this illustrator is also a Fiverr Pro designer.
Image: Fiverr
Apart from engaging freelance graphic designers, you can also look into outsourcing your T-shirt graphic design work to Brandripe. As the trusted partner to brands across Southeast Asia, Brandripe has extended its graphic design prowess to numerous brands through not only digital graphic design but also through product packaging and, of course, merchandise design such as T-shirts.
Working with Brandripe is a good alternative if you are looking for a team that is more flexible. Some of the pros of partnering up with Brandripe include a flat subscription price that is as low as RM1,695 per month, unlimited requests and revisions, as well as a guaranteed 24 to 48 hours turnaround time.
That aside, working with Brandripe ensures the copyright ownership of design work that they do for you fully belongs to you – which is an important legal aspect for you to consider before engaging a graphic designer.
We would also like to remind you, as mentioned earlier on during this article, that it’s best that you get to know the designers behind your T-shirt to make sure that your idea aligns with their creative work. This is why your next step should be scheduling a 15-minute VIP Demo Call with Brandripe to understand their process and style better (on top of getting to know the other benefits of working with them).
The team at Brandripe would be more than happy to answer all your questions, walk you through their dashboard and even discuss other important aspects such as pricing plans and whatnot.
Before you know it, you could be turning your dream T-shirt into a reality in less than 48 hours!
