If you are giving away or selling printed t-shirts you know a cool design is the difference between someone shoving it in a drawer and the shirt becoming one of his or her favorites. That’s why if you’re going to use t-shirts you need to first invest in a catchy design or slogan. There are a few ways to do this:
Pay a Professional Designer
While they don’t have to be a professional “t-shirt” designer they should understand how the design will translate in the printing process. A design with finely etched detail won’t work well. The details will get lost or blurred. The way in which you print your t-shirt also makes a difference. Whether it’s embroidered, digital printed or screen printed affects the crispness of the design.
Hold a Contest for Your Printed T-shirts
Often a good way to engage with your audience is by holding a design contest. If you choose to do so you’ll probably want to get a legal opinion on what language needs to be included in the contest rules but basically you’ll want to retain the rights to the design. You will also want the right to alter the design, as may need to be done for printing purposes.
Hold an Internal Slogan Contest
This is a similar idea to above but you needn’t worry about the quality of designs you receive. People will merely be giving you ideas and slogans and you can design your printed t-shirts around them.
Once you have a great design try this advice to stand out.
You can create a hang tag that serves a purpose. On your tag you can print a coupon offer or a decal that customers will display. If you have a sexy brand like Harley Davidson or a bar (lucky you) a decal will be an extra special gift that they’ll value, a little something the customer wasn’t expecting.
If your company brand is not super sexy (meaning one that people want to possess), that’s okay. Create a special offer for that t-shirt like a coupon or discount card they can present for extra savings. You can also tie it into wearing the shirt. For instance, if you own a restaurant the coupon could be good for 10% off the bill on Tuesday’s for people wearing your t-shirt. This drives traffic on an otherwise quiet day and you get a little extra advertising by incentivizing people to wear your shirt.
These ideas can also work for promotional hats and other apparel.
A Final Note About Printed T-Shirts
If you use someone who is not a print designer, that is okay. We can make minor adjustments to the files so that they will print better as long as we have the native files. If you want it to print exactly as is, you may provide a PDF. Either way you will have the ability to review the design before printing.
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