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How Can You Tell If A Shirt Design Will Resonate With Your Audience?

Designing a shirt isn’t easy, especially without design experience. How can you tell the ideas you have in mind won’t fall flat with your target market?

Brad Wayland

November 16, 2016

So, you want to market your business with some t-shirts? That’s awesome - but it won’t be easy. Designing a great-looking shirt involves more than just slapping together a few graphics onto some fabric, after all.

There’s a lot of thought that goes into it, and a lot of research. The fact is that if you want to enjoy even a modicum of success, you’re going to need to know your audience inside and out. That’s where we come in - we’re here to guide you through a few questions which you can use on a case-by-case basis to determine if an idea is a hit or a dud.

Is It Similar To What Your Audience Usually Wears?

The magic words here are “Market Research.”

Take a look at your target demographic. What sort of shirts do they usually like? Does your design bear at least passing similarities to their general sense of style, or is it completely out in left field?

“At the end of the day you're designing a product that you want people to wear,” explains Creative Bloq. “Like a good marketeer would do, write down the exact person you want to attract to your design – who they are, what they like, what other brands they like and go from there.”

Would YOU Wear Something Like This?

As an addendum to the above, look at the design you’ve created. Is it something you’d not mind wearing in public, or is it something you wouldn’t be seen dead in? While thereisa good chance you’ve different tastes from your target audience, if the idea of wearing something you’ve created fills you with nothing but revulsion, that could well be a warning sign.

Is Your Design Pleasing To The Eye?

Let’s talk design principles next. No matter what market you’re designing for, your T-shirt needs to make effective use of visual space. The design cannot be too complicated or ‘busy,’ nor should it make use of too many clashing colors. In short, it needs to be aesthetically pleasing, to both you and the audience who will wear it.

Are You Designing Something Original, Or Imitating Someone Else?

The one inalienable rule about creative work is that it’s incredibly rare for someone to find success simply by imitating someone else. While you can certainly borrow design elements from other brands and other shirts, the one you ultimately come up with needs to be uniquely yours. The fact is, you can’t really beat the original, or the ideas behind it - you need to come up with something on your own.

How Comfortable Is It To Wear?

Last, but certainly not least, how does the shirt feel when you’re actually wearing it? That may seem like an odd question, but consider: some poorly-made designs tend to make shirts less wearable, especially with iron-on graphics.You want to ensure that yours isn’t one of them.

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