Once you’ve chosen your design concept it’s time to create design assets for your products and promotional content. If you don’t have design experience don’t worry, there are tons of available online tools as well as great designers who can help. Continue reading to learn about the most popular resources and how they can be used to create engaging content to promote your products and build your brand online. Keep in mind we’ve also create free designs patterns that can be applied to all-over print products like apparel, leggings, phone cases, blankets, pillows, and more. Click the button below to download them now.
Examples of lifestyle mockups and products designs created with Placeit
Online design tools
Check out the most popular tools recommended by Teespring users to create designs to use on products and merch. Also be sure to read up on our launcher file formatting tips to ensure your designs look their best when printed on your products.
- Placeit: Create beautiful designs for your Teespring products within seconds using Placeit’s creative and on-trend smart templates. There are over 7,000 templates to choose from with more being added weekly. You can also use Placeit to create lifestyle mockups and promotional content. We’ve partnered with Placeit to give Teespring users unlimited features for less than $12 a month. Click here to learn more.
- Typorama: This app gives you access to over 40 different text options, the ability to edit colors and shadows, or add filters and overlays to your images. Their transparent background option makes it easy to create slogans and text-based designs too.
- Canva: With Canva you can choose from premade templates, stock photos, cartoon images, shapes, icons, and more when creating a design. Similar to Teespring’s text tool, Canva also has a text generator with over 100 different fonts to choose from.
- Creative Fabrica: This platform recently announced they offer a full POD license for sellers who want to use purchased designs to sell on products. It’s not uncommon for people to purchase design elements instead of creating a design from scratch.
- Tailor Brands: Tailor Brands is ideal for businesses and brands who want professional looking logos and promotional content. We’ve partnered with Tailor Brands to give Teespring users 40% off their services. Claim the discount by creating a logo using this link (or enter discount code ‘teespring’) when selecting a monthly or annual plan.
Please note whenever purchasing a pre-made design or design element it’s very important to research the design’s license limitations to ensure your design complies with IP laws.
Promotional content
Want to create thumb-stopping promotional content for mobile shoppers? Visit Facebook’s Mobile Studio for more recommendations and tips. Check out the resources below to create promo content and brand assets. Read up on our social promotional guides for examples of the type of content that works best.
- GifLab is perfect for creating .gif videos and it’s super user-friendly. You can use it to show off all color options for apparel, or highlight all products available in your listing. Show your shoppers everything you have to offer in one quick glance!
- Layout is an awesome collage app. It’s integrated with Instagram so you can share the image directly to social media. Check out the example image below featuring products from a particular store
- Splice enables you to create videos quickly and easily but this app has a unique zooming function too. This tool allows you to generate close-up shots of your products—helping mobile shoppers see the details of your beautiful designs! See an example of the zoom feature.
- Videoshop is another great app that offers a variety of features to create quality video ads. You can combine photos and videos, add slow-motion edits, create animated titles, and more.
- Legend is ideal for creating animated text. You could use this tool when sharing special promotions and discounts for example. You’ll find a ton of cool animated text templates to choose from.
- Slideshow Video’n Movie Maker is a great way to show off customer reviews in a visual way. You may want to use text editing apps like Snapseed in conjunction with this app—that way you can show images + text reviews.
- PlaceIt enables you to choose from thousands of stunning, professionally designed ad templates to promote your products across all social media platforms. They are ridiculously easy to modify and you can download images formatted for every platform.
- Canva app makes it easy for everyone to create professional-looking graphics. There are hundreds of templates available with beautiful layouts for text editing. Each template is designed for a specific purpose like sharing on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat in newsletters, etc.
Examples of promotional content created using Placeit templates
Hire a designer
There are tons of sites for hiring freelance designers; to ensure that the design you pay for is the one you imagined, we recommend that you come into the agreement with a clear and specific idea for your design. Don’t forget you can ask to see some samples of their work or other tees they’ve designed before sealing the deal. Make sure to clearly explain the type of design you want. Here are a few examples of the details you can share with your designer, keep in mind the more details you provide the easier it will be for the designer to create exactly what you’re looking for:
- Provide the exact message of the design and the audience it’s intended for (provide exact text)
- Explain the style you’re aiming for; feel free to find photos and images of ideas and other designs you like, so that you can give specific advice to your designer. (“I want to use a text style like in this design!”)
- Suggest colors you want included in the design (ex. white text with light blue accents or provide exact color codes)
- Suggest specific fonts you like or want incorporated into the design
- Explain the color of the product/background the design will be printed on (ex. the design text should be bright white and blue – it will be printed on dark garments like black and navy so I really want the design to stand out!)
Where to hire a designer
Below is a list of different design sites sellers have reported using. Each site enables you to post a listing or ad with the budget and description of your design and available designers will answer your listing. In most cases you’ll want to ask for a vector file “.eps cs5 format,” with a clear background, or a high quality PNG file (with DPI of at least 300 and a transparent background). Once you have the design you can upload it directly on our website through the Teespring Designer.
- Freelancer.com – A website that aggregates people who are specialists in their field (such as graphic designers) looking for additional work. You choose the hourly rate you’re willing to pay.
- Fiverr – A website where you can find people willing to create designs starting at $5!
- ODesk – A website to hire freelancers. You can either pay someone a flat fee or an hourly rate to create your design.
- Behance – A website that lets you hire creative freelancers. Click “Post A Job” to get started. Though more expensive than the other options, the site also yields substantially more design submissions to choose from.
- Design Spring – A website featuring designers with extensive experience working with tee designs. You can submit a design brief and expect results within 48 to 72 hours. Design Spring is pricier compared to other sites but users have reported positive experiences using this site.
- Upwork – A website wherein you can hire freelance designers for specific design jobs; designer profiles show hourly costs and ratings from previous customers.
- Teespring’s Trusted Designers – We have handpicked and vetted a talented group of designers that we highly recommend working with. They have been picked based on their experience working with YouTube creators and producing high quality artwork specifically made for merch.
Teespring’s Trusted Designers
How much does it cost?
Usually you can pay a designers per hour or per design if they specialize in t-shirt designs. Prices can range greatly depending on the quality and experience of the designer; make sure to check their rates beforehand so there are no surprises when it’s time to pay the bill. Contracting a design can be as little as $5 or over $50…keep in mind more experienced designers (especially those who are familiar with designing for merch) usually produce the best results. That being said, if you’re just starting out and don’t have a large design budget to work with the most important aspect of the design is the message—many successful designs have been created simply using the text-editor tool in the Teespring Launcher.
Teespring’s design services
We offer three levels of design support to Teespring users. The design support options are determined by the size of your social following. Please see below the three service tiers. Click learn more to submit your request. Once submitted a member of our support team will be in touch within 24-48 hours.
TIER 1
- All users!
TIER 2
- YouTube: 100k-500k subscribers
- Twitch: 50k-100k followers
- Twitter: 100k-500k followers
- Instagram: 100k-500k followers
- Facebook: 100k-500k followers
TIER 3
- YouTube: 500k+ subscribers
- Twitch: 100k+ followers
- Twitter: 500k+ followers
- Instagram: 500k+ followers
- Facebook: 500k+ followers
