How to get an awesome design!

So you’re ready to create some sweet swag but you don’t have a design locked down yet?

Don’t worry, if you aren’t a designer or don’t have one on staff here are a couple ideas for getting the design you need to get your swag-a-liciousness on.

Ask your community for help.

Ask for help from your customers on Twitter, Facebook, your blog, or email. Who better to come up with a design than the people you want to give it to? You’d be surprised at the artistic talent lurking in your social networks. For example a fan volunteered to create some artwork for the blog You Suck at Craigslist’s tees and mugs. It was a sweet deal for everyone as the fan got some YSaC branded gear and the blog made their community happy.

Hold a contest.

Increase buzz while getting a design by using a contest. Run a contest using a service like Wildfire to solicit entries from your existing customers (who are great resources since they know you best and will design something they’d actually wear) or run a contest on a crowd-sourced design community like 99designs. For example Big Commerce wanted to do a giveaway to fans, but at the time only had a logo to put on a tee. So they held a contest on 99designs and ended up with three ballin’ designs to giveaway to customers and employees.

Hire a designer.

Find creatives to outsource the design to using networks like The Creative Finder, Crowdspring, Etsy Graphic Designers, and 99designs. Or ask a friend for a referral.

Draw inspiration from t-shirt communities.

Check out t-shirt communities like Threadless and Design by Humans to see what popular trends are and what people find stylistically appealing. Nothing gets your brain jogging like seeing the best of the best.

Get down with typography.

Want to create the design yourself but not so sure about your design-chops? Keep it simple: text is your friend. Don’t underestimate the power of some well placed words. You can add some zest with colors and free fonts you can download on the amazing world wide web. You can also use clip art services (like Istockphoto) to get simple figures to use, just be sure to check the terms of service.Seeking more design ideas? Head here. And be sure to shy away from these common mistakes. Then check out our image requirements and get the ball rollin!