How to get an awesome design for your tshirts

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.

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

Check out our image requirements and get the ball rollin on your design!