How to Create Simple Effective T-Shirt Designs and Make Money on Zazzle and Cafepress

Do you consider yourself artistically challenged? Do you say 'I can't draw?"

I was never good at Art or Drawing at School, I could draw a house with four windows and a coil of smoke coming out of the chimney and a nice front door, but that was about it.

Now I have the added problem of not being able to see color very clearly and only seeing strong thick black lines with my nose pressed against my 21 inch monitor.

That is not the best place to start becoming a t-shirt designer.

But I decided to try to sell some designs and it has been somewhat successful.

So even if I can do it maybe you can too!

Both the designs you see on this page were created with Microsoft Paint, being a simple art creation tool it is limited but if you want cheap and cheerful you can't beat FREE with your Windows O/S.

For the best results you can if you find you need it buy a program such as Corel Draw. Such packages allow for saving with invisible backgrounds. Paint doesn't allow this so you must either modify your design for colored shirts or accept that it will be printed with a white background.

The drawing at the top was created using some of the circle and line tools on the Paint program.

I named the German Shepherd Cartoon character Polly after my pet GSD. The dog in my profile picture.

I had tried to draw "Polly" freehand on a piece of paperusing a heavy Sharpie (permanent) marker. It was ok but the paint version was better.

You can draw freehand on a piece of paper if you like and make the picture just larger than you require, scan your drawing at the highest possible resolution and save it in JPG or JPEG format. That works for me too.

The second design was created using the line drawing and fill facillities on paint.

I followed some examples of the work of Piet Mondrian who is famous for his line and colored blocks art work. Borrow a book on modern art from your library for inspiration. There are many areas where modern art requires little ability to represent the world in photographic detail, but you can create individual artwork and design that is full of color and interesting patterns.

Mondrian was my first choice to try, but I will add more later.

Keep the design as simple as you can though. Too many small details get lost in the T-shirt printing process. Make images, patterns and colors bold and don't be afraid to use bold color combinations. But don't over use color. It can look like n explosion in a paint factory. Mind you if you like Jackson-Pollock then that is what you might want.

When you are happy with your design. Save it to your computer as a JPG or JPEG or PNG file.

These are more easily uploaded to Cafepress.com for you to create your products.

One way to vary a design is to simply flip it. I used this technique to add variation to my "Polly" design. Some images then face left others face right. All done at the click of the mouse. Two designs in one. Of course you can flip the Mondrian type of design four times through 90 degrees so giving more variety.

T-shirt design is fun. I decided to try it just to see what might happen and I have had agood time designing and coming up with styles.

I have sold several shirtd so making a few dollars in income. I have also been able to expand my own t-shirt collection in my wardrobe with some good quality products.

It can also provide you with some publicity. You can become your own walking advertisement for your hubs or blogs. Just include your URL and you may find people looking you up online.

I would recommend Cafepress in particular. Their shirts are good quality and the printing is excellent.