The same is true for T-shirt designs; anything amazing starts with only a "concept." You need T-shirt ideas before you can just create a design. Every T-Shirt design begins with an idea, whether you're a brand or an independent businessperson. Any abstract T-shirt ideas or concepts are made explicit through the design. It is imperative to consistently produce new designs and continue honing one's craft if one wants to advance as an illustrator, designer, or artist. Visit this link if you want more information on T-shirt design: https://smbelal.com/generate-your-own-t-shirt-ideas-its-easy/

1. How to come up
with good T-Shirt
Ideas
Ideas that don’t suck

2. Table of contents
02
01
03
04
Getting Started
Becoming an effective t-shirt idea machine
Some practical tips on becoming the T-Shirt Idea Generating Machine
Conclusion

3. 1. Getting
Started
1.Getting
Started

4. Every T-Shirt design starts as an idea.
And it doesn’t matter if you’re an independent artist trying to make
sales on Redbubble, or a brand owner sending Facebook traffic to a
Shopify store, or an Instagram ‘influencer’ selling Merch to your
million+ followers – we all need ideas.
The better your t-shirt ideas are, the better your T-Shirt designs will be
and the more sales you’ll make

5. ▪ T-Shirt Ideas are intangible – they are concepts, or ‘briefs’, that
could be articulated in a few words, or in a simple sketch.
▪ T-Shirt Designs (on the other hand) are finished, print-ready
artwork (PSDs, Ai files or PNGs).
▪ T-Shirt Ideas come first, design comes second.
Design is the act of taking an existing idea and turning it into something
‘real’ and visible.
…and just like a T-Shirt design can be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ (eg. poor
illustration or bad font choice) – a T-Shirt idea could also be bad (eg.
poor phrasing or no appeal to buyers).
Difference between T-Shirt Ideas & T-Shirt Designs

6. As the world gets smaller, and the cost of decent design and
illustration work comes down– it is often your
T-Shirt ideas that will set you apart.
Better T-Shirt ideas will give you a stronger connection with your
potential customers .To put it another way – an average
T-Shirt design can still be successful if the idea behind it is strong.
But even tip-top design work won’t help a T-Shirt IDEA that
is terrible.

7. Don’t trust your subconscious when generating T-Shirt Ideas
Sometimes great ideas will just pop into your brain . That may happen pretty
regularly, and it’s great. However, in order to improve as artists, designers or
illustrators – and in order to maintain or increase our sales and our income, we
should be continually creating new designs.
And that means having a lot of ideas (from which we create new designs).
More T-Shirt ideas = more designs = more sales.
Better T-Shirt ideas = better designs = better sales

8. But how do we come up with better T-Shirt ideas – if we can’t rely on a steady
stream of them from our subconscious or semi-conscious brains?
Well I believe it is actually possible to generate original ideas ‘on demand’ –
so that you always have a healthy ‘pipeline’ of potential ideas.
(and not just any old ideas – but really good ones – ideas that turn into designs that
are much more likely to sell).

9. 2. Becoming an
effective T-Shirt
idea machine

10. There are a few key principles to mastering ‘on-demand’ T-Shirt idea generation
– and they include:
• intentionally trying to come up with new ideas (not just leaving it to your
subconscious)
• developing systems to store new ideas, research those ideas,
and develop those ideas
• understanding that there are different ‘types‘ of T-Shirt designs – and
understanding why, when and where they work
If you put those fundamentals to work, I think you’ll be surprised how
many great T-Shirt ideas you can come up with, on-demand.

11. 3. Tips on becoming
the T-Shirt Idea
Generating Machine

12. I want to give you some practical tips and advice to help you become the
T-Shirt Idea Generating Machine that you need to be.
#1 Save your idea:
• Use Evernote (or a similar, simple note-taking app) to save ideas,
whenever and wherever they strike.
• Set aside time each week (or even daily) to open up Evernote and ‘revisit’ your ideas. Try to
evaluate each one – using Google to help you discover if (a) this idea has been done
before, (b) if there’s any kind of existing market for such and idea, and (c) to figure out the
best way to ‘render’ this design.
• Once you’ve been saving ideas into your note-taking app for a while, try occasionally
taking a break from scrolling Facebook or Twitter (!), and instead scroll back
through your old ideas.

13. #2 Build Your Own Personal T-Shirt Ideas ‘Swipe File’ Or ‘Cheat Sheet’:
• Whenever you see a T-Shirt design that you like – save an image of it to a folder
on your desktop, or a Google drive folder or something like that.
• After a few weeks (or once you have, say 20-something images saved) – open
your folder and start analysing, categorising and ‘reverse engineering’ these
designs.
• After a while you should begin to spot patterns in these designs, and you can
begin making a list of T-Shirt ‘idea’ categories. Then the next time you have a
topic, trend or subject you want to create designs for – you can open up your
list, and start running through it to generate new ideas.

14. #3 Become A Pun Connoisseur:
• Take note of any puns you see. These could be in memes, in TV adverts, magazines, movie
scripts, marketing emails, on twitter – wherever. Try to analyze what makes these puns
work – and then come up with your own puns based on the same subject.
• Like the ‘Cheat Sheet’ idea above – begin building out a list of popular T-Shirt
‘sayings’ (like “Death Before Decaf” or “World’s Best Dad”) – and begin categorising
those. Over time you’ll have a list of text-based ideas you can re-engineer and adapt to any
trend, topic or subject you throw at them.

15. Earl Nightingale
“Everything begins
with an idea."

16. Wrapping up!
If you practice the techniques above – you’ll begin to develop those
systems (and skills) that will help you come up with original, funny T-Shirt
design ideas whenever you need them.
Ok – that’s all I got on this one – so until next time – Happy Idea Generating!

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Watching!
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