How to design your own t-shirt

Africa Imports take pride in showcasing the wonderful talent that our community has to offer in our quarterly t-shirt design contest. Every quarter, you can submit your t-shirt design which could feature a range of styles. Everything from African heritage and tribal designs to black power t-shirt designs are shared. We love to promote wonderful Afrocentric t-shirts.

If you think you have what it takes to design a fun t-shirt, then why not enter our t-shirt contest that we run every quarter? We select the winner of the contest and feature their t-shirt design among our top selling t-shirts on our website.

If you want to get involved, here are some of our top tips on how to design your own t-shirt.

Start With a Design That You Like or Focus on Your African Heritage

If you’re not quite sure where to start when it comes to picking a design for your t-shirt, you can always pick a t-shirt that you already like the design of, and design something very similar to it and use it for ideas.

Another great place to start is by focusing on your African heritage and choose designs that suit and match your heritage. This could be as simple as what colors you choose to have in your design or could even feature certain tribal designs depending on where your African heritage lays.

Use Simple Shapes and Patterns for Easy Design

When it comes to t-shirt design, you will often find that less is more. It is best to focus on designs made of simple shapes and patterns. One of our winners from our last contest had a very simple design that featured the outline of the continent of Africa and had the words ‘Where Everything Began’ below. This is a very effective design and links back to the designer’s African heritage. African t-shirt designs do not have to be made up of complex patterns to showcase talent.

Experiment With Different Placement Ideas

T-shirts can become very different depending on the placement of the design. There are many places you might choose to place your design, such as the back of the t-shirt or the front. You could also place the design in a small area to the right or left on the chest.

Why not experiment a little and see where your design looks best? Take this African print t-shirt which features a logo on the top left of the t-shirt. It’s simple and looks good.

Choose Bright and Bold Colors for Maximum Impact

You want your t-shirt to stand out, so be sure to consider using bright colors that will make it stand out in a crowd. Africa has a long history of vibrant colors from many different heritages and tribal backgrounds. This wonderful design uses bold colors and tribal designs to bring attention to African heritage.

Keep Your Design Concise and To the Point

As mentioned above, less is more when it comes to Afrocentric t-shirts. Remember to keep your design to the point and ensure whatever message you want to get across is done so in a positive and simplistic way. Take one of our winners from last year’s design, it is straight to the point and displays a clear message.

Use Typography to Create an Interesting Design

You can combine images alongside some typography to make your design extra interesting. You could also just use typography to display some text on a plain t-shirt if you want to go for something a little simpler. Adding typography to your design can help it stand out and works well if the slogan you decide to use coincides with the image design that you are using.

Take this design for an example, which was one of last year’s winners. The t-shirt features an image which has text layered over the top to make it more interesting a draw your attention quicker.

Use Images and Symbols to Add Visual Interest

Almost all our African print t-shirt designs contain images or symbols to help catch some attention. Images and symbols can be big or small and placed anywhere on the t-shirt. A great way to link your t-shirt design back to your African heritage is by using African symbols or images that link back to Africa. This is a great opportunity to add in any tribal symbols or relatable African images.

This design does a wonderful job of using imagery to display a clear message and contains some cool and colorful patterns.

Be Creative and Have Fun

The most important thing to remember when designing your t-shirt is to have fun. You should find enjoyment with getting creative and doing something different. Designing your own t-shirt can be lots of fun because you’re making something that you can wear.

Showcase your artistic talents and even let others have the opportunity to wear your design. Designing your own t-shirt can be a great activity for your family, friends, children and more. African American t-shirts are always in demand, so why not try your skills at designing one?

See Some of Our T-Shirts for Inspiration

We have a large number of African t-shirt designs which feature on the Africa Imports website. You can use these for some inspiration when it comes to choosing how you will design your own t-shirt. You can find a range of different styles and colors to pull inspiration from. Some designs are text only, others use only images, and some use a mixture of both. Each is completely unique and link back to African heritage in one way or another. You can find our winners from recent contests here.

Submit your own t-shirt design over on our website and you could be in with a chance of having your very own design sold on Africa Imports. If you have any queries, we would love to hear from you in the comments below or contact us here.