If you are thinking of starting a customized t-shirt business or expanding your regular t-shirt business into a customized service one, then t-shirt design software is the first thing you should invest in. It helps your customers to use the editing tools of the designing software to help them design their own t-shirts in any or every way they want. There are several options by which you can integrate the t-shirt designer software into your website or application. You might have searched or heard about many such software, but how can you know if it is the ideal one for your business or it fulfills your business requirements?
By asking questions like- Is it free or paid? Is it for beginners or professionals? What are the features that can help my business, and how? We got you a whole list of the 17 best t-shirt design software with the details of its features and functionalities to help you with selecting the one that fits exactly as per your requirements.
Here this blog covers list of top 17 t-shirt design software to use in 2022 for printing business:
- Brush Your Ideas
- Designhill
- Printful
- Adobe Illustrator
- GraffixPro Studio
- Inkscape
- GIMP
- PlaceIt
- Rush Order Tee
- CorelDraw Graphic Suite
- Fatpaint
- InkXE
- Customily
- Adobe Photoshop
- Snaptee
- Vexels
- Design a Shirt
This software has the trust of 100+ online stores. It is a complete Web-to-Print software solution developed by eCommerce industry experts. This plugin includes a bundle of features like:
- Text and image input
- Clipart Manager
- Customizable Text and Messages
- Quotes
- Object Handling
- Custom Font Manager
- Name & Number
Your customers can create new designs or customize print-ready designs. You can give a huge library of fonts, images, clipart, and readymade templates to help your customers create personalized designs. It allows your customers to create their designs on any and every device as you never know when their creative mind will be active, right? As a business owner, you can integrate this t-shirt design plugin with any of the eCommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, Prestashop, etc.
2. Designhill
Designhill t-shirt maker is a one-stop solution with in-built tools that simplifies the whole customization process. Your customers can add the elements like text, font, color, images, etc., to your t-shirt. They can even drag or drop elements to adjust them and see their effect in real-time. It is easy to use even for non-tech savvy customers.
3. Printful
Printful’s t-shirt design software enables your customers to create high-resolution mockups. They can use it for almost all kinds of clothing like t-shirts, hoodies, etc. After picking a t-shirt style, size, and color, they can upload their own artwork image or create from scratch using the software’s editing tools. It also does not charge your customers for downloading the design.
4. Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator is an extraordinary tool for designing high-quality shirts. The focus of this graphic design software is on vector images. Thus one can easily adjust the size of elements without compromising on the quality of any image.
Also, if you have a print shop and are thinking of screen-printing your design, this illustrator simplifies the process of creating layered and spot-colored files that your print shop requires. One needs to have basic to advanced professional knowledge to use this tool. Thus, Adobe also offers published tutorials with sample files to get the users started.
5. GraffixPro Studio
In comparison to other t-shirt design software solutions, GraffixPro offers a little more. It is a paid tool, and you need to contact its team for a demo. This software has many benefits for someone who runs t-shirt printing businesses and one who wants to make t-shirt printing their source of living.
It has over 45 fonts, more than 350 images, and various t-shirt templates. It is easy-to-use even for beginners. It has different features to offer through which your customers can create or add shadows, add different alignments, etc. They can either use their own artwork or the provided library for readymade designs. Besides, this software has other features like quote generator, barcoding, and inventory management.
6. Inkscape
If you are searching for powerful and flexible free t-shirt design software, then you must have a look at Inkscape. It is an open-source vector-based design tool that includes the same features as Adobe Illustrator but for free. Although there are not any specific t-shirt templates or tutorials available with Inkscape, you can leverage other users’ designs or files that are free to its community.
This t-shirt design software is available for Linux, Windows, and macOS operating systems. It allows you to turn an existing bitmap image into vector images by its tracing function. It allows your customers to scale up and scale down any image in size as per the requirement for the design. Additionally, it also exports it in a suitable format for screen-printing. It provides image formats like .jpg and .png.
7. GIMP
GIMP is an open-source graphics editing software. It is a professional substitute for Photoshop. This requires you to put in some effort to get familiar with other high-end t-shirt design software.
It provides free tutorials and YouTube videos to get started. It even has paid courses focusing on improving the skills and helping one to create incredible designs that one can export in a suitable printing format. This software is available for Linux, Windows, and macOS. It boasts a variety of editing and layout options.
8. PlaceIt
This software is useful for both newbie and professional designers to create graphic mockups for t-shirts, custom sweatshirts, etc. Working with this software is easy. It has hundreds of templates to get started. It does not have a library of thousands of clipart images, but it has a curated selection for each segment of the template. You can also customize colors, fonts, backgrounds, etc.
Whatever changes you do to your design are reflected in the mockups in real-time. If one clicks on modeled images, it yields a larger version and provides them with many similar options to choose from. It even lets you upload existing artwork. Later on, you can download any designs and mockups for a nominal charge or can take its monthly subscription for using its feature unlimited for a month.
9. Rush Order Tee
Using this software for custom t-shirt creation is a breeze. It provides varieties of customization options which are easy to use. The software has various shirt colors, styles, etc., to choose from. It has a huge library of over 50,000 clipart images that ensures your customers get great graphics for your t-shirt design. In case they have something special in mind, the software lets them upload their own design as well. There are live chats and suggestions available to help your customers with everything they need.
10. CorelDraw Graphic Suite
It is one of the popular software solutions ideal for t-shirt design. It has a 15-day free trial. After which, you can buy it outright or opt for its annual subscription. It creates vector graphics that allows your customers to work with other formats.
Hence, it does not restrict the flexibility quotient. Its vast library has over 1,000 high-resolution images, 7,000 clipart images, 150 ready-to-design templates, 600 fountains, 1,000 typefaces, vector files, and bitmap. The full-image editing software enables your customers to add text, graphics, and different images. It even offers tutorials that can help to solve all your customer queries.
11. Fatpaint
This t-shirt design software is ‘free’ to use. The most significant benefit of this designer software is that one does not need to download or install it. All one needs to do is to log in and start creating your art pieces. However, you will need Adobe Flash to use this plugin. Even if it is free, it packs some extra features like — more than 900 typefaces, vector clip arts, 3D templates. This t-shirt design software makes it easy to create 3D graphics and images that make your shirts pop.
12. InkXE
InkXE is a web-to-print software that you can use across all web-browsers and devices. Its user-friendly interface offers many features. Business owners and professional graphic designers can use this t-shirt design software to their advantage. It also supports almost all printing methods, like sublimation, DTG print, and more. It allows users to upload their favorite pictures from their devices and even from social media sites in any format.
The software also checks the resolution of the image on its own. The filters and masks added in this software allow one to modify or remove colors from their design in real-time. One can convert the images to vectorize or grayscale them easily. There are more than 10,000 free clipart besides t-shirt design templates and shapes. Using this tool, one can use these elements or even create their own template, shape, or clipart. Additionally, the t-shirt design software has pre-installed background patterns in it.
13. Customily
This software allows your customers to make their own designs by using helpful tools like various templates, colors, fonts, and other elements. Its easy-to-use functionality makes it more customer-friendly. Customily allows easy integration of your Shopify, Magento, and Bigcommerce store.
It is useful if you plan to market your products through these platforms. Customers can create their t-shirt design, after which it generates a file. Customers can send the file directly to your company without any hassles. Easy exchange of designs through the Web helps in bringing the cost down.
14. Adobe Photoshop
This software is also a part of Adobe Suite, but is not a vector application and also has different usage. This allows your customers to add unique effects and have high-quality output.
This is not a vector application which means that the designs your customers create would not be suitable for screen printing. But those images can be suitable for DTG printing.
15. Snaptee
While most t-shirt design software works best for only desktop or laptop, Snaptee works wonderfully for mobile because it has been designed specifically for mobile phones. This software lets you pick from an uploaded gallery of designs. You can even choose from designs that users have uploaded and then use them in the way you want. After choosing the design, one can proceed with picking their style and basic layout for the t-shirt. Then you can use the existing graphic elements or can even upload your own design from various sources.
Its interface takes only a couple of minutes to adapt. It is easy to adapt and use for simple to detailed designs. This software provides different colors, fonts, and other elements to create incredible artwork. Once your customers are satisfied with the result, they can send the design to Snaptee for printing their custom t-shirts. It also gives easy payment gateways like credit card, Apple Pay and PayPal payment.
16. Vexels
This software serves as a smooth and beginner-friendly tool for all your customer’s designing needs.
With Vexels, your customers can get a massive collection of graphics and templates that they can use to design their own custom t-shirts.
From this software, your customers can easily find icons, graphics, artwork. Pre-made templates, fonts, change colors and even upload their own designs. They can have access to over 70,000 high-quality graphics and templates. This software also comes with commerce licenses for selling your products on POD platforms.
17. Design a Shirt
It is a free t-shirt builder that is built into a website allowing your customers to order t-shirts. The inbuilt tools allow you to add images and text on all various colors and styles of shirts.
The best feature of this software is the Idea Gallery, that includes some basic templates to help your customers start designing a t-shirt. They can see the design coming together instantly while designing. Infact, they can even change the shirt color or style and see the designs on that.
Wrapping Up
Now that you have a whole list of the 17 best t-shirt design software, I hope you will be able to verify the desired requirements before choosing the software. You can even opt for live demos or request personalized demos to understand how software can benefit your business and how it can fulfill your business requirements. Quantity, quality, price, support, features, and functionality are the main factors to focus on before finalizing your choice.
Also, make sure the tool you choose is user-friendly because you might also have non-tech savvy customers. So, an ideal t-shirt designer software should have advanced features with easy to use functionalities.
Source: https://medium.com/@pratik_5546/top-17-t-shirt-design-software-b7047caade55