hey what's up guys in today's video we
are talking about print on demand design
and specifically focusing on some common
pitfalls to avoid when using the app
Kittle okay
not all designs are created equal and
one thing I love about Kittle they
actually make it really easy to make
some super high quality designs like the
one you see in this thumbnail but
there's also a couple things we need to
make sure uh let's call them best
practices that we adhere to and equally
I guess for every best practice there's
the inverse of that and there's things
that are easy to get wrong that I'm just
going to remind you really quickly in
this video of using Kittle and hope that
that results in all of us creating
better print on demand designs so let's
get right to it
foreign
real quick reminder check out the
description I've got a link to where you
can sign up for Kittle for free I've
also got a link to my eight day print on
demand mini course that's completely
free help you get started with your
print on demand business and I've got a
great print-on-demand Facebook group
that I hope you'll check out all right
let's jump on over to Kittle all right
Kittle users and people who aren't kiddo
users by the way again the link in the
description will sign you up for free so
I recommend using it
if you just go to Kittle and log in and
you scroll one thing you'll notice is
that there are a bunch of professional
quality design templates
pre-built that you can click like for
instance if I want to do something
looking
um what do we call this like kind of
ornate
right like I'd say it's pretty ornate
template I can just click use this
design and then instantly I can go and I
can customize it right very easy to do
um Victoria Inc well what if I want to
change that to Ryan Inc
right I have complete control over how
it looks what it says
Etc so the first thing I wanted to
mention is that if you're not a good
designer or you're lacking ideas or
lacking creative uh inspiration
go to the home page and just scroll all
right they even have uh them sectioned
off by product type so I love designing
t-shirts for instance I can just click
t-shirts there at the top and I'm only
going to see
um templates optimized for t-shirts for
instance look at this uh Christmas
sweater template that you can pretty
easily go swap in and out different
graphics and make great
um Christmas sweater temp or designs
right so that's just one quick I just
wanted to start there but that's not
going to get you perfect designs every
single time right away uh you guys that
watch my Redbubble Shop reviews and Etsy
Shop reviews I don't just talk about
Redbubble and Etsy I also talk about
design I always like to critique designs
because I think over time if we can get
better and better and better and
obviously keep you know improving our
process keep studying what's popular
because also it's like chasing a moving
Target
um we're gonna you know be better off in
the long run with our business uh one
thing that I see commonly okay and I
queued up this template ahead of time
because I wanted to tell you guys
what to avoid in this case is and this
is a simple concept here all right I
didn't mean to grab that over this top
layer I meant to grab kind of this all
right never mind what I really want to
illustrate here is just this this
element right here you see how it is
sitting in the middle of the canvas
right the hard craft the you know dark
object behind the foreground with the
text Etc
it is sitting vertically in the middle
of the canvas now while that may make
sense right now while we're designing in
Kittle
if we throw this on a t-shirt in
Redbubble it's going to be sitting in
the middle of the shirt and this is one
of like my pet peeves when I'm doing
Redbubble Shop reviews every single week
I'm like okay I'm gonna find it at least
once and I do every time
I always say vertically
Orient your vertical orientation you
want to vertically Orient your graphics
towards the top of the canvas if it's a
t-shirt right so optimize your graphics
for the product you're selling them on
if it's a t-shirt don't leave objects
floating in the middle of the page
push them up okay and one thing you
could do honestly is like you could
either
um like move everything in Kittle right
and you can multi-select different
layers by holding control and clicking
other things
um
for instance like you might have to just
I didn't plan on actually doing it in
this video but I'm just giving you guys
a quick idea of how you could go about
doing this
um you know you'd obviously want to
spend a little bit more time to make
sure it all lines up properly than what
I just did but you see now vertically
oriented towards the top this is how you
achieve success as a print-on-demand
seller by putting in the extra 10
seconds of work also when you download I
mean you could have also just not moved
it in Kindle and just remove the
background when you downloaded download
is PNG and then go um just move it up in
a different application if you wanted to
but obviously moving it in Kittle was
took 10 seconds
um the next thing that I wanted to
mention
is that
your color palette matters
I always design with a specific product
color in mind right because we know you
if you subscribe to my channel you know
the importance of getting clicked in
search results it's not easy right
because you may have like an incredible
design an incredible product but you may
be sitting next to 10 other sellers who
have just as good a design and just as
good a product ultimately the customer
is going to make a decision right and
you may have done nothing wrong
and you may still not get that sale it
is what it is right
that being said I think you can increase
the likelihood of getting clicked and
remember a click leads to an add to cart
leads to a checkout leads to a
conversion leads to a sale leads to you
getting money in your bank account right
how do we optimize for that first step
The Click
making that thumbnail as good as
possible making that product as good as
possible I designed with a product color
in mind so in this case in this template
this is I think safe to say if not
exactly a monochrome template it's close
to being a monochrome monochrome
template it's like that you have one
color and then different Hues of that
color in this case red
if you're gonna go this route
um
you know I don't know this I personally
like I don't like going this route I
like to typically let my foreground
design color contrast uh be like
optimized to pop you know it's called
complementary colors you can look it up
um in Google and whatnot complementary
colors are colors that when next to each
other
uh tend to like highlight the or like
emphasize
um the other color okay
so in this case I would not be a fan of
like a monochrome color like if I'm
going to sell this design I'd probably
be looking to sell it maybe on like a
white T-shirt and you see what I did
there I just clicked into the background
in Kittle click into the background
color and you can do like a color slider
here too and get a feel for what t-shirt
this is going to look good against so
for instance I think the black looks
terrible
I don't think that looks good at all but
the white for a white T-shirt this may
look amazing so what I wanted to share
about this one is uh if you're selling
like a red design on a red shirt it's
not that it doesn't look good it's just
that is it as good as it could possibly
be when we're considering the fact that
like we need to stand out in search
results and one way of doing that is
using good color contrast like
I think you know if we optimize for
complementary colors foreground versus
background we're going to be in better
shape okay so in Kittle again you can
easily by the way you can also adjust
the color of the objects themselves keep
that in mind I mean Kittle's super cool
how they did this like you can make this
guy blue if you want so
so forget like you don't necessarily
have to change the color of the product
you can change the color of the design
as well even these these pre-made design
elements
uh this one
I just wanted to mention that like
the font selection matters okay now if
you want some kind of what do we call
this like rustic ornate
um
High Society type font like is that is
that a good description to this font
look at all the squiggles in it right
um then this is probably a good font
that being said guys even if it fits the
niche that you're in the look The feel
if it fits that's great but they also
have to be able to read the font
and most customers don't
slow down their day and spend 10 seconds
looking and squinting at your thumbnail
when you're in search results to figure
out what your script font with all the
squiggles actually says
a lot of people will just scroll right
past it because your competitor you know
to the left to the right down below all
the competitors in search results
they'll probably have a nice you know
font that checks every box like I just
described it except it might be a little
bit easier to read so always keep that
in mind you know what I mean and again
with Kittle you can click in and you can
just there's so many fonts you can keep
scrolling until you find one uh that is
better so for instance I just switched
it to Alex brush so I switched it from
mirosa to a font called Alex brush I'm
not saying you need to do this but I do
think that the Alex brush font uh and I
didn't plan this so fortunately they had
a nice easy to read font
um right there okay I've actually I've
used Alex brush one before too whoops
um but you see what I'm saying like a
quick conversion that I don't think
takes that much away from the design
itself
and I mean is is it still easy to read
no it's not easy to read but when you
use a script font like this it is what
it is like they're just not they're not
as easy to read as like a simple
straightforward all caps bold um font
selection so keep that in mind but
please make sure people can read your
font in this one I just wanted to um
kind of reiterate that if you are a
beginner to design again using templates
is a great option to start with also
symmetry keeping things simple there's
nothing wrong with that okay so there's
some asymmetry in this design template
there's also some overlapping design
elements
I mean unless you have been doing it for
a while I would just recommend staying
away from overlapping design elements
and also just again like stick to
symmetry um not that you can't make a
good design that is asymmetrical but
like for instance like the Santa head
here I I you know maybe make it a little
bit smaller and you know move it a
little bit away further away from the
arced you know clothing code text so
it's a little bit easier to read but
again then Santa's still
um hovering over you know the text right
there so it just gets complicated and
real easy to mess up I think
um like when I see when I'm doing these
reviews and I see
asymmetry and Designs I just think more
times than not it's it's not executed in
a way that is better than the
alternative which is just centering the
text and keeping it simple
um but that I'm not saying you shouldn't
challenge yourself but I'm just saying
that you know as a beginner you don't
need to get too crazy with your approach
to design generally speaking
um if I just delete all these extra
elements or even keep the little star
why not keep the star all right
um so I can select these and just big
bold easy to read text centered uh
nothing crazy going on here
like
I think that looks you know just as good
right I mean it doesn't have Santa on it
and you know gotta have Santa on the
Christmas designs but uh that being said
you know I think the point is just be
careful if you go for the asymmetrical
designs
all right last but not least um this is
just a straight up again kiddle template
that you can use you can customize
um once you
launch the app just go to the homepage
they're all right there uh don't forget
when you export okay when you ready when
you're ready to download up here in the
top right corner
the arrow down button when you click
that there is a remove background option
okay now just because it's checked
doesn't mean it's going to strip the
entire background because there is
actually a background layer but then
also a lot of these templates have like
a grunge pattern effect and so for
instance if all you did was check remove
background this is what you're gonna get
you're you still have the like cracked
ground
um grunge distressed kind of pattern
overlaid on top of it so that's not what
we need for a t-shirt that's gonna print
and not look great you know what I mean
because it's just going to be in the
print area and the rest of the shirt's
going to look
um normal so what I would recommend
doing is Click into that texture right
and it's the top layer in this case and
generally it will be because it's
intended I think to to be used in the
way that I'm going to show you
um right here when I clicked in
it says clip content okay if you check
the clip content box
what it's then going to do is basically
apply that Grunge texture to the design
itself then you can go back up here to
download you can keep remove background
checked and when you download it it's
going to look like this
but it basically did a clipping mask you
know in Photoshop that's what it would
be called uh to the design in the
foreground but did not apply outside of
that foreground design so that is
something that I would recommend not
forgetting to do otherwise it's going to
look super weird
um just did a Redbubble shop review
today where literally like
yeah the background elements like the in
in some of the designs like you could
literally see where the print area
stopped because they didn't strip out
the background so I know it's kind of an
obvious one guys
um but don't forget to do that because
it can make a world of difference it can
go from a design that sells to a design
with a zero percent probability of
selling because it looks ridiculous
um that's pretty much what I wanted to
cover today in this video so I hope you
guys found it useful again the link to
Kittle is right there in the description
you can get started for free so I hope
you guys check that out thanks for
watching please like And subscribe and
I'll see you guys at the next one
thank you