Hey everybody, it's Wes from Printful.
I'm here with Hannah from our design services team.
We're going to talk about some design trends.
So Hannah, with the holiday season fast approaching
I wanted to talk to you about different trends that you see going on in the design world.
It might be really useful to our customers to try and do things like it,
in order to boost their sales for the holiday season.
One of the first trends that we've been seeing is hand-drawn illustration.
That's actually something that isn't so much of a trend,
but it's just something that you'll see is very popular.
When it really comes down to a good design, it's a good design.
What's the first image you have to show us?
This is one of the images that I found and I thought it was a very good example.
It's mainly linework and solid color.
The color scheme is very minimal.
The shapes of the characters are very distinct almost geometric, but with a slight curve in them.
It has a very playful feel in it.
This is all hand-drawn stuff?
It's drawn by hand through a digital program.
So what's the next trend that you see going on out there?
One of the other trends that we've been seeing
is this sort of double exposure effect.
This is actually a good example of that.
You can see that the scenery of the mountain range is within the silhouette.
It would more likely be suitable for a canvas or like a cut and sew sublimation type of print,
because of the background and all the details.
This actually would not be suitable for DTG (Direct to Garment),
because of the semi-transparent areas around.
One of the other design trends that we've been seeing is
text-related graphics and typography design.
You can never go wrong with graphic typography.
It's visually appealing. It catches the eye.
If you use minimal colors with a lot of contrast, they'll definitely pop.
This is a really good example of that, but also in the form of a detailed logo.
I also use this one, because there are many cases
where we get type designs that were specifically created for DTG print,
but then the request is that we make it suitable for embroidery.
Sometimes there are a lot of adjustments that have to be made.
The specifications and guidelines for embroidery
are just completely different from DTG,
and there are many measurements that you have to take into consideration.
For something like this,
although it is a highly detailed typographic design,
it's something that would not be impossible.
You would have to take out all the circular elements around the text:
the black outline,
the orange outline,
the yellow outline.
You would have to take out that solid color behind all the text.
As for the little, detailed lines that are written around the text,
you would have to completely make that into the same blue as the rest of the text.
Any other details like these little cuts, where the "F" and the "Y" are,
that show there's a sort of shadow and depth,
you would have to completely fill them in with color as well.
You would then adjust the thickness of each of the letters,
to make sure that it's suitable, and spacing as well.
This is an example of typography and image put together.
I brought this in more so because of the texture that you see over the text and the image.
We have gotten some requests before from clients,
who have asked about having a sort of texture placed over their design.
In the case of something like this,
you can see that some of that text looks like it fades into nothing.
When that happens, most of the time that means that there are semi-transparent elements in the design,
and that's actually something that would be unsuitable for print.
There is a way to make all of this graphic completely solid and still have that sort of texture in it.
Be aware, that when you're creating graphics for print and specifically for DTG print,
avoid trying to fade your graphic into the shirt.
Thank you for showing us those images, they're really cool.
What are some common mistakes that people make and how can they be avoided?
One of them would be the file format.
When it comes to the files that we accept for print, we accept PNG and EPS vector files.
We've received many different types of files, from a layered Photoshop file to a GIF.
For the most part, we would recommend that all of our clients submit PNG or EPS files.
One of the other things would be to make sure that
the dimensions of your graphic are accurate
to the product that you plan on creating.
This is all something that we provide on our Printful website.
You would have to select the precise product that you plan on creating
and then select the "print file guidelines" tab, where it has all the information.
It has the exact dimension information and even free-to-download templates
that you can use in Photoshop or Illustrator,
or any other program you're using, in order to create your graphics.
For the most part, they are in 150 DPI and that's the minimum of what we accept.
Another common mistake that we find is that we receive PNG files with a completely solid background.
That's supposed to be the glory of the PNG file,
you can save a PNG within Photoshop or even in Illustrator, without the background.
You mentioned Photoshop and Illustrator
that might be a little overwhelming for some people
that are trying to work with creating their own designs.
What are the basic, simple things that someone might be able to do
if they're trying to create a nice graphic to put up for the holiday season, to try and sell?
One easy way would be to actually,
create your graphics through our mockup and print file generator.
We have some really cool holiday-themed emojis
along with some ugly holiday sweater graphics as well.
You can use that if you want to create graphics of your own
on your shirt, sweater and hoodie products.
All that's good to go,
and if you want to make something real quick, you can do that there.
Absolutely, it meets all our guidelines.
You're also on our design services team that can be commissioned to create custom designs for people.
How can someone get in touch with you and the rest of the team?
Easy!
You can visit the Printful website,
click on the Resources tab and select Services we're there under Design.
What can you guys do? Everything?
Everything!
And with that, I say it with all caps, typography design.
We really do everything.
Web design, DTG graphics, any graphics that you would need for any of the products
that we provide on our Printful website.
We also do graphics for any other products that you are planning on getting created in other companies,
that we don't actually offer.
As long as you have the exact design templates for them,
you can send them to us and we can create your graphics for you.
Hey Wes, is it worth it to reuse old designs that sold well?
Like something that was a big hit for you last year or last season?
Why not, if it was popular you can always bring it back.
We just launched Champion hoodies, a brand new product we didn't have last year.
If it was a really popular design,
maybe that product got worn out since last year, and the customer wants a new one.
Now it's on a new product so it might help you make more sales that way.
You can also do limited runs.
Stuff like that adds a sense of urgency to your product.
It gives people a reason to purchase it in a specific time frame
that always helps with your sales in general.
If you had a really popular summer design that was on a t-shirt,
slap it on a sweatshirt, if it's embroidery, put it on a beanie.
It helps your store look fresh as you're transitioning with the seasons as they come up.
That's a good point.
Give the customers what they want.
Hannah, thank you so much for sitting down with us
and talking about all this design stuff.
Again, if you need any help from Hannah and the design team
you can reach out to them through the Resources tab on our website.
Resources > Services > Design
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Hey there, it's Wes from Printful!
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