8 Best T-Shirt Design Software Tools

Designing your own t-shirt may be a challenge but now there is an abundant amount of software to help your design the best t-shirts ever. There are softwares for beginners and experienced alike.

A vast range of t-shirt design software options makes designing shirts easier and each software guarantees great results. Some t-shirt design options may even come with printing options while others focus more on rendering designs.

I will give a handful list of t-shirt design software tools ranging from high-end design tools for professionals and free t-shirt design software for beginners and software designs for online services. Below is list of 8 of the best t-shirt design softwares out there.

Designhill T-Shirt Maker

If you need help creating a custom made t-shirt well Designhill t-shirt maker is a great option. It has an in-built tool that simplifies the process for you and is easy to use. You can change the color, font, and placement. You can also add custom logos, drag and drop elements, and add images. Designhill t-shirt maker is a great option for beginners.

Printiful

Printiful is ideal for free mockups. Printiful allows you to create high resolution mockups and it doesn’t charge you a dime for downloading the designs. Printiful can be used to customize on hoodies, accessories and more. Once you pick your t-shirt colors and style, you can either upload your own artwork or create from scratch using the softwares clipart options and fonts.

This software has limits on the front and back designs of long sleeves, 3/4 sleeve t-shirts, and regular t-shirts. Printiful also allows you to add text to the outside of the sleeves. Once you have created your design, you can then send it for printing or download the files.

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe illustrator is for professionals so it is not recommended to use Adobe’s high end graphic software to create basic t-shirt designs. Illustrator uses vector images to create graphic designs. Illustrator allows you to scale up or down a size of a text or logo without messing up the quality of the image.

The design will look great on a t-shirt, billboard, business card, or any other material. If you want to screen print your design then illustrator will simplify the process of creating layered, spot colored files that you need. Illustrator is a learning curve just like other softwares used by professionals. Adobe offers tutorials with sample files to help get the users started and familiar with the software. It also offers templates that you can directly import into the software.

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is part of Adobe suite. This software differs from Illustrator as it is not a vector based software and has a different usage. This software allows you to edit high quality images and designs, and create unique effects. Any designs you create will not be suitable for screen printing but can be suitable for DTG printing.

GraffixPro Studio

GraffixPro studio is another great option for designing t-shirts. GraffixPro is a paid version and you would need to contact the team to get the demo. This software has a lot of advantages for people that run a t-shirt business and designed for those that want to make a living printing t-shirts.

GraffixPro has more than 350 images, over 45 fonts, and a plentifu amount of t-shirt templates. This software is also easy to use and perfect for beginners. GraffixPro has features to add shadows and create a distressed look. You can use your own artwork or use some ready made templates this software offers. This software also has other features like quote generator, inventory management, and barcoding.

InkScape

InkScape is free to use and is a powerful and flexible t-shirt design software. It is an open source vector based design tool that has the same features as illustrator but absolutely free. However, InkScape does not offer specific t-shirt templates or tutorials, but you can still use other people’s designs and files that are open to the community.

Once you have learned to use this software, it will be easy to apply your design and expertise to make attractive t-shirts. This software is available for macOS, Windows, and Linex operating systems. InkScape allows you to turn your bitmap image into vector images by using a tracing element. It also allows you to scale up and down an image and export it in a suitable format for screen printing and provides image formats such as .png and .jpg.

GIMP

GIMP is an affordable alternative and a professional substitute for photoshop. It is an open source graphics editing software that has been around for years. GIMP is an excellent tool and a must try. However, you will need to put in some effort as this software is also a learning curve like other professional t-shirt design tools.

GIMP offers YouTube and free tutorials to help you get started as well as paid courses to improve your skills and help you create the best designs to export in a suitable printing format. This software is available for Linex, macOS, and windows and has a variety of editing and layout options.

Placeit

Placeit is perfect for mockups and suitable for beginners and professionals to create realistic mockups for custom t-shirts, sweatshirts, etc. Placeit is one of the best software design t-shirt tools out there and is easy to use as there are hundreds of templates to choose from. However, it does not have a huge library of clip art images but has a curated selection that focuses on each segment of the templates. This approach is not for everybody but it speeds up the design process and will lead to better designs. Moreover, you can customize fonts, colors, and backgrounds.

Any changes you make in your design is reflected in the mockup in real time. If you click on modeled images, you will get a larger version of the image and you will have many options to choose from. This software allows you to upload any existing artwork. You can also download any designs and mockups for a charge or through a monthly subscription.

Simplify Your Life & Create Awesome Designs

There are plenty of options out there for designing your own t-shirts or starting a customized t-shirt business. Get creative and start designing the best t-shirt designs and mockups. These 8 best software tools can you get started and into the right path on simplifying your designs and running your business smoothly.