Newbie with a Question

[SmittyDG]

Hello All:

I have a full time job that I don't want to quit. When I went to college I joined a fraternity and I believe that I have some good ideas of things that would sale on tshirts.

I have no experience in design so I'm thinking about purchasing Adobe CS3 and trying to figure out how to operate the software.

My question is: What would be the best way for me to learn? I want to do this on the side. Please give me some responses on what you all think I should do. Are there any classes that just teach the basics. I don't want to get a degree just learn the basics.

Thanks,

Smitty

[budafist]

If you are only interested in designing t-shirts, then you won't need the whole Adobe CS2 suite. You can get away with just Adobe Illustrator. Are you artistic and/or computer literate? If you are, it will be a lot of hard work and a learning curve so you need to be motivated to put in the hours.

If you are not artistic and/or computer literate then you should hire someone to execute your ideas for you. It will probably save you time and money.

Just bear in mind that most t-shirt companies are not huge money makers. There are a few out there but there are more people in your position that barely break even.

[SmittyDG]

I'm barely artistic but I am computer literate. I'm not trying to start a company or anything like that. I just want to create a tshirt when a idea comes to mind.

I just figured that if I could do it myself I could play around with my ideas. Don't want to have a idea and then tell someone and it doesn't come out like I figured it would. Then I would still be stuck having to pay them.

[Ben Kessler]

Smitty,

Check out this tutorial that is perfect for a T-shirt designer just starting out:

http://learning.graphics.com/eLearning/Video/37724

[Drawing a Blank]

Welcome.
Before you dive into buying expensive computer software and devote many, many hours to learning the basics maybe you should start with a good old standby, paper and pencil. If you have troubles creating it on a piece of paper then you will probably have problems on a computer as well. I'm sure if you look on the internet you will find several resources concerning illustration.

Good luck.

[Virgo Nightingale]

Welcome aboard Smitty.

To purchase Adobe CS3 will set you back at least $400, but that's with the student discount (about $900). I don't know how rich you are, but that's quite a lot of dough to drop on software for a hobby. Might be more cost effective to bring your idea(s) to a t-shirt designer and have them design and print in one shot.

[Two-Toe Tom]

welcome to the forum smittydg! :)

[Red Kittie Kat]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/RedKittieKat/smilies/bug.gif

Welcome Aboard :)

[morea]

Welcome to GDF. :)

In additional to what has already been mentioned, be sure to learn about resolution and printing... the fact that a graphic that looks good on screen does not mean that it is going to print well. If you're planning to sell the shirts, be sure to look into copyright, too... one thing that many inexperienced designers don't realize is that images found via google search are *not* free for the taking, and unauthorized use can land you in quite a lot of hot water.

There's some helpful information in the "Resources" forum that you might want to check out.

[SmittyDG]

Thanks for all the advice.