Can you be more specific?

Are you looking for one so you can create a custom shirt design, or are you looking for one to overlay your shirt designs on as a product image?

For the latter, searching for "shirt template" on Google Images will turn up quite a few (including free ones).

But if you're looking for some kind of design template, that might need to be specific to the shirts you're going to print on. Even t-shirts have varying dimensions. Though usually, you can just measure out how big you want it on your shirt, then just create the design based on those dimensions without a template.

This says it all

"...or are you looking for one to overlay your shirt designs on as a product image?"

Thank you; I will check out your link.

If you want nice product images, I would recommend getting a shirt display thingy (that's the technical term). They're sorta like headless/armless torsos, and I think they're made of transparent plastic usually. Then you just put your printed t-shirt on the display, set up a cheap DIY lightbox, and you can have very clean and professional-looking product images. This is what the result looks like:


I don't know where they sell them, but you might be able to get some used ones that retailer stores are throwing out. They're also used at t-shirt booths at swap meets, conventions, music festivals, etc.

Alternatively, you could always have two of your hot friends model them for you. If you don't have hot friends, then you could just hire a model for an afternoon to shoot the photos.

But if you decide to stick with graphic t-shirt templates, then perhaps post any free ones you come across on here. I'm sure others will find it helpful, since this is actually a pretty common need.

thank you not sure if your talking about mannequinn's but if so i already have two of them; I looked through Google yesterday and there were plenty shirt templates just as you suggested and they are great!

My main graphic artist has given me some really amazing realistic looking Tees already...I really need a female hoodie the one we use has a zipper and as we already know that can be a problem in printing...so with helping my interns I'm also looking for myself as well...

And as far as asking the models for help...if there not getting paid...forget it. LOL!

I did not know this was a great concern I will ask my G.A. if it is okay for me to share his templates here...they're really good but I don't want to disrespect his work if it has taken him time acquire these images...so i will ask and see..what can it hurt??

Ah, I guess they are just called mannequins. I thought they had a different name, but the ones I'm talking about specifically are not the same as the ones you normally see at stores.

Here's a better image:

See how it looks like there's nothing inside the t-shirt? If you have one of those or know where to get one please let me know.

And, yea, the biggest problem we have finding those merch templates is finding a complete set of them for our product line. Because it may be easy to find good individual templates for t-shirts, or hoodies, or baseball tees, or girlie tees, but they need to also match in design, which they usually don't unless you get them all from one source.

Holly Cow that's nice!!!

Wow, that makes traditional templates seem so "stone ages" I can see why whoever knows where to get them is keeping such information to themself...

Thank I will forward to my graphics guy right now...he's such a wiz at knowing the Ins & Out on how to find stuff...let's keep our fingers crossed on this one.

By the way is it possible for me to get a email address so we can talk a bit further off post? Maybe we can swap templates, etc...mine you can change the background colors...but i know what you mean when you say sometimes you have a really cool design but sometimes its very difficult to match a tee color with the design itself...I have learned that first hand, can we say, "black" please...

You've got my juices flow'n I must find these!!! Everythought about asking for help via FB or twitter??

The shirt is shot on a foam bust form with the neck area carved out. Then some good ole photo shop touching up to make it look hollow/3D.

Oh yeah I am referring to the "Vogue" tee.

If you look on the right side of the neck/collar its looking a little photoshopped. A few companies I have worked with also do this. You can also use a regular bust form with a neck. Just make sure to photo graph the back collar area so you can go back in a photoshop in the back collar.

If you are unable to photograph spec samples (printed products) You can grab images of most brands of clothing from clothing distributors like Alpha (alphashirt.com). Bodek and Rhodes, and SanMar. Then just photoshop away

great leads

yes, thank you I am already with alphashirt...who isn't these days?

But excited to learn all the new ones...are they all .com?

I can't quite tell that it's photoshopped, but that seems like a good technique. The only problem would be with sleeveless shirts and trying to get the shoulder-neck region to fill out naturally.

I did find this link which has a thorough discussion of various techniques, including:

• the carved out mannequin/bust technique you mentioned;
• using heat-formed transparent mannequins which I mentioned;
• using an open wire mesh mannequin which you trim off unnecessary parts of;
• using a hangar and a fan to "inflate" the shirt from below (sounds tricky)

Someone also suggested using a negative form that you tape the back of the shirt to from the outside, such as it's not visible from the camera angle. In any case, it all seems like a lot of work, but would be fun to experiment with.