I wish to get into the Print On Demand game. I understand the people who are just looking to “profit while they sleep” on Merch are using Place-It and Canva. I have talent and I’m wanting to use that capability to make a little coin, and feel I can do better than using other people’s, all be it crappy, clip art.
I’ve been using Inscape for design work but understand that it’s RGB profile does not support printed items.
I CAN NOT afford Adobe, I CAN afford Affinity Designer. Is this a good choice? If so what canvas sizes are recommended? If not, please recommend a budget friendly platform.
Thank you.
Yes, Affinity Designer is a fine choice for what you’ve described.
I have no opinion about print on demand other than that it’s a long shot for making money. There are likely a million people competing in that space.
As for RGB, it’s often fine for printing unless the printer requests CMYK. Yeah, RGB needs to be converted into subtractive color channels before printing, but that’s often done by the printer — especially with digital work where even CMYK is reseparated into the six colors common in digital printing.
You can use inkscape and sign the color profile
Scribus is free, and you import your design here.
And then make the pdf or file format for output.
Inkscape is like illustrator.
Scribus is like InDesign.
Typically you design in illustrator and can output from illustrator. But people like to use a page layout tool to scale a single design to the right size for output.
So you could design a 10x10mm design in inkscape.
Place this into scribus page of 1000x 1000mm and output it. Then you could change this to 200x 200 etc.
Or just use Affinity.
At least it has native support for cmyk.
Understood. What canvas size would you recommend for t-shirts? Are there multiple?
Thank you. I’ve been wanting to pull the trigger on Affinity for a while now, so that’s the route I’m going.
What cavas size are kids t-shirts? What ages?
What body type sizes? xs, s, m, l, xl, xxl, xxxl etc.
For someone looking to launch a business and beat the competition you have a lot to learn.
A simple google search will alert you to the correct sizes.
However, you don’t need to create the artwork in all sizes required.
You just increase it by percentages on output.
Usually around A3 size or even A2 size - and @300 ppi (for wiggle room) if designing raster images.
With raster image start as large as you can - as you can scale down, but scaling up loses quality.
If you’re designing vector images then you can design at A6 size and output to any size you want.
You just output your A6 at 400% to get A2 size.
Resolution is non-existent in pure vector work.
That depends on the size of the artwork and the size of the shirt. The canvas size of the file shouldn’t be the same size as the t-shirt. The canvas size should simply be the size of whatever artwork you determine will fit the spot on which the artwork will be placed.
If it’s vector artwork (which it usually should be for t-shirts), you can scale the artwork to fit as @Smurf2 suggest. Having used online t-shirt printers in the past, the usual routine is to upload the vector file, position it on one of their t-shirt templates, scale it to whatever size you need, and hit the OK button. Whether this is applicable to what you have in mind, I don’t know.
Why don’t you go straight to the horse’s mouth, and phone up the print provider?
You need to pick a marketplace and upload art to THEIR specifications, not ours. If I were just creating the art, I’d go for the largest size output they do, or even larger. You can always make digital art smaller. But not always larger. Especially raster art.
I am using ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR and CORELDRAW GRAPHICS SUITE for this purpose. You may try this.
Good Luck!
About 6 months ago the OP stated they could not afford Adobe.
Coreldraw is also not free. For the professional level software it’s $550 for the 2021 version or $23 per month for the 2022 version
Or $300 for the Standard version.
Standalone Adobe Illustrator is $20.99 per month with nothing else included (no stock)
Affinity Designer is currently on sale for half price. A whopping $26.99 for the full package (it’s usually $54.99.) One time only. No subscription.
Wonder if the OP has made their millions by now…
Canvas size 4500*5400 is standard for POD t-shirt design. Actually I always use Adobe Illustrator. But Affinity is good too!
Can’t say it enough times…
The size of the art is determined by the print provider.
I actually have a t-shirt at home that is 100% coverage of the shirt including the sleeves. Dye sub polyester. Awful to wear but it sure looks pretty.
(oh wait, this is a pre-spam post, isn’t it…)