T-shirts rank among the most popular products to sell online, which means your designs need to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Whether you’re launching your first T-shirt business or refreshing your existing line, focus on designs that are simple, unique, and reflect current trends while staying true to your brand.
Stay open to inspiration from everywhere—the book you’re reading, the nature trail you hiked last weekend, or the latest social media trend. Great design ideas can strike at any moment, so always be ready to capture them.
To get your creative juices flowing, explore our list of 15 T-shirt design ideas. These broad categories can be adapted to fit any artistic style, aesthetic, brand personality, and target market. Make these ideas your own and create T-shirts your customers truly want to wear.
15 T-shirt design ideas
- Retro T-shirts
- Minimalist T-shirts
- Maximalist T-shirts
- Embroidered T-shirts
- Special interest T-shirts
- Animal T-shirts
- Food T-shirts
- Slogan T-shirts
- Humorous T-shirts
- Inspirational T-shirts
- Artistic T-shirts
- Floral and botanical T-shirts
- Streetwear T-shirts
- Social commentary T-shirts
- Logo T-shirts
We’ve likely all seen versions of the classic T-shirt designs—the green “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” tee, the “I Heart NY” tee, and the Rolling Stones lips and tongue logo tee, among them. Those are indeed classics, but the possibilities for T-shirt design ideas are endless. Consider where you might add your own unique perspective in the design categories listed below and create some new classics:
1. Retro T-shirts
Retro-inspired T-shirts have a nostalgic appeal. These designs use fonts, colors, and imagery to evoke a specific era, allowing wearers to express their individuality. A 1970s-inspired design, for example, could use a bubbly, rounded font and warm, earthy colors like mustard yellow and burnt orange. Retro tees often reference the pop culture of their respective eras, creating instant connections with your target audience.
2. Minimalist T-shirts
Minimalist art is sleek and understated. This style uses negative space, clean lines, and limited color, where every detail becomes critically important. Minimalist T-shirt designs can make a big impact with the right font choice, placement, and styling, and may even work as part of a more formal outfit.
3. Maximalist T-shirts
Maximalist T-shirts embrace a bold “more is more” philosophy. They use bright colors, bold patterns, and scattered placements to make a statement. Keep in mind that chaotic doesn’t have to mean cluttered—you still want the design elements to shine through and create visual impact.
4. Embroidered T-shirts
Embroidered T-shirts offer an artisanal appeal customers love. Created by stitching colorful thread onto fabric, these designs have a visible, slightly raised texture that adds premium quality. Embroidery is best suited for small designs, such as a pocket logo, a simple image, a single word, or a brief quote. Larger patterns can create stiff, uncomfortable garments that customers won’t want to wear.
5. Special interest T-shirts
Create T-shirt designs centered on specific hobbies or topics (such as chess, Dungeons & Dragons, or bird watching) or subjects (like Greek mythology, astrology, trains, or paleontology). These designs can have niche appeal with passionate, engaged audiences. For example, a T-shirt design featuring a pair of binoculars and the phrase “On the lookout for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers” could be a big hit in the bird-watching community.
6. Animal T-shirts
Lions, tigers, bears, and axolotls, oh my! Animal designs have broad appeal. Depending on the design style, these tees can be perfect for children or adults. A child might feel drawn to a colorful, cartoon-style design that uses exaggerated details to emphasize cuteness. An artsy, tattoo-inspired T-shirt depicting a snake could appeal to adults. The trendy axolotl—an aquatic salamander—shows how staying connected to current trends can inspire fresh design ideas.
7. Food T-shirts
Food T-shirts can range from cute and playful to sophisticated and artistic. These designs often depict trendy treats or universally popular foods. Pizza and French fries are enduring classics, but sardines and other types of seafood are trending right now.
8. Slogan T-shirts
Slogan tees feature short, memorable phrases. The “I Told Ya” t-shirt featured in the 2024 movie Challengers is an example of a slogan tee. These designs often use highly legible, bold fonts, and short messages work best since they’re easier to read at a glance. Consider creating a limited-edition slogan T-shirt that promotes your brand using Shopify’s free slogan maker.
9. Humorous T-shirts
Humorous T-shirts are fun and relatable. These designs can use text or imagery to spark a laugh. Popular approaches include the use of sarcastic phrases, puns, and silly or surprising imagery. Mona Lisa with a mustache and “I’m with stupid →” are well-known examples of funny T-shirts. Remember to keep your target customer in mind—humor is inherently subjective, so what’s hilarious to one person might fall flat with another.
10. Inspirational T-shirts
Inspirational T-shirts use uplifting colors and motivational sayings to spread positivity. These designs may touch on themes such as wellness, motivation, and comfort. Focus on the inspirational text and keep the design otherwise minimal, or experiment with adding illustrations around the text to amplify the message.
11. Artistic T-shirts
Artistic designs celebrate beauty and creativity above all else. These T-shirts can depict hand-drawn illustrations, painterly images, or striking graphic design. Artistic designs focus on unique visual appeal.
12. Floral and botanical T-shirts
Floral and botanical designs can feel romantic and old-fashioned or clean and modern, depending on your artistic approach. A T-shirt with a single image of a red rose and one covered in rustic, hand-drawn mushrooms both qualify. Floral and botanical designs have broad, timeless appeal that transcends seasonal trends.
13. Streetwear T-shirts
Streetwear is bold and edgy. Streetwear designs often include bright colors, graffiti-inspired fonts, and large brand logos. These tees have a modern appeal. For example, The Legends League founder Bryan Espiritu started his streetwear brand as a way to express himself creatively. “The whole premise behind The Legends League was essentially that everyone’s experiences shape the character that you become. Those are your legends,” he says on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. “Everything that influences and inspires you both positively and negatively will make you the person that you are today. It sounds tacky, but that was the thinking.”
14. Social commentary T-shirts
Social commentary T-shirts use images or text to address cultural issues and spark conversations. They may touch on subjects like politics, the environment, or current events. Social commentary tees appeal to consumers who share your beliefs and want to make their beliefs visible. Consider how involved you want your business and brand to be in potentially controversial topics before designing your social commentary T-shirts.
15. Logo T-shirts
Logo T-shirts can be a win-win-win for small businesses. If you’ve designed a cool, memorable logo for your business, putting it on a tee can yield multiple benefits. In addition to creating a potentially popular T-shirt design, using your business’s logo guarantees that the tee will be unique. Logo tees also work as powerful marketing tools and help build an engaged audience around your brand. Experiment with creative placements of your logo to create multiple logo tee styles.
Sources of inspiration for T-shirt design ideas
The design creation process begins with a great idea. Look to these sources to spark inspiration and find your next winning T-shirt design:
Pinterest functions like a visual search engine, packed with T-shirt design ideas and images in every style imaginable. Try searching for terms like “graphic T-shirt design” or “vintage-inspired T-shirt design” to see what other designers are creating. Or search for terms like “moody art” or “dark academia” (a brooding intellectualism aesthetic that gained popularity via TikTok) to build an inspirational mood board. Pinterest will learn about your taste when you interact with the platform. Over time, the platform will start to automatically suggest images inspired by your search and save history.
Nature
Step into the great outdoors to discover the local flora and fauna. Beautiful landscapes have inspired artists for centuries, since nature overflows with colors, textures, and sounds that can spark ideas. Exploring a park is a great way to find ideas for floral and botanical designs, but nature’s inspirational power extends far beyond natural imagery. For example, while one designer might notice some vines draping in a particularly enchanting way and decide to create a t-shirt covered in tangled ivy, another could see a wildflower in a shade of soft blue that reminds them of a beloved cartoon and feel inspired to design a T-shirt referencing their favorite character.
Old magazines
Pick up some old magazines and flip through the pages for unexpected inspiration. Magazines include photography, typography, and graphic design—all elements that can inspire T-shirt designs. Consider looking for niche publications related to your interests and target audience. A fashion fan might find inspiration in the pages of Vogue, while automobile enthusiasts may prefer Car magazine. Old magazines are excellent sources for finding authentic vintage fonts and researching color palettes. Don’t skip the advertisements—ad design perfectly captures trends and consumer tastes from different eras.
Museums
Visit a local museum to draw inspiration from other artists. Museum visits don’t always mean appreciating wall after wall of classical paintings. Plenty of niche museums are dedicated to everything from the history of Spam (in Minnesota) to the cultural significance of potatoes (in Idaho). Research galleries and exhibitions near you to find something that sparks excitement. If you can’t find anything nearby, consider checking out museum websites; many major establishments publish photos of their collection online.
Pop culture
Trends, memes, and current events can all serve as powerful sources of inspiration. Pop culture-inspired T-shirts may include popular sayings or reference cultural icons, or depict a trendy item. For example, a designer who enjoys wellness could notice the increased popularity of functional mushrooms and decide to make a slogan T-shirt that reads “Powered by Ashwagandha” or create a graphic tee featuring a pattern of scattered and overlapping mushrooms. Designs that comment on current events or trends are well-suited to limited runs, since these designs may lose relevance as trends evolve. If you’re referencing an artistic work in your design, make sure you thoroughly review US copyright laws.
Social media
Perusing social media is an effective way to stay abreast of trends and find design inspiration. Visual platforms like Instagram and TikTok showcase artists displaying their work and influencers with niche followings. Try searching for terms like “illustration” or “fashion design” to see what other creators are making. Searching for more specific terms like “book-tok” (a literature-focused TikTok community) helps you learn more about specific consumer segments and their preferences. Follow artists and creators that align with your aesthetic to discover more about their tastes and techniques.
T-shirt design ideas FAQ
Do I need to copyright my T-shirt design?
Copyrighting your designs helps establish proof of ownership and protects your intellectual property. Designers can file for copyright with the US Copyright Office. Application fees for online filings range from $45 to $65, depending on the license type. Commercial use applications are more expensive.
Is T-shirt design profitable?
T-shirt design can be highly profitable, but the custom apparel market is competitive. Success often starts with compelling designs, followed by a solid marketing strategy and a reliable production and fulfillment operation. Profit margins vary depending on your business model. For example, print-on-demand offers lower start-up costs but less profit per sale, while traditional bulk production requires a large initial fee but results in more money from each sale.
How do you find free images for T-shirts?
Look for free designs on royalty-free image search engines like OpenClipArt.com and Pixabay. Be sure to verify the image details before you create your design—some images are free for use but require attribution. If you plan to sell T-shirts, the images you use must have a commercial license.
