With the abundance of t-shirt design sites such as Threadless and Design By Humans, it’s easy to trendspot themes that are popular. Each site and its community has their own taste and it makes gaming the vote a lot easier. Here is a list of our top 5 design trends that are sure to give you a few extra votes in t-shirt competitions:
Skulls
T-Shirts with skull designs are arguably the most popular theme on the internet and in retail. Something about death just gets designers and t-shirt lovers united.
Trees
Trees are one of the most symbolic pieces of design and probably the reason for their popularity. They can equate to life, growth, green living, reunion, and much more.
Birds
Birds definitely win the versatility award for having the ability to range from cute to scary and from large to small. They can be the focal point and make the whole design or just be an accessory and play a small part in the big picture.
Splatter
Splatter is a pretty simple effect that can be useful for the majority of t-shirt design concepts. There are many resources on the internet for photoshop brushes and vectored image packs with splatter to add to a t-shirt designer’s toolbox.
Floral
Floral artwork is another wildy popular component of t-shirt design because of its all-purpose usability. It usually sits in the background and can act as polish for the featured portion of the artwork.
As with anything else, what is hot today can be cold tomorrow but these 5 design elements and concepts have been in high demand for some time now. Our guess is that with the increasing amount of platforms for t-shirt design, these design elements will reach saturation at a faster rate than ever before.
Hopefully these designs are inspiring, because custom t-shirts can be a great and fun form of promotion, whether it’s for a business, band, freelancer, etc. Aside from that, they’re awesome to come up with just for the sake of creativity and design.
Author of this post: youdesignit
Blake Poutra works for a company called You Design It where you can design t-shirts and maintains a t-shirt design blog. See all posts by: youdesignit
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I’m all good on the birds stuff – I know Atticus did it to death but i think it’s still pretty relevant. Sure birds and tree should be in the top end – still going strong. Don’t forget ’sheep’ are way behind what most of you guys are thinking.
Interesting article! Splatter was a big trend in web design for a while, so it’s interesting to see an example of it on a t-shirt.
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Does anyone know where I can get the shirt on the bottom of this blog post in the center? Red ink, tan shirt.. looks like a lion’s head incorporated into the design.
interesting post, i would never have put birds and trees in the top 5 t-shirt designs category! There are some really nice abstract and creative designs on here
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Im pretty sure i’ve used all of these elements in a few of my designs…
It will be interesting to see what’s next.
I like what you can do with skulls. I dont want to say they are overused but I’d like to see something else. The birds seem to be my favorite.Great post. These design trends do seem like mainstays. I live in Japan so I wonder which of these trends apply here and what trends are different on this side of the ocean.
i’m pretty sure i’ve used all of these elements in a few of my designs…
It will be interesting to see what’s next.
I like what you can do with skulls. I dont want to say they are overused but I’d like to see something else. The birds seem to be my favorite.
Interesting designs! Great post.
Great post. These design trends do seem like mainstays. I live in Japan so I wonder which of these trends apply here and what trends are different on this side of the ocean.
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T-shirts are the sluts of the fashion industry – they put out for anyone.
Great post, keep up the good work
Dont know where you got your list, but no offense – you are a little off – Skull design was ( if you want to talk about trends ) 4yrs ago – now its dead, over, only Ed Hardy and Affliction shit are still making some. So not a trend anymore.. For the rest well, i dont know if you can say trend when you can find it at Urban Outfitter!? You didnt talk about the Eye trend or The hats and Mustaches trend… Anyways – everyone got his own vision i guess…
So check this, my “skull and tree” t-shirt (http://farennikov.com – bottom row in the middle) combines both trend 1 and 2. Pretty cool, huh?
LOL skulls are old as Moses. I used to have a t-shirt line, and my first t-shirt was a skull t-shirt — but that was 3 years ago, after it was hot for a couple years already… Now this is OLD SCHOOL ))
wow! i love the designs.
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Very nice list! I´d also like to add typography! There are tons of site that feature tees with big type, quotes, puns etc. All set in some sexy typeface ;)
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Some nice designs there.
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the creator help me, i have totally overdosed on all of that, especially the %*^@ skulls!
@ Tim
Ha! Good response. There is nothing wrong with that at all. Being trendy brings in the revenue!
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I’m proud to say my site is guilty of ALL of these things! hahahaha
Nice guest post Blake, I love shirt designs.
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Thanks for your post :)
Great post, it’s very useful for me !
Thanks you very much.
Keep up !
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These designs are used a lot but they also make for some really interesting designs!
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Cool stuff man. You are dead on about these trends. I see them EVERYWHERE! Keep up the good work.
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Nice list – i’ve seen lots of grungy text tee’s around too
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