Just Creative Design

New Just Creative Design Store

Inspired by Von Glitschka’s simply awesome Zazzle store, where I just recently bought his Tickles “Evil Clown” t-shirt, I thought I’d see how opening a store of my own would go. You never know, right?

Though before I did that, I thought I should wait to check out the quality of Zazzle’s products and overall service. I didn’t have to wait long - just 5 days after ordering I received my shirt (and I’m down in Oz). I was also pleasantly surprised at the high quality of their products, especially considering their very competitive pricing.

Anyway, I’ve compiled a few products for you below, though the best thing about Zazzle is that you can customise the product to anything you want - ie. you keep the same graphic and then you can change its sizing, spacing, alignment or even change the product itself to a women’s hoody or mouse pad, among hundreds of other products.

If you want to take a look at my store, click here or click on any of the shirt photos below. All the shirts are on sale from a small $12.95.

Sultan Of Sultans

‘Sultan of Sultans’ means King of Kings and is a mixture of elements relating to this theme. Lion (King of the Jungle), Crown (Symbol of Leadership) and Space (King Of The Universe).

Excelisor Bot

This little robot is created entirely out of the Excelsior typeface. I recently wrote a tutorial for Layers Magazine on how to create your own font monster if you’re interested. There is an angled version (1st pic below) or a straight version (2nd pic below). Remember you can change the t-shirt colour to anything you like! You can also change the sizing, alignment, etc.

Just Creative Design Logo

This one I am really curious about but I thought I’d chuck it in anyway. Judging by some of the emails (one marriage proposal so far), you just never know.

Love Christ, Love Life

Although I am not a Christian, this was a recent piece of work I completed for University for an advertising campaign promoting the life of Jesus (as above). After I shared it on Twitter I had a couple of requests to actually make it into shirts, so I thought why not. Here are a few combinations below:

The below version features a small logo on the back, as well as a larger version of the “Love Life” text on the front.

Comic Sans?

This little character, like the Excelsior Bot, is created entirely out of Comic Sans. The idea is that he is saying “What!? Comic Sans?”.

Below is a version without the text.

Lightning Bolt

This is a minimalist retro t-shirt design of an electric lightning bolt coming down from the skies above.

Love Life

Similar to the other Love Life shirts, but without the cross.

My Zazzle Flash Store

You can scroll through the products using the Flash application below.

If you find anything else in my portfolio you would like made into a product or if you have any requests at all, just let me know and I will put something together for you. Anyway, interested to see how this goes.

If you have your own store, tips or suggestions, please share in the comments below. Thanks!

30 Sweet Handpicked Designer Tshirts

I’ve posted about great designer tshirts twice before on JCD and due the popularity of the posts here is another installment of awesome designer tshirts. All of these shirts come in men and women’s sizes and are on sale from $19 at DesignByHumans by affiliate. Their quality & service is great - in fact, I own already own 8 shirts from them. Read more »

6 Great Tips On How To Prepare Artwork for T-Shirt Printing

Recently I have been posting about sweet t-shirt designs (here & here) so I thought this would be a good time to share this guest article. Blake from YouDesignIt, a t-shirt printing company, will guide us through some tips for preparing artwork for T-Shirt printing.

As many of you probably already know, doing graphic design, and doing graphic design specifically for t-shirt printing can be two totally different beasts. Have you ever worked extremely hard for long hours on a t-shirt design for yourself or a client, only to have the printer tell you that your design won’t work for t-shirt printing? This problem is not that uncommon and I would like to provide you with a few easy tips on how to prepare your artwork for printing on t-shirts.

1. Use PMS Colors in Your Artwork

You may typically do artwork in RGB and CMYK color modes, but to ensure the most accurate colors with a silk screener, definitely use PMS colors in your artwork. This also makes the colour separations a lot easier and more accurate. Here is a link on how to work with Pantone in Illustrator.

On a side note, the printer should not charge you extra for PMS color matching. That is an old fashion way to get more money because you are actually doing them a favour by being more particular for accuracy.

2. Convert All of Your Text to Outlines

Sometimes your artwork may call for a very obscure font or maybe even a custom designed font. When sending your artwork off for print, the last thing you want to to see, is a substituted font in your design. By converting the text to outlines, any computer that opens the artwork will view the text as an image.  Therefore, no substitutions will be made.

To convert text to outlines right click on the text with the selection tool and then click Create Outlines.

3. Create Your Artwork at Actual Size

Do not trust the printer’s judgment without discussing it with them first. I am a printer… so why would I say that? Because the vision you have of the end product can be very different than what the printer has assumed as your vision. The safest way to defend yourself in this situation is to create the artwork in its final size. Don’t know what size you want to use? Slap a ruler to the shirt you are wearing. Sounds simple, but it works.

You can set the artwork size in the Document Setup menu, found under File.

4. Use Vector Artwork As Much As Possible

This is not an argument over raster versus vector, just more of a suggestion to use vector artwork when possible. It makes colour separations easier and the print comes out cleaner in the small details. This is a general rule for the everyday jobs and not an automatic in all situations.

5. Expand Your Strokes

If you have properly set all of your colors to PMS swatches, then the color separations software will have no problem. This is more of a human error that occurs because sometimes strokes are overlooked. I put this tip at #5 because it is one that can save you from a small mistake ruining an otherwise great project.

To expand your strokes select what you want to expand then go to Object > Expand.

6. Set Your Half-Tones with PMS Colors

This one goes along with Tip #1. Sometimes your design and/or budget may call for the use of halftones to save on the amount of colours printed. The best way to do this is to slide the colour scale down to a percentage of the PMS colour. The colour separations software used by the printer should handle the rest.

In the image below, notice in the top right corner, the number 40? Usually that is 100%. Change it to 40% to set a 40% half tone.

These six great tips on how to prepare your t-shirt design for printing should cover the majority of the problems you might face. This kind of preparation should ensure a faster turnaround time and a much more accurate print.

Do you have any more t-shirt printing tips or questions? Share them below.

23 More Truly Awesome Custom Designer T-Shirts

Due to the popularity of the the last post ‘18 truly awesome designer tshirts‘, I present to you my second installment of designer tshirts handpicked from Design By Humans.  All of these shirts come in men and women’s sizes and are on sale from $19 at DesignByHumans by affiliate.

What are your favourites? Mine are the top 5 of this post.

18 Truly Awesome HandPicked Designer TShirts

If you are like me, you love your t-shirts and this is why I have hand picked 18 awesome, cool designer tshirts for your pleasure. All of these shirts come in men and women’s sizes and are on sale from $19 at DesignByHumans by affiliate. Read more »