Starting a T-Shirt Fashion Brand

Go into anyone's closet and you are bound to find a collection of t-shirts. They are the backbone of our wardrobes, and for this reason, thousands of people launch new custom t-shirt businesses every year. While the competition is strong, there is room for your brand in the apparel market if you launch your t-shirt fashion brand properly.

While starting a fashion line appears simple enough, there are well-proven steps to being successful. A new t-shirt business needs to do more than just buy high-quality blank shirts to get started.

Use this guide to cover the basics of getting your t-shirt fashion brand up and running and start seeing the profits roll in.

1. Find an Ideal Customer

The first step before creating and promoting a product is to understand the consumer market. While it's true that all genders and ages of people wear t-shirts, it might prove difficult to make a dent in the apparel industry if your brand is too vague.

Decide on a demographic, otherwise known as a niche, that you want to appeal to.

If you have t-shirt design ideas for women, are they suited best for teenagers, women in mid-life, or seniors? Imagine the type of profession your ideal customer does, what they do for hobbies or fun, what kind of music they listen to, and their overall wardrobe style. Answering these questions creates keywords to search that link your ideal customer and your brand.

Once you've got an idea of what your niche is, you can do market research on your market's buying trends and interests. Choosing a market niche that you personally relate to and understand makes market research easier and motivates your brand. If you're into skateboarding and hip-hop, then create and market t-shirts for the kinds of people who also like those things.

2. Define Your T-Shirt Fashion Brand

Now that you know who you're making clothes for, it's time to settle on a brand. Branding your company is important because it lets the world know who you are and what you stand for. Choosing a logo and a name that suits your ideal customer makes marketing your product a lot easier!

Branding is more than just a name. It includes a color scheme, fonts, logos, and slogans that are routinely used on products, social media, websites, and other marketing.

Consistency is key for smart branding. If your customers know what to expect from your brand, they feel confident about your product.

Before you decide on a brand name, take the time to review the information about your niche. With your ideal customer in mind, brainstorm some brand personality traits. Use these ideas to cement your brand name and voice.

Some example brand traits:

• Affordable
• Trendy
• Corporate
• Serious
• Witty
• Luxury
• Eco-Conscious
• Wild

3. Create Your T-Shirt Fashion Brand Concepts

Okay, you've got your brand figured out and your ideal customer, now it's time to start designing t-shirt concepts to produce. But, what if you don't know where to begin? There are some tried-and-true design strategies to consider that are easily marketed.

Keep It Simple

Sketch out the draft of your design on software or paper. Mockup your design onto a blank t-shirt model or print it out to lay onto a shirt. It's important to know how the design looks on a shirt before you move on to later design stages.

While detailed designs are appealing, some of the highest-selling t-shirts sport a simple image or statement. Don't overcomplicate a design with too many words or too many illustrative elements.

Complementary Color Scheme

In order for your t-shirt to look good, choose the colors with care. Good design programs, like Adobe Illustrator, can screen out the colors that clash. It's not only the design itself that needs complementary colors but the t-shirt must look good with what you've created.

Don't offer base t-shirts colors that make your design look bad. Stick to the color wheel basics such as monochromatic, complementary, and analogous color schemes.

4. Create a Business Plan

A successful business needs a detailed business plan. There are four steps to consider before you start printing your t-shirts. Luckily, there are some great business plan templates available online to help you get this started.

A well-developed business plan needs a strategy, products priced, financial projections, and sales goals. Your strategy includes your niche and brand identity. Pricing your products must include the cost of buying your t-shirts, the cost of time to design them, and the cost of printing, marketing, and shipping them.

Your financial projections should include how many t-shirts you expect to sell with your marketing strategy. Your sales goals should include both an obtainable, small goal and a future, long-term goal for your company.

A smart business plan also examines how to avoid legal issues such as copyright and trademark infringement. Check out this post for more information on copyright laws.

5. Produce and Ship Your T-Shirts

There are many choices when it comes to printing methods for your t-shirt fashion brand. They all have different price commitments and ideal fabrics to use. Depending on the details and colors of your designs, one option will stand out as the best for your brand.

Screen printing is the oldest method of adding designs to fabric. Screen printing works best with simple designs and for large orders.

Dye-sublimation printing works by adding dye to the material. This is a durable way to print your design and one that gives complicated and colorful designs a nice finish.

Direct to Garment printing is best for cotton-only shirts and small orders. The quality of these prints is high and handles detailed designs with ease.

Once your shirts are printed and sold, you'll need to package them to ship. Choosing a good package to ship your t-shirts in is essential for a high-quality brand experience for your customers. The packaging is the first thing your customer touches after they buy your product.

Don't overstuff the packages but adding in a few extra surprise goodies for your customers will leave them feeling appreciated. Some budget-friendly unboxing gifts include stickers, keychains, or postcards.

Launch Your Brand with All Day Shirts

Starting a t-shirt fashion brand is both exciting and profitable. In order to reap the benefits of a marketable fashion brand, it is important to take the time to get your business set up for success. Following these guidelines will ensure you've done your market research before you start investing your time and money into your brand.

For more how-to guides and business strategies for your t-shirt business, check out the All Day Shirt blog.